unasked questions

This is "off the cuff"; hopefully better than nothing. Most
preachers answer questions that are not being asked. And so
our mental wards are full of people who never understood the
relevance of what was being taught. Unfortunately, I believe,
the preachers didn't understand. A couple of years ago a
pastor friend of mine, in a conversation, said, "Boy, you
really take this stuff seriously, don't you!" As I've indicated
before, I'm certainly glad I'm not as ignorant as I was 30 or
40 years ago as a relatively young pastor. I've learned that
understanding life usually takes a lot of time and experience.
Either our theology professors didn't understand the implications
of what they were teaching or they assumed we did. I'm inclined
to think it was more than a little of both. A PhD, or an MDiv,
having mastered all the answers, isn't guaranteed he has a real
clue as to the questions or their meaning. Only life, struggle,
suffering and serious existential searching can provide the questions.