Doctrinal Preaching

If you’re on the operating table, you don’t want your surgeon to say to a nurse, “Hand me one of them sharp thingamajigs.” You want him to have a specific name for a specific tool to perform a specific job.

Words matter. The medical field has distinctive terminology by which it carefully defines diseases, medicines, instruments, and the like. When it comes to our bodies, we have very high expectations of our doctors. They better know what they’re talking about.

We should expect no less—indeed, far more—when it comes to pastors, priests, and teachers of the Word of God. They handle the word of truth. They minister to body, soul, and mind. They better know what they’re talking about. We don’t want to hear from them, “Now that divine power is doing some religious stuff in you.” Precision in language is necessary. We want God’s Word unapologetically, lovingly, and carefully proclaimed to us.

J. Dudley Woodberry, senior professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, said, “More Muslims have become Christians in the last 35 years than in all previous centuries since the foundation of Islam. But they do not have a Christian background to support their newfound faith. Many of these converts have come to faith through such means as satellite TV or the Bible passed along via cell phones. So, a greater depth of understanding (of doctrine) is needed.”

Americans are worse at The Price Is Right than they used to be. On the game show, which has been running since 1972, four contestants are asked to guess the price of consumer products, like washing machines, microwaves, or jumbo packs of paper towels. The person who gets closest to the actual price, without going over, gets to keep playing and the chance to win prizes like a new car. In the 1970s, the typical guess was about 8% below the actual price. These days, people underestimate the price by more than 20%.

This finding comes from research released in 2019 by Jonathan Hartley, at Harvard University. A longtime fan of the show, Hartley was inspired to conduct his research after reading a paper that reveals contestants don’t use optimal bidding strategies. Hartley wondered what else the data might show. He found that the accuracy of people’s guesses sharply decreased from the 1970s to the 2000s, and then stabilized in the 2010s.

So, what accounts for guesses getting so much worse? Hartley thinks there are three economic factors that are the most likely culprits:

First, inflation in the US was much higher in the 1970s and 80s. When inflation is high and variable, people become more attentive to prices, noticing they are paying more for goods than before.

Second, the rise of e-commerce may have made people less sensitive to price. As a result, people may feel less of a need to do price comparisons.

Third, there are more products than ever. There are 50 times as many products at a grocery store than 80 years ago. This also might make it harder for The Price Is Right contestants, along with the rest of us, to know how much stuff costs.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Are believers getting worse at recognizing sound doctrine and genuine Bible teachers and churches? If so, it is because they are paying less attention to the study of biblical doctrine, are less aware of doctrinal issues, and are confused by the hundreds of varieties of churches, denominations, and even cults.

As the church today gets more and more hip--more and more need-oriented, responding to the buttons that people push in their pews--I find myself longing for more of a historical faith. I find myself not wanting to have everything explained to me in simple terms.

I'm not even sure I want all my needs met as much as I want to meet God, and sometimes I wonder if he's really interested in the noise of our contemporary clamoring. Like my dog who can't seem to get anywhere because he keeps having to stop and scratch his fleas, I wonder if we are so busy scratching where everybody itches that we aren't taking anybody anywhere significant.