Sometimes the foolishness and offense of this message comes about because of familiarity and frequency. Reminding suggests repetition, and many preachers are afraid of repetition. In fact, it seems that many contemporary preachers shy away from the role of reminder because of the fear of repetition in the pulpit.
As I listen to some preachers today, I get the impression that they feel like they have to come up with something new every week that no one else has ever come up with before. And the aversion to repetition on the part of many listeners as well as their expectations of “new materia” doesn’t help. The spirit of the Epicureans and Stoics has found its way into the pulpit and the pew, “for all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing” (Acts 17:21).
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This fear of repetition combined with an affinity for "fresh stuff" impacts preaching adversely in a number of areas. For example, it sometimes causes preachers to maximize secondary application and minimize the primary intent of certain passages. In the Gospel of John, for instance, the writer is very clear that his purpose in recording the events in the narrative was so “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31).
Even though every passage in this Gospel is not necessarily directly addressed to unbelievers, the preacher is responsible for approaching — and preaching — every passage with this understanding. The fear of repeating the same thing over and over again forces many preachers to resort to secondary application of various passages without ever even acknowledging the overarching evangelistic intent in relation to the larger purpose of the Gospel.
Another example of maximizing secondary application and minimizing primary intent is the failure to follow the purpose of various miracle passages in the Gospels. A large number of those events were intended to validate the deity of Jesus. Consider Mark 4:35-41, for instance, where Jesus calms the sea. Close consideration of the text reveals that such a supernatural feat could be accomplished only by God Himself. The physical quieting of creation is something only God can do! But an aversion to repeating the proof of Jesus’ deity in the Gospel forces many preachers to allegorize the passage and talk about the "storms of life." The fear of repetition leads us to promote a hermenuetical paradigm that we would otherwise shun!
The fact of the matter is that the Gospels (and the gospel!) are text-books in repetition. They are called the “Gospels” for a reason — because they primarily are about the good news of the crucified Christ, not about the daily plight of mankind. And for some reason God determined that we needed four of them! Maybe it’s because He knew that repetition is the pathway to learning!