I've recently made a new friend whose father is a pastor. He happens to preach at a church fairly close to where I live, so I told her "let me know when he's doing a good sermon and I'll show up." My intent was for her to tell me when he was preaching on a subject that he himself was fairly passionate about, but it seems as though the shoe is now on the other foot.

He's told me to pick a topic and he'll do a sermon on it.

My question to you all is multi-fold:

What topic would YOU request? Why?
What topic would you like to learn more about/what confuses you about the Bible?
What are some more obscure/lesser-known facets of Biblical study that you find interesting that the average Christian might not know about?

I'm not looking to try some form of one-upmanship, but I am looking to take this unique opportunity to learn about something more advanced than the average sermon might provide.

Posted this in the Christian Fellowship, but I also want to post it here because I know I'll get a very different quality of response, as well as a different point of view. Believers and non-believers both welcome to contribute, but I'm not interested in edgy atheist posts.

What obligation do you have to donate

One thing I've had issue with with local churches is that they're always focusing on negatives.
Professing to be a religion of love but you can't find the time to give a sermon that doesn't involve hatred, death and damnation

Get something positive. If you want something really interesting, ask him to interpret ezekiel's vision of YHWH in the desert

To donate what? A topic, or money? Neither, on both counts, although I think this is an olive branch from him as well as an opportunity to meet me. They're primarily an old-school Baptist family, so I think he wants to size me up since I've become his daughter's friend (and his son's friend, to a lesser extent). I offered to teach his daughter how to play piano.

I think this is a pretty unique opportunity though, so I'd like to get a few opinions thrown out there as to topics so I can make the most of it.

I mean as a sermon topic, what obligation do people have to donate

What denomination

Oh, on tithing?



Baptist.

$$$

I would request a sermon on the importance of using an anthropological/sociological lens when reading the Bible, as opposed to reading the Bible as a face-value historical text.

When I studied, I used the New Oxford Annotated Bible and it put many things into a broader perspective.

The importance of saints or lackthereof. Saints are a fun topic.