One thing that will quickly turn me off to a preacher is if I hear him using facts or information in an imprecise or incorrect manner. I knew one such preacher a few years ago. Just about every sermon contained questionable factual data. In one instance he was talking about a new Muslim place of worship in the city, explaining how it was paid for by oil money from tycoons in the Middle East. Evidently some of the people had had enough. Someone called out that it was a Shriner’s club, not a Muslim mosque. He had a hard time regaining his balance after that correction.

If you are going to claim something in a sermon, be sure it is true.

Dan, one of the Pyro guys, has written about the use of Greek and Hebrew in a sermon. His post applies to any facts used while preaching. He says well why we should not say what we do not know:

Suppose I choose to draw an illustration from the field of biology, or anatomy, or a physical science, or an historical event. Suppose, further, someone in my audience happens to be well-studied in that field. And suppose he instantly recognizes that I’m full of beans, that I pulled out some old chestnut that every well-studied ____ist/ian/ologist immediately knows to be an urban myth, or a common but long-since-exploded misconception.

What will he think of my faithfulness? of the seriousness of my intent? of the thoroughness with which I research what I am about to hold out for people’s trust and acceptance?

He’ll instantly know I’m willing to say things of which I haven’t taken the time to make sure.

And he’ll wonder — he’ll have good reason to wonder — how thoroughly I have researched and thought through the other claims I’m making. He’ll have good reason to think, “Okay, I know anatomy, and I know that what he just said is simply beans. But I don’t know Greek, or theology, or much about the Bible. How do I know whether he knows what he’s talking about on those subjects, or whether he’s just as sloppy about them as he was about this?”