Tag Archives: preaching

A Plea for Men’s Souls

19 Tuesday Apr 2011

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From Spurgeon:

Charles H. Spurgeon

When men change [their opinions about the truth] often they generally need to be changed in the most emphatic sense. Our “modern thought” gentry are doing incalculable mischief to the souls of men, and resemble Nero fiddling on top of a tower with Rome burning at his feet.

Souls are being damned, and yet these men are spinning theories. Hell gapes wide, and with her open jaws swallows up myriads, and those who should spread the tidings of salvation are “pursuing fresh lines of thought.” Highly cultured soul-murderers will find their boasted “culture” to be no excuse in the day of judgment.

from Lecture #15.

Let’s pray for those who seem to fall into this category in our day and age. Perhaps God might grant them (and me) repentance. Them, for their fresh lines of thought–and me, for failing to pray for them previously.

Response to Randy Alcorn and Abortion

21 Friday Jan 2011

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A friend of mine here at the seminary sent me this link to Justin Taylor’s blog regarding some comments made by Randy Alcorn about Sanctity of Human Life Sunday.  Last night, a few of us from the seminary discussed at some length the merits and demerits of having services which commemorate extra-biblical events, holidays, etc.  This friend, who was involved in the conversation, was interested to know what I’d say to Alcorn’s assertion.  Here’s the email I sent to my friend.

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Good Advice? or Good News?

10 Monday Jan 2011

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A friend recently sent me some notes he took during a sermon at his church.  Here’s what he sent me:

  • It’s easy to pick someone [as a spouse] to have fun with, but it’s more important to chose someone you want to go thru hardship with.
  • My responsibility in marriage is to guard our oneness.
  • The biggest enemy of marriage is selfishness.
  • We get into trouble when WE decide what parts of scripture are relevant.
  • Learning to pursue God indicates the ability to pursue our spouses.

The trouble, in short, is that none of these takeaways require a crucified and risen Savior.

Let me put it another way:  can an atheist create a list like this (with, of course, the exception of the final point)?  Can the final point be made by a Jewish person just as easily as a Christian person?  I still maintain that if the sermon’s punchline is not repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Christ, it is not a distinctly Christian sermon.

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Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus

12 Sunday Dec 2010

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This is probably my favorite Advent hymn. I love the original two verses by Wesley, but I especially appreciate the first half of verse 3, penned by Mark Hunt.

I’m a bit of a hum-bug about Christmas, but hymns like this really do prepare my heart (through the truth of the Gospel presented therein) for the celebration of our Substitute’s birth.

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Quoting myself

26 Tuesday Oct 2010

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I’ve decided to switch up my email and have been converting it over to another GMail account (all my accounts are still used and checked; I’m simply running everything from an online ‘hub’ rather than from Outlook for the sake of my convenience).  In the process, lots of random emails from the last 4 years have come across my screen.  One of them contained a reflection I wrote in December of 2008.  It reads,

It fascinates me that people are willing to talk about their feelings, but not deal with the actual Scriptural realities behind what they believe and are called to do in Christ.

Are you listening to anyone except yourself?

I don’t recall the context; it was a retort to something on a forum of which I used to be a part.  But I can’t say much has changed.  People would rather air their feelings about God instead of do the hard work of searching out what the Bible says about this concern or that situation.  Call it a product of my ENTJness, but seriously…WWBD? (That’s “What Would the Bereans Do?”) 😉

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A Psalm 88 kinda day

19 Tuesday Oct 2010

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Psalm 88

I Cry Out Day and Night Before You
A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.

1O LORD, God of my salvation;
I cry out day and night before you.
2Let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry!
3For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
4I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am a man who has no strength,
5like one set loose among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
for they are cut off from your hand.

Psalm 88 has long been one of my two favorite psalms of lament.  The other, a close second, is Psalm 13.

Today’s lament really started in earnest yesterday afternoon.  I was driving away from school and there was a runner with an amazing body standing at the intersection that I didn’t just lust over…I was full-on envious.

Then this morning, I saw two or three guys who I find myself being very intimidated by at chapel.  They seem very articulate and talented and like they’ll be good pastors.  And they’re all really attractive on top of all of that.  And they wear that attractiveness like it doesn’t really matter to them…they could take or leave it.

Oh, to be that bold.  To have the security to hold one’s looks loosely in one’s hand like they seem to…it’s a pretty impossible task.  How many idols have I just rattled off? Probably five or six.

I just feel very alone; I couldn’t really concentrate in Sermon Preparation & Delivery today…I sort of phased in and out on what the sub would say (though he had excellent things to say, and the stuff I did hear seemed very insightful).  If there’s one class I never check out of, it’s Prep and Del.  But I just couldn’t focus.

I unfriended someone on Facebook this morning.  The past few times I’ve gone to his page to see what he’s up to, he and his cute boyfriend are all over the place.  The guy himself looks like a model. I get that life isn’t fair…but like Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame), I ask, “but why can’t it ever be unfair in my favor?”

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Start with the Text, Not with the Commentary

18 Monday Oct 2010

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Jay Sklar, a professor at Covenant Theological Seminary, has a little ritual in his classes.  In his class greeting, he and the class say,

Sklar: Shalom, class.

Class: Shalom, Jay.

Start with the Text…

…not with the commentary.

Context…

…is king.

I once sat in a church where, at the beginning of the sermon, the pastor told his congregation that he’d consulted 20 different commentaries, 13 of which validated his interpretation of the text.  Aside from that being only slightly extreme, I think this pastor missed the point entirely of using commentaries.  He seemed to have started with his own presupposition first and then ran a tally count of people who agreed with him, going to the text last.

Bryan Chapell, former pres. of CTS

Bryan Chapell, in his book, Christ-Centered Preaching, pg. 74, makes the following assertion:

You must think through what Scripture says in order to be able to expound adequately and apply meaningfully what commentators say.  No commentator has room to write down all the implications, insights and truths given in a text.  no distant educator or long-dead scholar knows your situation or your congregation’s concerns.  It is not wise habitually to run to commentaries as the first step of sermon preparation, lest your thoughts start running in a groove carved by one not in touch with what you need to address.

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The Holy Spirit Spoke to Me!!

29 Wednesday Sep 2010

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The Holy Spirit said *what* to him??

Lately, some folks have been totally taken over by frenzy.  They put down their Bibles and want to reach out to God in another way.  These guys criticize others who preach from the Bible, saying that we’re “just following the dead letter of the law.”  Here’s what I want to ask them: where do they get this Spirit that shows so much contempt for biblical teaching as being so low and childish?  If they want to tell me that it’s the Spirit of Christ, I’d tell them they’re being ridiculous!

None of the apostles or early church-goers were ever taught to hold the Bible in such contempt…not by the Holy Spirit.  Instead, they had great respect for it…dare I even use the very old-fashioned word ‘reverence’?  The Holy Spirit taught of His ruling over His people when he spoke through Isaiah, after all:  “My Spirit is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring…forevermore” (59:21).  This is the way the Church is happy: by being ruled over by the Spirit of God in his Word!

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Dangerous preaching

27 Monday Sep 2010

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John Broadus

Covenant Theological Seminary’s president Bryan Chapell based some of his book Christ-Centered Preaching on Broadus’ material as published in 1944 (and prior). Since that time, Broadus’ work has been so altered that most of his observations on expository preaching have been removed.  So, I went on Amazon and bought a copy to read for myself.

A word of warning to preachers and teachers of the word, from the father of modern expository preaching, John Broadus:

…it is so common to think that whatever kindles the imagination and touches the heart must be good preaching, and so easy to insist that the doctrines of the sermon are in themselves true and Scriptural, though they be not actually taught in the the text, that preachers often lose sight of their fundamental and inexcusable error of saying that a passage of God’s Word means what it does not mean.

[Broadus, A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, 41st edition, ed. Dr. E. C. Dargan; George H. Doran Co., pub. 1898. pg. 52. Emphasis his.]

A timely word indeed for all preachers. Lord help us.

Injurious Comments from “Brothers”

23 Monday Aug 2010

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About a month ago, a man who purports to be a brother in the faith wrote this on my mother’s facebook wall:

In his blog, your son says he is a homosexual and says his primary attraction is to men.  He does not say that he has struggled with temptations to such sins…he calls himself a full fledged homosexual.

I have no idea about his state of repentance but I’m sure you would agree…..that it is totally inappropriate for one who calls himself a homosexual to be teaching in church or leading worship.  This is exacerbated by a purposeful hiding of this lifestyle so that he can participate in church leadership roles that would never be knowingly allowed by our elders. Continue reading →