Mohler on Today's Preaching Trends

Interesting thoughts from Mohler. I think I share his perspective. Two statements from his section on "An Evacuation of Biblical Content" stand out:

In far too many cases, it seems that the text becomes a point of departure for some message--no doubt well intended--which the pastor wishes to share with the congregation. Beyond this, the text of Scripture is often evacuated of biblical content when, regardless of a passage's textual form or context, the content is uniformly presented as a set of pithy "points" that come together in a staple outline form.
. . .
Another problem that leads to an evacuation of biblical content is a loss of the "big picture" of Scripture. Far too many preachers give inadequate attention to the canonical context of the passage to be preached and of its place in the overarching story of God's purpose to glorify Himself through the redemption of sinners. Taken out of context, and without clear attention to biblical theology, preaching becomes a series of disconnected talks on disconnected texts.

I have no way of knowing whether Mohler would agree, but I'll add a disturbing trend of my own. Too much preaching today seems to preach only half the duty of man. We focus on explaining God's commandments and motivating people to keep them, but we never explain the foundation—why and how they should fear God.

For two good examples of what I'm pleading for, check out Will Galkin's sermons this week at Maranatha and Dave Doran's lengthy series on God's character.