The resurrection is the foundation stone of Christian doctrine, the Gibraltar of Christian evidence, and the Waterloo of rationalism. Without the resurrection, there would be no Christianity.
I have had the joy of serving as an interim pastor in fourteen churches. Each church is different, but each has certain common needs during the interim period. I’ve learned five important lessons to help me be a good interim pastor.
Are you preaching anytime soon on Hebrews 11, the great hall of fame of faith chapter in the Bible? Then don’t miss the excellent commentary on Hebrews 11 by the great Puritan expositor and theologian, William Perkins (1558-1602). From 1584 until his death, he was the pastor at Great Saint Andrew’s Church in Cambridge.
Since Valentine’s Day occurs in February, I thought it would be beneficial to focus on love, and what better way to do that than to listen to what the Apostle Paul says about it in 1 Corinthians 13:1-7.
C.S. Lewis once said that the prayer preceding all prayers is “May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.” In the following poem, entitled “Prayer,” Lewis peeks into what prayer looks like.
Because God gave the gift of Jesus and the gift of salvation through Jesus, this Christmas the search for the giver is easy.
Just like the cornucopia is full at the Thanksgiving season, so God’s cornucopia of blessings to us is full — and we should give Him thanks for who He is and what He has done.
Many people consider Philippians to be their favorite book in the New Testament. And why not! It is the epistle of joy! Perhaps more than any other book in the New Testament the words “joy” and “rejoice” occur. Interesting that Paul would write about such an attitude given his circumstances—when he wrote Philippians, he was in jail!
A few years ago, an extensive survey conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute discovered that 85% of college freshman say their goal is getting rich. That’s a 43% increase over what the typical college freshman thought 50 years ago.
Have you ever given God the scraps of your life? Malachi 1:6-14 tells us that is exactly what some of God’s people did to him. In fact, the people were guilty of two great sins: they despised God’s name and they defiled his altar.
Old Testament & New Testament Introduction, Old Testament & New Testament Theology Books, Background Commentaries, Commentary Survey, Old & New Testament Exegesis and Sermons to Read – Never Read Until You Write Your Own Sermon.
The following are authors and commentary recommendations. These notes are in conjunction with a recent Preaching Coach podcast episode How To Choose and Use Commentaries. This is not an exhaustive list. These are highlights of people you ought to read.
The following are Dr. David Allen’s library categories. These notes are in conjunction with a recent Preaching Coach podcast episode How To Build Your Preaching Library.
This third and final post on preaching the Tower of Babel includes an exegetical outline of the text by Allen Ross and a suggested method of preaching Christ from the passage by Sydney Greidanus.
Second post on preaching the Tower of Babel.
This is the first of a 3-part post on preaching The Tower of Babel passage in Genesis 11:1-9
This statement, “God is light,” has been interpreted in different ways. First, it could be a description of the visible manifestation of God’s glory. Second, some have seen in this statement a reference to God’s self-revelation to man. Light enables us to see. Though these first two options are true, contextually this does not seem to be what John has in mind.
The Master’s Expectations – No time off, no extra help, no thanks deserved. (7-9)Work for Jesus as if you were His only servant! Sometimes we think we are the only ones working for Jesus! It does not matter what other Christians are doing for Jesus. It does not matter what other Christians are not doing for Jesus. Serve for an audience of One.
JOB DESCRIPTION FOR A SERVANT – THE PARABLE OF THE UNWORTHY SLAVE – LUKE 17:7-10 (PART 2)
Tucked away in Luke’s Gospel is the Parable of the Unworthy Slave. It is one of the most enigmatic in all the Gospels.In the Middle East in the first century, the traditional roles of masters and slaves were well-defined. Dependency and inequality were assumed. For a master to serve his own servants was unheard of! In our age of a 40 hour work week, labor unions, paid time off, and time and a half for overtime, this parable seems distant and unfair. On the surface, it wears a harsh frown and seems heartless. The master appears to be a slave-driver, ungracious and unmerciful.
Amassing intellectual capital is an important part of Seminary training. In ministry, you’re going to need all you can lay your hands on!However, those of us who have been around the block a few times know that you cannot survive in ministry off that capital alone. Since you are constantly making withdrawals, you have to constantly make deposits. . . or go bankrupt.
In his classic On Christian Doctrine (Book 4), Augustine extols rhetoric as the handmaid of truth. Rhetoric must never degenerate into the role of court jester in preaching. We have all witnessed the preacher who “with conjuring adroitness keeps producing fat rabbit after fat rabbit out of an obviously empty hat” as Arthur Gossip put it. The abuse of rhetoric should not necessitate the rejection of rhetoric. Otherwise we might be a not-to-distant relative of the young woman Bunyan told us about, “whose name was Dull. Ah! Poor soul, can’t you see her, flat-faced, flat-footed, a mere vacant lump of a thing? Too many preachers spring from her family. . . .”
“Some people preach for an hour and it seems like twenty minutes, and some preach for twenty minutes and it seems like an hour. I wonder what the difference is? I think I’ve spent my life trying to answer that question.” So said the Dean of Evangelical homileticians, Haddon Robinson, concerning the question of what makes a sermon interesting and memorable.
I have always been partial to train whistles. My grandparents lived less than half a mile from the railroad tracks in the little sleepy mill town of Lindale, GA. I would hear the train whistle blow day and night. My favorite time to listen was late on a fall night. Everything in the house was quiet and tranquil. Suddenly, off in the distance, the first whistle pierced the darkness. The whistle grew louder as the train neared. After the powerful locomotives passed the crossing and the whistle stopped, the only sound was the rhythmical clickety-clack clickety-clack of the wheels as car after car rolled past and then disappeared into the darkness. Somehow it brought to me a feeling of comfort as a child.
When it comes to the galaxy of Puritan preaching, the name of William Perkins shines brightly. His famous work on preaching, The Art of Prophesying, remains a classic in the field.
Charles Spurgeon’s prolific pen is well known. Today he still holds the record for the most books in print by any author living or dead. Spurgeon was barraged with requests to write prefaces for other authors during his lifetime. He refused to do so, as far as I know, with only one exception. Vernon Charlesworth published Rowland Hill: His Life, Anecdotes and Pulpit Sayings in 1879. For many years, Charlesworth lived in Surrey Chapel parsonage, where Rowland Hill (1744-1833) once lived and ministered.
On any given Sunday in today’s preaching pantheon, one can observe a diverse group of devotees, some paying homage to the chapel of “creativity,” others sitting at the feet of the “culturally relevant.”
Every serious Christian desires to know and do the will of God. Paul says in Ephesians 5: “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”
A few years back, Abe Kuruvilla, Professor of Preaching at Dallas Theological Seminary, was kind enough to include me in his interview series “How I Preach” which appears on his website www.homiletix.com. Abe is a consummate homiletician and author of many books, including Privilege the Text: a Theological Hermeneutics for Preaching. I encourage all preachers to get this book and read it carefully.
If you are in a leadership position in someone’s church, and especially if you are a pastor, let me offer a salient word of warning: Don’t become a Diotrephes who loves to be first. We all know preachers who are too big for their britches. You know the type. In the extreme, this is the guy who can strut sitting down. He exudes arrogance, either in the pulpit, outside the pulpit, or both. Joseph Parker, contemporary of Spurgeon, painted the picture of the prideful person in unforgettable prose: “Here is a little contemptible person who stuffs the unworthy sack, which he calls himself, with the shavings and sawdust of his own self interest.”
THE INCARNATION enrolls Him in our needy company. For unto us a child is born; unto us a Son is given. The Word became flesh and dwelled among us. He had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people.
One of the most important things a church ever does is to call a senior pastor. The decision has far-reaching consequences for all involved . . . and for the kingdom of God.
We are all born debtors. The instant we emerge from the birth canal, we owe someone for 9 months of room and board. Since the national debt just passed $18 trillion, as a United States citizen, that newborn baby will enter the world with a portion of that debt at $56,340.40.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of America’s most beloved poets. His poetry brought him world-wide acclaim with such masterpieces as “Evangeline,” “The Song of Hiawatha,” and “The Courtship of Miles Standish.” Many a child in school was pulled to the edge of his seat while listening to Longfellow’s famous poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
Twenty-one years ago, I wrote about the negative impact a low view of biblical authority, rejection of propositional communication, and the focus on creating an experience, had on preaching. (David L. Allen, “A Tale of Two Roads: Homiletics and Biblical Authority,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 43.3 [2000]: 489-515.)
The New Testament documents indicate exegesis was the primary method of doing theology in the early church. This is no more clearly evidenced than with the author of Hebrews.
In 165 BC, Israel was under the control of the Syrian ruler Antiochus Epiphanes. A cruel and ruthless dictator, he attempted to force the Jews to embrace the Greek culture of the day and cease to obey the Mosaic Law. Antiochus went so far as to desecrate the temple of Jerusalem by sacrificing pigs on the altar and turning the temple into a place to worship the Greek god Zeus. Many Jews lost their lives resisting this tyranny.
Pragmatic analysis of texts asks the questions “What is the author’s purpose of a text?” and “What does an author desire to accomplish with his text.” The text-driven preacher is always attempting to accomplish something with every sermon. All verbal or written communication has at least one of three purposes:
The text-driven preacher must recognize that there are four basic types of meaning conveyed in every text and context: referential, situational, structural and semantic. Referential meaning is that which is being talked about; the subject matter of a text. Situational meaning is information pertaining to the participants in a communication act; matters of environment, social status, etc. Structural meaning has to do with the arrangement of the information in the text itself; the grammar and syntax of a text. Semantics has to do with the structure of meaning and is in some sense the confluence of referential, situational and structural meaning. [1]
The painstaking work of exegesis is the foundation for text-driven preaching.[1] Exegesis precedes theology, and theology is derived from careful exegesis. To preach well, it is vital to understand certain basics about the nature of language and meaning.
