What if God wrote your Obituary?

Scot McKnight wrote “I have always been intrigued by obituaries. One man’s, who passed away in 2016, says this, ‘he died to avoid having to make a decision in the pending presidential election (click to open).’” Obituaries are like eulogies at funerals. Steven Cole in a sermon “If God Wrote Your Obituary (click to open)” referred to a funeral in which three daughters “got up and read a eulogy about ‘we remember dad.’ They recalled, ‘We remember dad going to the bar and buying a round of drinks for all his buddies. He loved going to the bar! We remember dad going to the market and flirting with all the cute young checkers.’ Basically, they fondly remembered dad as a dirty-minded old drunk!”

Read more

The “Factual Data” Sheet for Sermon Preparation for Narratives (Genesis) Part One

The idea of the “Factual Data” sheet comes from reading that Warren W. Wiersbe’s homiletic teacher, Lloyd Perry who used a generic “Factual Data” sheet for sermon preparation. I have adapted the “Factual Data” sheet to the different genres (Poetic, narratives of Genesis, Joshua, Nehemiah, Mark, and the Epistles) of Scripture instead of the one-size-fits-all approach. The “Factual Data” sheet helps the expositor to be text-driven in preaching and teaching God’s Word.

Read more