{"id":4430,"date":"2014-12-18T11:36:11","date_gmt":"2014-12-18T15:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=4430"},"modified":"2014-12-18T11:36:11","modified_gmt":"2014-12-18T15:36:11","slug":"dante-on-preaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/?p=4430","title":{"rendered":"Dante on Preaching"},"content":{"rendered":"

In The Divine Comedy,<\/em> Dante gives scathing rebukes to the corrupt church leaders of his day. In many ways he seems to foreshadow Luther.\u00a0 In the following excerpt from Paradise<\/em> Dante\u2019s critique of preaching which relies on man-made ideas rather than the Word of God is relevant to us today.<\/p>\n

You mortals do not keep to one true path
\nphilosophizing: so carried away
\nyou are by putting on a show of wits!<\/p>\n

Yet even this provokes the wrath of Heaven
\nfar less than when the Holy Word of God
\nis set aside or misconstrued by you.<\/p>\n

Men do not care what blood it cost to sow
\nthe Word throughout the land, nor how pleasing
\nhe is who humbly takes Scripture to heart.<\/p>\n

To make a good impression they contrive
\ntheir own unfounded truths which then are furbished
\nby preachers\u2014of the Gospel not a word!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dante then mentions man made ideas which were proclaimed as truth as an example of the \u201cfables\u201d which \u201care shouted right and left, pouring from pulpits.\u201d He then describes the result of this sort of fable-laden preaching.<\/p>\n

So the poor sheep, who know no better, come
\nfrom pasture fed on air\u2014 the fact that they
\nare ignorant does not excuse their guilt.<\/p>\n

Christ did not say to his first company:
\n\u2019Go forth and preach garbage unto the world, \u2019
\nbut gave them, rather, truth to build upon.<\/p>\n

With only His word sounding on their lips
\nthey went to war to keep the faith aflame;
\nthe Gospel was their only sword and shield.<\/p>\n

Now men go forth to preach wisecracks and jokes,
\nand just so long as they can get a laugh
\nto puff their cowls with pride\u2014 that\u2019s all they want;[1]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As much as things change, they stay the same. We ought to heed this warning today. Let us not preach the “garbage” of mere human reasoning but instead preach the clear Word of God that the sheep might be properly fed, aiming at the glory of God and the edification of his people, not our own exaltation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1] Dante Alighieri (2003-07-29). The Portable Dante (Penguin Classics)<\/a> (pp. 560-561). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In The Divine Comedy, Dante gives scathing rebukes to the corrupt church leaders of his day. In many ways he seems to foreshadow Luther.\u00a0 In the following excerpt from Paradise Dante\u2019s critique of preaching which relies on man-made ideas rather than the Word of God is relevant to us today. You mortals do not keep …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Dante on Preaching’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[326,51],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4430"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4431,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4430\/revisions\/4431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayvanneste.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}