I am reading William Willimon’s Conversations with Barth on Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2006), and found this quotation of Barth very provocative: “Against boredom the only defense is again being biblical. If a sermon is biblical, it will not be boring.” Barth speaks of our need to be repeatedly corrected by Scripture in our sermon preparation, to listen carefully to the rhythms and contours of the text and then consign ourselves to say nothing but what the text says. Our best thoughts, our best insights are unworthy of the pulpit – we must lean wholly upon what God has revealed….

“Theology is a peculiarly beautiful discipline. Indeed, at this point we may refer to the fact that if its task is correctly seen and grasped, theology as a whole, in its parts and in their interconnection, in its content and method, is, apart from anything else, a peculiarly beautiful science. Indeed, we can confidently say that it is the most beautiful of all the sciences. To find the sciences distasteful is the mark of the Philistine. It is an extreme form of Philistinism to find, or to be able to find, theology distasteful. The theologian who has no joy in…

I appreciated these words G.W. Bromiley (Creative Minds in Contemporary Theology, ed. by Hughes, Eerdmans, 1966, pp. 58-9) on assessing Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. After enumerating a number of the strengths and a number of the weaknesses in Barth’s theology, Bromiley concludes: “It is possible, however, to bring out certain more general features of Barth’s Dogmatics which are commendable and exemplary even though they may be applied here in a bad cause. There is, for instance, his steadfast refusal to allow an intellectual or academic abstraction of theology and his determination to relate it strongly and positively to the whole…