C. John Miller taught homiletics at Westminster and was listening to a taped sermon that one of his students had preached at a nearby church as an assignment. “He was not exactly reading the manuscript, but he was heavily dependent on it. I could feel that his interest was not in his listeners, but in the ideas in the manuscript. He droned on in a wooden tone when suddenly loud, booming voices began to break into his message. A true-life adventure was taking place! The recording equipment in the church was picking up police radio calls. The radio messages revealed that a robber was trapped by the police in a fast-food drive-in restaurant.
Every word the police said had a clear purpose. They meant to capture this man or know the reason why not. I can remember many of the words of the policemen. One of them was yelling to his partners, “Come on! Come on! Over there!” These men, out there on the street with drawn weapons, knew what they had to do. Their whole enterprise was focused on a single purpose: to capture the man. I think that is our purpose in preaching too: to capture the man for Christ when we preach! Permit nothing in the message that does not serve this master purpose” (C. John Miller, Preaching by Faith, 124).
To capture a man for Christ we must use every weapon at our disposal including the voice God has given us, facial expressions, and gesturing ability empowered by God's Spirit.
Read moreLewis Sperry Chafer in his book entitled “True Evangelism: Winning Souls by Prayer” writes, “The personal element in true soul-winning work is more a service of pleading for souls than a service of pleading with souls. It is talking with God about men from a clean heart and in the power of the Spirit, rather than talking to men about God…. the divine order is to talk to God about men, until the door is definitely open to talk to men about God” (Lewis Sperry Chafer. True Evangelism. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1993, 69-71). In light of this statement we need to answer some questions about praying people into heaven.
Read more“Some preachers are in their approach toward the runway when, at an altitude of only a few feet from the ground, they get a new thought and —instead of landing —zoom up into the air again. Then, once more, they circle the field, line up with the landing strip, lower their flaps and start to come in for the landing, only to shoot up into the sky instead” (Jay Adams, Preaching with Purpose, p. 66). Haddon Robinson adds that your conclusion should not resemble a crash (Steven Mathewson, The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative, 150).
Read moreIf what Haddon Robinson said is true of our average congregation, then we preachers have our work cut out: “When you stand up to preach, people are bored and expect you to make it worse" (Biblical Preaching, Second Edition. page 166).
Read moreA good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week. —George S. Patton.
“Indecisive leader” is an oxymoron.
Read moreA pastor tells an amusing story about a man who was on his way to attend a costume party one Sunday evening. He was wearing a red suit with a tail and a skintight mask with horns. He looked like the false, but widely accepted picture of the devil. As he hurried along, he was caught in a sudden rainstorm, so he took shelter in a church where the service was just ending. As he entered the building, he shocked the members who thought he was the real thing. A flash of lightning and a clap of thunder added to the illusion. The congregation panicked and rushed for the exits. The intruder thought thchurch had been struck by lightning and was on fire, so he raced after them. Everyone got out except an elderly lady. Turning in fear, she stretched out her hands and pleaded for mercy, “Oh, devil, please don’t hurt me. I know I’ve been a member of this church for 30 years, but I’ve really been on your side all the time.Sadly, many church members have no more insight as to who their greatest enemy is. There are certainly extreme views on the devil and his demons.
Read moreHOBBY LOBBY and Chick-fil-A have more in common besides being closed on Sundays. These two companies are for-profit businesses. They are not Christian organizations like churches. Nor are they non-profit corporations. They are for-profit organizations ran by Christians. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of permitting Hobby Lobby to not obey the mandate in Obama Care that requires employers to provide health care coverage for contraceptives that end the life of conceived babies. Hobby Lobby has no problem providing health care that covered 16 out of 20 FDA-approved contraceptives. But Hobby Lobby refused to pay for contraceptives, such as the morning after pill, that destroyed fertilized eggs. The owners of Hobby Lobby (the David Green family) believe life in the image of God begins at the fertilization or conception and that the Bible forbids wrongly taking the life of a person. I agree with Hobby Lobby and the Supreme Court ruling.
Read moreJack Hyles wrote an article entitled The Science of Calling a Pastor. In this article intended on instructing churches on how to call a pastor he wrote:
Choose someone who is not a Bible expositor. There is not one expository sermon in the Bible. All of them are topical. I am not fighting expository preaching, but that kind of preaching will destroy a great church. Do not be swayed by their suave teaching. The great soul-winning churches have been pastored by topical preaching. I am not talking about evangelistic churches; I mean soul-winning churches! If you want a soul-winning church, you must call a pastor who preaches topical sermons. Many of our once great soul-winning churches fell prey to the popular notion of expository preaching. They decided that they wanted more Bible, but when they got it, it cost them their effective soul winning.
Read morePhilip asks the Ethiopian eunuch a hermeneutic question, “Do you understand what you are reading?” The eunuch’s response, “How can I…unless some man explain it to me” (Acts 8:31)?
John in 1 John 2:27 does not contradict: “The anointing which you have received of him abides in you, and you need not that any man teach you.”
Wayne Grudem: "The clarity of Scripture means that the Bible is written in such a way that its teachings are able to be understood by all who will read it" (Systematic Theology, p. 108).
Read moreBilly Sunday once said, “I would rather preach than anything on earth. If President Harding should telegraph me tomorrow, and say, ‘Bill, will you change jobs with me?’ I’d say ‘Nothin doin, Warren.’”
Read moreA Sermon Without Application is like someone shouting to a drowning man “swim” "swim" but not throwing him a life preserver. Spurgeon believed so strongly in sermon application that he said, “Where application begins, there the sermon begins.”
Read moreJames Braga defines an illustration as “a means of throwing light upon a sermon by the use of an example” (How to Prepare Bible Messages, 231). Haddon Robinson says an illustration can either be like a beautiful lamp and a streetlight. When you walk into someone’s expensive den and notice an ornate lamp, you compliment its beauty to the owners. But if you are walking down a city sidewalk at night, the streetlights provide you visibility but you hardly notice them. A sermon illustration should be like the streetlight. It throws light on the subject you are preaching but doesn’t unnecessarily draw attention to the illustration. The illustration is always a handmaiden to explanation.
Read moreAlbert Mohler in his book, He is Not Silent has Chapter 3 “Preaching is Expository: A Theology of Exposition."In this chapter, Mohler contends that our view of God's revelation in His Word will be reflected in our preaching. If we possess a low view of revelation then our preaching will not have much or any theology in it. If we have a low view of the doctrine of revelation, then in our preaching we will preach “pop psychology and culture, or we will tell compelling stories." We preach the theology of a passage because it is God's authoritative Word that is life changing.
In this step, we insert the theology of the text.
Read moreJohn Stott said that beginning preachers need at least twelve hours to prepare one sermon (J. Stott, Between Two Worlds, 259). Tony Merida added, "But even this does not take into consideration the amount of time for meditating late at night, thinking in the car, talking to other preachers, or doing outside reading. Biblical preaching is therefore an all-consuming task. Couple this with the other demands of the pastor’s ministry, and it makes for a laborious process. No wonder Paul told Timothy to give double honor to pastors who work like an ox at “preaching and teaching” (1 Tim 5:17–18) (Merida, Tony. Faithful Preaching (p. 99). B&H Publishing. Kindle Edition). Paul said, "If any man desire the office of a bishop, he desires a good work." Part of that work is sermon preparation. I had a church member say to me once, that preachers had it made all they work is 30 minutes on Sunday morning, 30 minutes on Sunday evening, and 30 minutes on Wednesday evening. He had no clue.
Read moreIn spite of the abuses of ordination, John Hammett Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches: A Contemporary Ecclesiology, believes “there is a biblical basis for recognizing leaders in some way, and a properly understood practice of education could serve some positive purposes” (page 206). Hammett sees four positive results of ordination.
Read moreAn elementary teacher was helping one of her kindergarten students get his cowboy boots on before leaving for home. He had asked her for help and she could see why. Even with her pulling and pushing, the boots just did not want to fit all the way – they seemed too small. She persisted and by the time she got the second boot on, she had worked up a sweat. She almost cried when the little boy said, “These are on the wrong feet.”
You know how boots can sometimes be hard to tell – so she looked closely and sure enough, they were. She tugged and pulled and finally pulled the boots off. She managed to keep her cool as together they worked to get the boots back on the right feet. Finally, just as she was finished, he said, “You know, these aren’t my boots.”
She bit her tongue rather than scream. Once again she struggled to help him pull the ill-fitting boots off his little feet. No sooner had they gotten the boots off, when he said, “See, they’re my brother’s boots, but my mom said I could wear ‘em.”
She did not know if she should laugh or cry, but she mustered up what patience she had left to wrestle the boots back on his feet one more time. Finally, she finished. Helping him into his coat, she asked, “Now, where are your gloves?” He said, “I stuffed ‘em in the toes of my boots.” In two years, she will be eligible for parole (Davey 3).
Read moreJohn R. W. Stott gave this advice on constructing the sermon outline in chapter six in Between Two Worlds: There must be structure to subordinate our material to the theme of the sermon. One danger is a too prominent outline like the protruding skeleton of a starving prisoner of war. Double or triple alliteration of main points is an example. Another danger is artificiality of outline.
Read moreJohn MacArthur, Norman Geisler, John Piper, and Charles Ryrie answer “Yes.” MacArthur states why he totally abstains from drinking: “In Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8, Paul warned against doing anything that would cause another believer to stumble. I am certain that if people thought I drank wine, they would say, ‘Since John MacArthur drinks wine, then certainly I can.’ Some of those people might lose control, do something irresponsible that hurts other people, or even become alcoholics. I do not want that to happen, and I do not want the fear of that weighing on my conscience” (Pastoral Ministry: How to Shepherd Biblically, p. 76).
Read moreRobert C. Anderson writes, “For centuries it has been debated whether or not the biblical injunction that an elder or overseer be the ‘husband of one wife’ means that a divorced person may never have any place within the professional ministry” (The Effective Pastor: A Practical Guide to the Ministry. Chicago: Moody, 1985, 5).
Read moreThe Proposition is the sermon reduced to one sentence. If one of your members were asked by a friend at work on Monday, “What did your pastor preach about yesterday?” Your church member ought to be able to reply, without hardly thinking, what your proposition was or your sermon reduced to one sentence. “Our pastor preached, ‘You must be born again from John 3.'”
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