Xanga

  • Why listen to bad preaching and read bad blogs?

    In response to a comment made regarding the state of preaching on my post What do you want to hear? I wrote:

    Yeah, as far as I’m concerned you can probably just scrap about 99% of all preachers and listen to Piper, unfortunately he doesn’t broadcast on radio (he used to in some places). (You could burn his messages onto CDs.) That’s exactly what Piper preaches, but I know you already know that.

    I think it’d probably be better to put on some good worship music rather than listen to a bad sermon, other than it might help to sharpen you doctrinally. I think it helps to hear bad preaching at times, as well as read bad blogs at times, b/c then we’re forced to ask ourselves things like:

    What’s missing here?
    Why is this bothering me?
    Why does it seem empty?
    What is the Biblical teaching?
    What Bible passages address this issue?
    and so on…

    (As much as I find X/R frustrating, that’s one thing I’ve found beneficial about it.) Bad preaching also helps us to see the “ruins” even more out there and leads us to pray more. It may also provide blogging fodder. We can’t live on bad sermons. I know I can’t. There are plenty of churches around here, but I’d say maybe 3 of them have good preaching (we visited quite a few), and we are blessed to be at one of them.

    * * *

    Do you ever purposefully listen to bad preaching or read bad blogs?
    How have you been affected if you’ve done so?
    What has God taught you through doing so?