I heard of a study a few years ago which took a survey of what books were being preached on during an average Sunday in churches. What was found was a disproportionate amount of preaching on the minor prophets. The theory was that this was because they're small and are good fillers between series.
And its true, they are easier to get through. Especially compared to books like Isaiah and the like. Peter Bolt reckons the worst thing about heaven will be that awkward moment after bumping into the old guy with the beard who turns out to be Jeremiah. Following the initial exchanging of pleasantries, you know his next question will be, "Did you read my book?"
My last congregation I was a part of had a sermon series called 'Major profits from minor prophets' which was used as a bit of a filler between bigger series.
One of the great things about Moore College is the chapel services (which aren't actually in a chapel). So far most of our time has been taken by John Woodhouse working through 1 Timothy and Gibbo through 2 Corinthians (and at the rate he's going, I'm sure most people at college over the last 20 years have heard part of this series). The college tradition for chapel services is to have two Bible readings on top of the passage preached on. So far this year, the New Testament readings have been in Luke. Not being aware of the tradition to begin with, I kept waiting for a sermon on Luke. This made some of the sermon introductions a tad obscure, at least initially. It would be interesting to do a study to see what has been preached on in chapel services over the past. I wonder if there is a bias amongst faculty towards preaching epistles because of the denseness of theology contained within?
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