Preaching

The Manner of Preaching to Today’s “Whatever” Listeners

^{Note: Part 1 in this series surveyed the mindset of today’s listeners as well as the pitfalls to avoid when communicating to them. Part 2 addresses the specific means by which to engage this mindset and to avoid the aforementioned dangers.}

Whatever. Our culture today uses this word frequently. Its breadth of meaning within its pronominal usage spans from meaning anything or everything (“Take whatever you want.”) to a statement of surprise (“Whatever made you think that?”). The word’s adjectival meaning is similar as well (“He ate whatever food he could find.”). Perhaps the semantic range of whatever shines most brightly, however, in its use as an interjection.

In chapter one of John Goetsch’s [1] book, Homiletics from the Heart, he wrote,

^{Originally published at SI on March 1, 2006}