Thursday, September 4, 2008

A Biblical Sermon Length


Hebrews is probably the only instance in the Bible of a sermon delivered to Christians. All the sermons in Acts are delivered to unbelievers or a mixture. But here we have a sermon because it is called a ‘word of exhortation’ which is identical to what the synagogue leaders asked Paul to deliver after the text had been read in the synagogue. He calls it a brief word – takes about 50 minutes to read this book out loud – so a 50-minute sermon is brief by 1st century standards. That may be why we’re returning to those in so many fruitful, Biblical churches today instead of these silly, little things.


-John Piper [excerpt from his T4G sermon]

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