It's NOT About Us

Luke 1 is not ultimately about marriage stress. We need to be on guard against inserting ourselves and our needs into the center of every passage. Luke 1 is ultimately about one of the most significant events ever - the announcement of the arrival of the Messiah. It’s a pivotal moment in all of history. We risk trivializing the passage when we make it a how-to sermon on dealing with marriage stress.

HT Theocentric Preaching

I struggle with this all the time as a pastor.

You know that people need to listen to the Word and apply its precepts and principles to their lives. You are intimately connected with them, especially as a small church pastor. You know what they are going through more than most.

And at times the tendency is to take Biblical texts with transcendent meaning, and hang "practical application" on them. For example, I could turn John 1:1-14, which I'm taking up this week, as a sermon on relationships based on Jesus' relationship with the Father, and his move to earth to be in our neighborhood and how he didn't let that distance affect their relationship. So (the application goes) we must do everything we can to maintain our relationships.

Barf.

Don't do that.