It's been awhile since I wrote a post about preaching, I've only published three so far, and I fully intend to keep doing this until I have at least ten.

Today I want to give you the fourth of my preaching rules:

Avoid talking about things that are of no value to anyone.

Preachers have a tendency to fall into ruts, and one of the deepest and most common ruts is what the old timers used to call riding hobby horses

Every preacher has a favorite subject, and often, that favorite subject gets more and more obscure as they age. There probably isn't a surer way to ensure that nearly everyone in the room checks out and starts daydreaming then talking about your obscure obsession again.

Some varieties of hobby horses I've encountered are:

• The bibliology horse - where a preacher talks all the time about the King James (whether for or against).
• The calvinism/anti-calvinism horse - where a a preacher gives considerable time to talking about what is right or wrong about calvinism/reformed theology.
• The finer points of eschatology horse - where a preacher talks about the end times all the time, getting into detail about signs and seasons, pre vs mid vs post tribulation rapture, dispensationalism, etc..
• The finer points of ecclesiology horse - where a preacher talks about the nature of the church (local/universal) or why his specific denomination is superior.
• The world is going to pot horse - where a preacher talks constantly about what is wrong with the world.
• The hagiography horse - where the preachers spends time talking about how their preaching hero is/was the best.
• The specific standard horse - where a preacher talks about a specific standard (like female dresses) all the time.
• The politics horse (probably the most common type) - where the preacher breaks from his sermon to talk about how current events proves the party he is opposed to is bad and his candidates are good.

Please note that I'm not saying that any of these things aren't true or even that there isn't an appropriate time to talk about them - only that there comes a point when it moves from practical doctrinal/practical lesson to odd pastoral obsession. When this happens, usually the preacher is the last to notice.

Just as the scribes of Jesus day spent much of their time discussing how many angels could dance on a head of a needle, preachers in our day have a tendency to ride their useless hobby horse until everyone stops listening to them. You may think that when you stop your sermon to veer yet again into the weeds of {insert thing here} that you are being fascinating but what you are really doing is facilitating sleep, or at least daydreaming.

Do you know that in Paul's pastoral letters to both Timothy[1] and Titus[2], he instructs these preachers to avoid foolish questions. Why? because they are unprofitable and vain. This rule then isn't just my rule. It's one of the key teachings for preachers given in the Bible.

My wife doesn't repeatedly ask me if I have my keys and wallet on the way out the door because she is a nag, but because she knows that I am the kind of person who is prone to forget them and because having one’s keys and wallet is important. In much the same way, Paul didn't remind two different preachers to avoid foolish questions because it was his pet peeve - but because we preachers are prone to get into foolish questions and bore our people to tears.

Do the people you are preaching to need to hear Bible preaching? Is there a valuable lesson in there for them? Is there truth in that passage that they need to live their life?

If your answer is "no" - then what are you doing? Go fishing on Sunday. Take up golf. Give people a break. But if you truly believe that all scripture is needed that the man of God may be...throughly furnished unto all good works then you better not be guilty of making the Bible boring for people.

When you ride your hobby horse over and over again, what are you really saying?

• You are saying that you find the Bible boring.
• You are saying that your particular obsession is more important than the scripture's clear teaching.
• Maybe you are saying that you are just undisciplined and unprepared.

Regardless of what you are saying, it's not what people need to hear - they need the Bible.

In conclusion, I came across this quote recently:

"Doctrines must be preached practically, and duties doctrinally."[3]

I'm of the opinion that sound doctrine is incredibly important but just because a doctrine is sound, doesn't mean that it can't be used impractically. Few people doubt the awesomeness of pizza, but it's impractical to eat pizza 3 times a day. Your thing might be awesome, but if you feed it to people every week, they'll start hating it and clamor for something different.

So preach the word. Let the word direct your message. Avoid foolish questions and leave the hobby horse in the toy box where it belongs.

Foot Notes

• 1: 2 Timothy 2:23
• 2: Titus 3:9
• 3: The quote is found in "Biblical Preaching" by Haddon W. Robinson and attributed there to "our protestant forbears."