George,
I am probably among the least qualified to comment -- but that may be
"good".
This past Sunday, one of the pastors at our church was speaking in a
continuing series about the family. He spoke about two families -- Adam
& Eve and Noah. The contrast was one of one family who disobeyed God and
one who obeyed God. While listening to his sermon (30 minutes) I
wondered if he thought that these were "real, historical" people or a
Parable of sorts. My perception was that he thought that they actually
were historical figures; but it was possible that he believed otherwise.
Either way, the sermon delivered a message that was not dependent upon
either point of view. I think that was a good way to present things so
that the Spiritual message was not lost
I suspect that you might do likewise in a "mixed" audience".
Either way: If you do your best, George I'm certain that your faith in
the Lord will come through and that the congregation will be spiritually
uplifted.
Sincerely,
Walt
george murphy wrote:
>
> This coming weekend (of Trinity Sunday) I'll be preaching 3
> times & the first lectionary reading is Gen. 1:2-4a. It got me thinking
> - there's a lot of discussion here about how to understand Gen.1,
> evidence for it, &c &c &c. But how would people who take these various
> approaches _preach_ on it? How would you proclaim the gospel with this
> as your primary text in 10-12 minutes to a fairly broad audience of
> mostly church-going people but with some who might be quite unfamiliar
> with the Bible? Or for those not called to preaching - what kind of
> sermon of that length would be most helpful for the average congregation
> you're familiar with?
> This is really a pretty basic question. Various interpretations
> of Gen.1 may look good on paper but if they "won't preach" then they're
> probably not worth much.
> The Gospel reading for Trinity Sunday is Mt.28:16-20.
>
> Shalom,
>
> George
>
> George L. Murphy
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
> "The Science-Theology Interface"
-- =================================== Walt Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>In any consistent theory, there must exist true but not provable statements. (Godel's Theorem)
You can only find the truth with logic If you have already found the truth without it. (G.K. Chesterton) ===================================
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