Yet another reason...

If you read this blog regularly, you know I'm a stickler for sound hermeneutics. [If you'd like to catch up, click here, here, here and here.]

Of the great many reasons why sound hermeneutics are so important, let me add another. I recently had a conversation with a friend who felt personally targeted by a sermon. I don't know enough of the situation to say whether I think this opinion is true or not, but for the moment that's not the point. Let me explain...

The sermon in question was taken from Luke, specifically the story of the sending of the 72 disciples. [Click here for the text of Luke 10.] Rather than focusing on the more obvious parts of the text, this particular sermon came to "for the worker deserves his pay" and camped out. The context is so obvious that I probably don't even need to tell you that "the worker" in this text is the travelling Christian preacher and that the implication is vocational Christian workers deserve to be paid fairly and reasonably.

But apparently that's not what the sermon focused on. I'm told that this particular preacher made the text into some kind of "our Christian tradesman should not be taken advantage of" mantra. While that premise may well be true, the text says nothing of the sort. The point of the story - the reason Luke was inspired to include it in the canon of Scripture - has everything to do with these 72 disciples.

'Not a big deal', you might argue. And you'd have a point. It's not much of a stretch to make the text of Luke 10 address ethical principals of dealing with Christian tradesman within your particular local assembly. The trouble in this case was the implications that were being perceived - whether intended or not.

When we stray from accurate exposition of the Scriptures, we sometimes unintentionally open up Pandora's box. We open ourselves to accusations of heresy, inaccuracy, bully preaching, rambling, unpreparedness, having and agenda, etc...

My heart goes out to my friend who felt attacked by this sermon. The point is not so much whether that feeling was intended by the preacher or not. The point is that sound hermeneutics would have avoided the situation altogether.

Hatushili