Smarty Preachers

I am a team member for Presbyterian Bloggers. I made a post today that is something I stole from Lark. We preachers (me foremost among them) tend to use the pulpit (quite by accident of course) to show off how smart we think we are. You'll like this:

SAN BERNARDINO — Pastor John Rainey's sermons have become virtually unintelligible as he constantly references Greek and Hebrew definitions, say parishioners at Oak Creek Presbyterian. On a recent Sunday, only 20 percent of Rainey's sermon was in English.

"We were scratching our heads the whole time," says one member. "I thought I understood the passage before, but when he got done explaining it, I was lost."

During the sermon, Rainey read a passage from Obadiah and said, "The word used for 'provision' is the Greek 'kupkos', or 'chabed' in the Hebrew, meaning 'oikenatilus' or literally 'havet am rabed alshallai.' The original tells us, 'Kepkus oikenate dunamis rikesa,' a fascinating word construction, meaning not just once but continually, or, 'Akinitus kre dormitaron,' which corresponds to, 'Shevet ahim gamyahad.' If I may put it this way, 'Gelli toheron basmat evit yarna, khom harde dir shalom ette ramen novar chemyon.' Amen?" (Read More)