Face It!

Why Read the Bible?

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 21:32:57 GMT

A Challenge to Mark the 500th Anniversary of Tyndale's New Testament

For this 500th anniversary year of the first printed New Testament in the English language, it would be eternally beneficial for believers to commit to reading God’s word as a priority - as a priority in the sense that time is allotted in the schedule and time is sacrificed so that significant reading may occur. It would be impossible to exaggerate the good that reading God’s word with fresh vigor would produce. Our theme verse for the year, Psalm 119:161, says, “Princes have persecuted me without a cause: but my heart standeth in awe of thy word.” Nothing would insulate the believer from the oppressive force of modernity’s humanistic exultations and outcries of blasphemy for those who reject them, like time spent in God’s word! Charles Spurgeon said, “He might have been overcome by awe of the princes had it not been that a greater fear drove out the less, and he was swayed by awe of God's word. How little do crowns and sceptres become in the judgment of that man who perceives a more majestic royalty in the commands of his God. We are not likely to be disheartened by persecution, or driven by it into sin, if the word of God continually has supreme power over our minds.”

While it is clear from our theme verse that standing in awe of God’s word has monumental, preventative effects on those under persecution, many other reasons for reading God’s word could be listed. Let us examine (not all) but a few:

Why Read The Bible?

The Bible is God’s word to us.

Another term for God’s word, taken from the pages of theology, could be revelation. Revelation is the act of disclosing or discovering to others what was before unknown to them; appropriately, the disclosure or communication of truth to men by God Himself, or by His authorized agents, the prophets and apostles. Revelation makes plain or unveils that which has been hidden. Theologians have referred to revelation as “God’s self-disclosure.”

In the introduction to Paul’s grand thesis on the gospel of Jesus Christ (Romans), we find these words: “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith…For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men…” (Rom. 1:17-18). From these words, we understand that Christianity is a revealed religion. Man, in all his self-aggrandizing hubris through centuries of “progress, growth, and development,” has done nothing but produce bloodshed, chaos, and poverty. As Adam’s fall, Noah’s flood, the tower of Babel, and the ongoing tale of history demonstrate, man never finds God. God has revealed Himself to man. The scripture is that revelation. The details of that revelation are “right” (Ps. 119:128), “wonderful” (v. 129), “light” giving (v. 130), and awe inspiring (v. 161)! We must read the Bible, for the Bible is what God has chosen to reveal to us.

The Bible produces faith.

Above all else, faith is central to the Christian experience. Once Jesus ascended “out of their sight” (Acts 1:9), the church was left with the oft’ misunderstood description of our daily journey - “…we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). We do not have the privilege of following or consulting Jesus in the flesh (2 Cor. 5:16), rather, we are required to follow Him “by faith.” This does not mean we are to “always let our conscience be our guide” (Jiminy Cricket), for the conscience can only hold you to the highest form of good and evil that it knows. It must be educated. The conscience is not impeccable (faultless). Nor does walking by faith entail responding to internal, emotional impulses (like the flash of a “good idea”). Faith is believing what has been revealed. A simple way to define it is to say that faith is believing what God said because He said it! Romans 10:17 makes this clear - “…faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.”

The Christian life involves taking each individual step in obedience to God’s word. That is faith. Hope is very similar. While faith believes God’s word for the present moment, hope believes what God has promised and prophesied for the future. Faith and hope, both produced and informed by God’s word, carry the believer through the vicissitudes of life. We must read God’s word in order to maintain faith and hope for all that will be required of us.

The Bible is the final authority in all matters of all faith and practice.

This is the mantra of all Baptist mantras (if we actually had mantras). Belief in scripture as the court of final appeal governs our belief in soul liberty. Freedom of conscience is not the belief that we are permitted to “find our own truth,” but rather, that we are free to believe what scripture dictates without government oppression. The Psalmist said, “…I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way” (Ps. 119:128). Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry said:

No religious denomination has a moral right to a separate existence unless it differs essentially from others. Ecclesiastical differences ought always to spring from profound doctrinal differences. To divide Christians, except for reasons of gravest import, is criminal schism. Sects are justifiable only for matters of conscience growing out of clear scriptural precept or inevitable logical inference. Human speculation, tradition, authority of pope or council or synod or conference or legislature, is no proper basis for an organization of Christians. Nothing short of the truth of revelation, the authoritative force of God’s word, rising above mere prejudice or passion or caprice, can justify a distinct church organization (Ancient Baptist Journal, Vol. I – Issue I, p. 89).

We have no right to any degree of dogmatism apart from the clear teaching of scripture. All things that we endorse or reject must be actualized as a consequence of our understanding of God’s word. This kind of faith led Jeremiah Jeter to say, “We shall earnestly aim to so write that, if any person should be offended, the fault shall be his and not ours. We are so firmly convinced of the soundness of our principles that we can well afford to discuss them with calmness and goodwill to all men.”

A revival of ordinary believers everywhere, with Bibles in heart and hand, answering God’s truth to all who pose a question, would be revolutionary in today’s hyper-secularized, emotion-driven society. God’s word quells the rancor of the skeptic. It silences the arguments of the gainsayer. It brings clarity to the troubled soul. The 1689 London Baptist Confession says, “The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience…” Amen! We must read God’s word in order to know God’s mind concerning all that concerns us in this life and the one to come.

The Bible is a miracle of God’s making.

We understand that the giving of God’s word has been a Divine work all along (2 Tim. 3:16-17). The scriptures were given by inspiration, a process whereby God breathes His words into the minds of men so that they understand what words He wants them to write. It is that simple. And because of the ongoing Providential hand of God, these words given have been preserved so that we have them - we hold them in our hands today! How could we despise so great a blessing (1 Thess. 5:20-21)?

The yellowed pages of history are replete with examples of faithfulness that God used to preserve His word. One historical report said, “The Waldenses of northern Italy were foremost among the primitive Christians of Europe in their resistance to the Papacy. They not only sustained the weight of Rome’s oppression, but they were successful in retaining the torch of truth until the Reformation took it from their hands and held it aloft to the world.” Their conclusion to this soul-stirring truth was to say, “It is therefore evident that the translators of 1611 had before them four Bibles which had come under Waldensian influences: the Diodati in Italian, the Olivetan in French, the Lutheran in German, and the Genevan in English. We have every reason to believe that they had access to at least six Waldensian Bibles written in the old Waldensian vernacular.” The point is, God preserved His word through miraculous movements of Providence, leaving the medieval testimony of our forebears to be “traced by the gloomy light of martyrs' fires.” The suffering of those who gave us our Bible should be motivation alone for us to read His word with a revived commitment.

The Bible sustains the believer.

Without a faithful relationship with the word of God, there is little hope for your faith to stand the tests that are certain to befall you. The drag of materialism, the despair of daily living, the grief of life’s losses, and the degenerative effects of temptation are sure to leave you faint in the way if you do not stand “in awe” of God’s word. A careful look at the warfare of the Christian makes it clear: the key weapon for the spiritual soldier is God’s word. Satan, our adversary, goes about with one primary goal - deception (1 Pet. 5:8-9; Rev. 19:20; 20:3). Our defense (Ep. 6:10-18), which includes truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit, is all found in our relationship to God’s word. Without a familiarity with and a love for the Bible, we are left to fight the Devil unprepared.

In 2026, let us read the Bible that God has given us. Let us read it with supreme reverence for God and His truth, and let us read it with gratitude for the sanguine price paid by so many.

A Preaching Brief for 2026

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 18:48:54 GMT

A Preaching Brief for 2026

Preaching is Important Enough for Prioritized Effort

Monday, December 29, 2025

Tom Landry, the legendary Dallas Cowboys football coach, said, “Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is decidedly how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.” Nick Saban said a similar thing: “Most people have a vision - they can define what it takes to accomplish the vision - but can they execute it?” His point was simple, but pivotal. A goal without a workable process is a deadly, outcomes-based way of thinking. It amounts to a dream, but it is certainly not actionable or achievable.

My question for the preacher of the gospel is, do you have a plan for achieving excellence in the pulpit? No preacher can be perfect, but every preacher can plan and work toward excellence. Personally, I would love to do my best preaching in 2026. I have a plan for the year that I will share with you, hoping you will develop your own and commit to the process of sound preparation. I am only offering some suggestions concerning the things we can control. We cannot summon great acts of Providence at our behest, but we can and should labor by faith, hoping for the blessed privilege of experiencing the fruitful hand of God on our preaching. I will challenge you to (1) marry conviction with passion, (2) develop a systematic plan for sermon preparation, and (3) systematize your outside reading for the year.

Marry Conviction with Passion

Every preacher should determine to avoid the wasteland of delivering doctrine-free, conversational homilies. We are not giving TED talks or self-help speeches, nor are we offering dry, liturgical dissertations. We are preachers of “the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ” (Ep. 3:8), intended to “make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery…to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God” (vv. 9-10). Obviously, baked into these words is the expectation that our preaching should naturally be characterized by conviction and passion. Naturally, because there would be no way for a man of God to search out these rich truths, believe them, and then deliver them without heart; nor would it be possible to have a passionate boldness for ideological expressions that we hardly believe.

It is here, at the union of conviction and passion, that eloquence is produced. The greatest sermons ever preached were the fruit of someone holding forth from the thralldom of inspired faith. Nonchalance never moves people. The disinterested communication of incidentals is hardly worthy of the stinging rebuff that comes with courageous ministry. Only conviction merits passionate delivery. When we experience this combination, eloquence emerges.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Every idea is an incitement…eloquence may set fire to reason.” We all desire a certain degree of eloquence if eloquence is properly understood. We want to be set on fire with truth, but eloquence for the sake of eloquence alone is ostentatious, a kind of off-putting, verbal éclat. If Plautus was correct when he said, “Courage easily finds its own eloquence,” then the shortest route to speaking with fluency and elegance is knowing the truth and actually believing it. Biblical boldness is the confidence that what we have to say will result in everlasting benefit to those who receive it in faith.

Few people have united the concepts of conviction and passion like R. L. Dabney in his great work, Evangelical Eloquence , where he said, eloquence is “the emission of the soul’s energy through speech.” When advocating for eloquence, we are not suggesting that better preaching will involve “the single eye to self-display,” but rather, the emission of truth from one energized in soul by God’s eternal purposes and precepts. Conviction is not a synonym for stubbornness. It is one thing to hold a conviction, but quite another for a conviction to hold us! To be held by conviction is to be thoroughly convinced of its truth. This kind of certainty is only found at the wellspring of diligent study and thoughtful meditation. When we labor in the study, conviction is produced, perspicuity is cultivated by necessity, and naturally, eloquence is born. Direct expression becomes forceful and thereby, eloquent, for without persuasion, without the alteration of the will, no true eloquence has been composed - only orations of display.

Therefore, let us enter the study each week with a determination to so understand the intricacies of the text that it will set us ablaze with boldness, zeal, and holy anticipation. There is no reason to preach any other way. While ignorance and affectation are poor adaptations for the preacher, so is the deadening effects of faux intellectualism.

Develop a Systematic Plan

As a Bible college student, I was required to read The Disciplined Life by Richard S. Taylor, in which he listed five character traits that generate effectiveness. He said the prize goes to the neat, thoughtful, systematic, thrifty, and punctual. I firmly believe that a systematic approach to preaching is a great tool for being better than average every time you rise to preach! Do you have a regular approach, or do you leave the greatest work of New Testament ministry to the whims of circumstance and random inspiration? I am convinced the conviction and passion we seek is to be discovered in routine labor in the study and seldom (if ever), anywhere else.

Here is a simple plan that would work, with your own personal adjustments:

Monday - Select a passage

By select, I mean determine which portion of text in your current preaching schedule (if through a book, section, or selection of themes) you will expound. If you are not preaching through a book or section of scripture, and you have a “topic” to address, you still must have a text that will be your sermon; otherwise, you are simply using the Bible to make a religious speech. We are commanded to “preach the word.” I know of no passage that admonishes the pastor to wrestle with spiritual mysteries in search of some nebulous topic every single week. This is a recipe for mysticism and imbalance. Here is a foolproof formula: preach the Bible and insist that your text is your sermon. If you choose “the wrong text” and preach it faithfully, you will come out much better than if you spend Saturday in search of the ultimate “nugget” that will “preach.” The sermon is the text, not the outline. An outline, regardless of how masterful the alliteration, is a poor sermon if the text is not the star of the show.

Tuesday - Learn the passage

G. Campbell Morgan was said to have advocated for reading one’s text 50 times before preaching it. At this point, you are not plumbing the depths of your textual theology yet, but familiarizing yourself with the actual content of the passage, including customs, geography, characters, theological words, and chronology. Doing the mundane work of getting this information into your head will make the heavy lifting of exposition much easier later in the week.

Wednesday - Organize the passage

Every passage of scripture has its own outline or layout. When you see the flow of the text with all the transitions and inspired conclusions and admonitions, you actually have the sermon right under your nose. Examine a plethora of outlines from authors in history as they relate to your text. You will often disabuse yourself of unfortunate misapprehension without having read a word of commentary by simply grasping the overall picture of the text.

Thursday - Study the passage

This is where you answer the questions: What is the big idea / central theme of this passage? What is the reader expected to do or believe? What will my sermonic proposition be? How and why should the congregation do this or believe this? These answers come as you study the text carefully, seeking to understand what the author of the text (both the Holy Spirit and the human author) intended us to receive from it. Once you have reached the extent of your own knowledge, reading a multitude of commentaries will then make a great contribution to the work you have already done. As Spurgeon said, “He who will not use the brains of others proves he has no brains of his own.”

Friday - Write the sermon

Whether you preach without notes, with a scant outline, or from a detailed manuscript, in order to preach well, diligent preparation is necessary. There is nothing spiritual or faithful about preaching without preparation. We are commanded to prepare (2 Tim. 2:15). For most mortals, the distance between discoveries in the study and communicating said discoveries in the pulpit in a cogent fashion is significant. This is why most preachers use notes. I would highly recommend that most preachers do the work of writing manuscripts for their sermons. You go much further in preparing how you will communicate the passage, and you have the added benefit of compiling a vast personal legacy of expositional labor. Be kind to your future self by making your work accessible in the future. Even if you write a manuscript or something close, you don’t have to attempt to preach directly from it, but your preparation is more thorough, and your ability to preach from a basic outline is improved dramatically.

Saturday - Rehearse the sermon

By rehearse, I certainly do not suggest that some performative measures be taken. I recommend you go through the sermon a few times to build your recall and suss out any remaining deficiencies. Talking it out goes a long way toward turning a dry dissertation into a sermon that will actually connect. Francis Bacon famously said, “Reading makes a broad mind, writing a precise mind, and speaking makes a ready mind.”

Discussing preaching from a systematic, even artisanal viewpoint often brings on the charge that the Holy Spirit is being left out of the process, which is ridiculous. It is not spiritual to be unprepared. It is not holy to make things up on the fly. It is not studied or “apt to teach” when superficial and awkwardly homespun. Rather, it is a dereliction of duty. You do not have to use any of these suggestions. You must, however, if you plan to preach well, plan to plan and work the plan.

Plan Your Outside Reading

Honestly, every preacher must read as if his life depends upon it, because your life as a preacher depends upon it. My friend, Pastor Jim Alter, says that preachers declaring, “I don’t have time to read,” is like saying, “I don’t wear deodorant.” You don’t have to tell us. We already know. Slow reading is fine. Using a dictionary, every page, is great. Not reading is a failure. It is intellectual arrogance to say, in essence, “I don’t need the thoughts of 2,000 years of church history. I don’t need great minds influencing my stellar takes on scripture.”

The fear that reading leads to apostasy is ridiculous. A preacher who cannot read without declension is a novice. Facts lead to more information, and insights lead to greater understanding. It is impossible to grapple with eternal truth, to plumb the unsearchable riches of Christ and communicate what you find with clarity and meaning if you are not continually reading. Read only those that you completely trust if you must, but read, you must.

The average reader, at a minimum, can read 200 words per minute (probably more for even slow readers). At this rate, reading only 30 uninterrupted minutes per day, a slow reader could read 10 - 15, 300-page-books per year. If you read on the same subject for a year, concentrating your effort on carefully selected material, you could make great strides as a thinker and teacher. You could also tackle a few large sets in a year. This kind of “outside reading” can transform the substance of one’s preaching in so many ways.

Reading Tips

Read systematically . Reading systematically is the act of reading books with understanding them as your aim. One of the best things to read about reading is How to Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler. In this book, he suggests you read the index, chapter headings, and divisions carefully first. You proceed by reading with the stated purpose or thesis of the book in mind. If the subject is seminal, consider the footnotes and bibliography for your own further reading.

Read Actively . It is massively helpful to make notes as you read. If I am reading a book that is not a special or antique edition, I will make notes with page numbers in the front and back of the book, highlighting as I read. Books that are particularly helpful often look like they’ve been attacked. This might be blasphemous to some bibliophiles, but active reading is a game-changer. You will remember so much more of what you read. Rehearse what you learn, share it with others, and say it out loud. Use it, or lose it.

Read Intentionally . You have to schedule time to read. Busyness is no excuse for failure in this area. Productive reading is vital. A good guideline is to read one hour a day, one day per week, and one week per year. This does not count your weekly sermonic preparation. This kind of intentional emphasis will keep you sharp and informed - ready for whatever you plan to do as a preaching pastor. Every preacher has areas of specialization. Continue developing those strengths by planning what you will read and why. You have to be informed, which means you will know that something is the case. You will need to be enlightened, which means knowing what something is all about. Adler quoted Montaigne, who spoke of abecedarian ignorance and doctrinal ignorance. Neither is acceptable for a man of God.

Nothing will change your preaching like good reading. Nothing. Francis Bacon said, "Some books are to be tasted, some chewed, and others swallowed and digested." In any case, read, read, read, as if your life as a preacher depends upon it.

I offer these three suggestions as a mere provocation to better things in preaching. Consider how you might (1) marry conviction with passion, (2) develop a systematic plan for sermon preparation, and (3) systematize your outside reading for the year.

Knowing God Theologically - Part 2

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 20:37:51 GMT

What Does It Mean To Know God?

Three Popular Approaches To Worship

The manner in which we approach worship tells of our own doctrinal predispositions. While styles of worship may vary with good and godly effect, much of what passes is wrong from the start as a consequence of bad ideas about God. Our traditions and preferences shape our determination to understand God after our own designs.

Formalism, which is religious ceremony; mere conformity to customary modes, is manifested in a kind of expression that says, “I’m right with God because I went through the proper routines.” Formalism is deadly because it allows its adherents to comply with outward forms regardless of the condition of the heart or the conceptions of the mind. It is assumed that since one has attended and complied, they are right with God.

Mysticism, which Hodge described as the claim to “…see or know what is hidden to other men, whether this knowledge be obtained by immediate intuition or inward revelation,” looks within for truth, for self-authenticating experience and impulse. Mystical people hold as their central tenet, “I’m right with God because it feels right.” To “ walk by faith ” is, to the mystic, a following of internal promptings instead of believing and acting upon what God has revealed in His word (Rom. 10:17). The mystical Christian accepts his inner impulses as authoritative. The familiar expressions would be, “God laid this on my heart,” or “God told me” to do this or that. Mysticism may be the greatest enemy to faithful worship in modern Christianity.

Biblicism is the belief that everything we accept as binding on the conscience is derived from scripture rightly divided. The biblicist declares, “I’m right with God because the Bible says that I’m right.” This is confidence, not arrogance; faith, not stubborn pride. Charles Hodge said, “Idolatry consists not only in the worship of false gods, but also in the worship of the true God by images.” These images are shaped by our imagination (Pr. 6:18; Rom. 1:21). In this regard, our false ideas exalted against the knowledge of God become theological strongholds the adversary uses against us (Ge. 6:5; 2 Cor. 10:5). At some point, our false ideas about God, due to shoddy theology, will fatally affect the nature of our worship (Jn. 4:24).

God May Be Known, But Not Comprehended

It is a fundamental observation: while God has made Himself knowable to man, it is incredulous to think Him comprehensible. Finite man cannot begin to comprehend God. To suggest as much would reduce God and aggrandize man’s limited faculties of comprehension. As Zophar asked in Job 11:7, “Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty into perfection?” One could hardly find a better treatment of the subject than Paul’s words in Romans 11:33: “O the depth and the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out.” Also, in 1 Timothy 6:16, “Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “God dwells in that light which no man can approach. God in His eternal and absolute being is incomprehensible.” John Gill, said, “God only is essentially, originally, and underivatively, perfectly and immutably holy.” Pink said, “God is solitary in His excellency.”

Shockingly, the world’s blasphemous tendency to reduce God with comic observations and dramatic productions of every sort has had its degenerative effect on the Christian, the preacher, theology and preaching. The high view of God is missing in many worship services. Man, due to his obsession with life-enhancement and his irreparable revulsion for boredom, must be entertained. This itch, preachers have determined to scratch to their own ruin. The result is a yearning, godless vacuum in modern worship services that only God, high and lifted up, could fill. What is needed in every pulpit is the kind of preaching that is preoccupied with God “…who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible” (1689 London Baptist Confession).

While God is incomprehensible, He may be known. He has revealed Himself to us (He. 1:1-2; Ps. 46:10; 100:3; 135:5). We may, within the parameters of our finitude, ascertain certain facts about God, and by believing and acting upon them, experience Him in a personal way. This is what worship is all about. In the gaining of this sacred knowledge, we come to know of God’s holiness and thereby, sense the severity of impending judgment. We discover His grace and turn to Him for deliverance. We learn of His Sovereignty and Provident watchcare and grow to trust Him through the vicissitudes of circumstance and seasons of despair.

In order to know what is knowable about God, we must confront our own susceptibility to error with clear and dramatic words of scripture. Without routine ambles into the garden of sound doctrine, we leave ourselves prey to the stultifying drabness of modernity. Worldliness, like kudzu, will overwhelm our ability to think with discernment. J. I. Packer identified two unfortunate trends in Christianity in 1973, that continue to be a problem today: (1) Christian minds conformed to the modern spirit, and (2) Christian minds confused by the modern skepticism. There are many reasons for the creeping trends among us, but the false dichotomy of mind versus heart, which often accentuates the sensations of emotion at the expense of sound teaching, is most likely the primary culprit.

Edwin Charles Dargan said, “The doctrine of God lies at the very basis of religion…there can be no religion without God, and therefore no thought of religion without the thought of God.” I would add, proper worship requires right thoughts of God, and right, truthful, accurate thoughts of God are the fruit of sound theology.

Deep as it is, great and glorious ideas of the Godhead are within the everyday grasp of every Christian. The Philadelphia Confession of 1742, says, “The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience, although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and his will which is necessary unto salvation.” We understand the one source for all that is certain and knowable about God is His infallible revelation - The Bible. We strive to be bold where it is clear, humble where it is complex, and to never attempt to be wise above what it written.

What Does It Mean To Know God?

Allow me to quote the answer given by J. I. Packer in his seminal work, Knowing God:

What are we talking about when we use the phrase “knowing God?” A special sort of emotion? Shivers down the back? A dreamy, off-the-ground, floating feeling? Tingling thrills and exhilaration, such as drug-takers seek? Or is knowing God a special sort of intellectual experience? Does one hear a voice? See a vision? Find strange trains of thought coursing through one’s mind? or what? These matters need discussing, especially since, according to scripture, this is a region in which it is easy be fooled, and to think you know God when you do not. We pose the question, then: what sort of activity, or event, is it that can properly be described as “knowing God?”

Packer answered his own question:

…knowing God involves, first, listening to God’s word and receiving it as the Holy Spirit interprets it, in application to oneself; second, noting God’s nature and character, as His word and works reveal it; third, accepting His invitations, and doing what He commands, fourth, recognizing and rejoicing in, the love that He has shown in thus approaching one and drawing one into this divine fellowship.

How Does One Go About Knowing God?

I will summarize Packer’s words with four admonitions:

Listen to God’s Word.

Certainly, “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). Faith and worship, the twin engines that move us toward this glorious knowledge of God, are unattainable apart from the word of God. In order to know God, it is essential that we listen to Him. This truth cries out to the believer to read, memorize and study scripture. It begs the preacher to labour in word and doctrine.

Note God’s Nature.

As we read, we will profit from every observation that we can make that concerns the God of the Bible. Every clear truth about His immense and majestic Being is foundational to our own spiritual stability. This knowledge is the only material sufficient for building the kind of impregnable faith to stand the tests of time.

Accept God’s Invitations.

To listen to God’s word and note His nature is to encounter divine invitations to know Him intimately, to set aside our sins, to practice good works and to view the world through the sanctified lenses of godly wisdom. All such moves toward God and godliness will be instrumental in transforming us into the image of Christ - the inevitable consequence of knowing Him.

Recognize God’s Love.

The love of God is the core of worship. This is what Paul said “constrained” him (2 Cor. 5:14). As we are made aware of His truth through our journey to know Him, we rejoice! We celebrate every new discovery of God’s grace.

Knowing God Theologically - Part 1

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:31:27 GMT

Everyday Theology - Knowing God, Part 1

Knowing God Theologically - Part 1

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

The knowledge of God is the wellspring of worship; worship being, “the believer’s response of all that he is - mind, emotion, will, and body - to all that God is and says and does.” If we misapprehend the truth concerning who, precisely, God is and what, exactly, He has said and done, we are to that extent, errant in our worship (Jn. 4:24). The demanding specifications of the knowledge of God, place the development of everyday theology at the center of all that is important for the Christian.

The term, theology, according to its etymological features, is a compound derived from two Greek words: theos and logos. Theos means “God,” and logos means “speech, expression, or logic.” Therefore, theology is a discourse upon the subject of God. James P. Boyce, said, “The word theology means literally a discourse concerning God, but in analogy to other words, as geology, chronology, and biology, it means the science which treats of God.” Theology can indicate the work of professional academics but it also refers to our general, systematic understanding of what the Bible teaches about all that relates to God - our doctrines…the faith as we understand it. Thus, everybody has a “theology.” Their theology is either good, or bad. It is either rooted in the context of God’s word properly understood, or hastily garnered from the rich resources of Facebook posts, tweets, insta-stories, bumper stickers and t-shirt slogans.

Free-flowing, modernistic ideas about theology are what led A. W. Tozer to utter his famous saying, “What comes to mind when we think of God is the most important thing about us.” Albert Einstein said, “I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” If we are talking about invention, there could be some truth to Einstein’s statement (although, laws of physics, biology, chemistry and aerodynamics happen to be pretty stubborn. To flout them is to leap from the proverbial cliff in order to defy gravity). If the subject is theology, there exists no room for nuance or flexibility where God has made Himself clear (Ps. 119:128; Rom. 3:2; 2 Tim. 3:16-17).

The most useful application of theological work seems to be that of the systematic variety. Since we believe that life has meaning because it comes from God, a systematic theology is the effort to discover that meaning, as it is conveyed in the word of God. Lewis Sperry Chafer, said, “Systematic theology is the collecting, scientifically arranging, comparing, exhibiting, and defending of all facts from any and every source concerning God and His works.” This, of course, is a description of systematic theology as an academic endeavor, which is wonderfully helpful. The great theologians of the centuries have their work published in what we call “theologies.” What I am encouraging is the personal commitment in one’s own everyday existence to develop a theological worldview that is informed, shaped and applied in a comprehensively, scriptural way.

Different kinds of theologies exist. Systematic theologies which are also called didactic, or dogmatic, are intended to teach biblical doctrines in an explanatory, and methodical, fashion. Polemical or controversial theologies are intended to address a particular error. Practical theologies are also called experimental, are more devotional or obviously applicable.

In the word of God we find that knowing God is considered the highest of priorities:

John 17:3

3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Jeremiah 9:23-24

23 Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:

24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me , that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.

Hosea 6:6

6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

Knowing God is the life, glory and purest desire of the Christian. It is fair to say; however, that modern Christianity knows little about God. They have a long list of materialistic, success-driven expectations for God, but very little by way of biblical theology. Lewis Sperry Chafer saw this as a problem in 1947:

Systematic theology, the greatest of the sciences, has fallen upon evil days. Between the rejection and ridicule of it by the so-called progressives and the neglect and abridgment of it by the orthodox, it, as a potent influence, is approaching the point of extinction…It is no secret that the average minister is not now reading Systematic Theology, nor will such writings be found to occupy a prominent place in his library. Shocking indeed this condition would have been to ministers of two generations ago - men whose position was respected in their day because of their deep knowledge of the doctrinal portions of the Bible and whose spoken ministries and writings have gone far toward the upbuilding of the church of Christ.

The opposite of knowing and worshipping God according to truth is idolatry. Man is obsessed with gods of his own making; objects of adoration in the form of dead deities, fleeting riches and images fashioned after his own imagination. Paul referred to these idolatrous depictions as “…gold, silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device” (Acts 17:29). Genuine worship begins with a thorough knowledge of God and all that is true about Him. Our political, fraternal and personal obsessions can easily become a deleterious form of ideological idolatry.

How Do We Begin Our Theological Journey?

Learning

In the earliest days of the New Testament church, believers were committed to continuing in "the apostles' doctrine" (Acts 2:42). It necessarily follows that all things related to doctrine were prioritized in the regular faith and practice of the early church. Doctrine means "things taught" or God's truth in God's words. When we gather with the church, the primary purpose is the preaching and teaching of God's word because it shapes our view of God and facilitates genuine worship (Jn. 4:24). God is a Spirit, so we cannot see Him (Jn. 1:17, 18). Therefore, we worship Him "in spirit and in truth." We worship Him in truth by believing what God's word reveals about Him. Gathering with the saints, listening to preaching, and teaching and learning about God is vital for our theological journey.

Reading

Implicit in the call to theology is the imperative to read. One cannot begin to know God without knowing His word, and we must develop a working understanding of the Bible to develop our theology. The simple, systematic, careful reading and re-reading of scripture can hardly be overemphasized. I have often found in sermon preparation that I had over-saturated my thoughts with man's ideas to the neglect of God's. Every Christian must commit to reading God's word before and above all else. Once this is done, much is available in the vast library of theological history that be read. By careful curation, one can avail himself of the finest teachings of God's best men. Avoid the misguided injunction to "read the lives of great men and avoid their theology." If the men are great and their ministries scriptural, their writings will be helpful. They will not be impeccable, but neither are our sermons, lessons, and counsel. Read the Bible. Read great theological works. Read sermons. Read topical doctrine. Read church history. Reading will help you on your theological journey.

Writing

Journaling our thoughts as we go improves our ability to articulate what we actually know. You do not know the material if you cannot say something with clarity and comprehensive logic. As the famous Bacon quote suggests, reading makes a broad mind; writing makes a precise mind. As we attempt to write down what we understand about our doctrines, we discover our own deficiencies. This will show us what we have yet to learn.

Teaching

My good friend, Pastor Jim Alter, says, "You do not know something if you can't teach it to someone else." In this regard, simplicity is predicated upon profundity. You have to know your material well to teach it to others. Even if you have no platform from which to teach your theology, talking out your faith to others or even yourself will transform your understanding.

God’s Revealed Will

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 21:30:06 GMT

We Have God’s Will In Clear Communication And Certain Terms

The Bible is the record of God’s will expressed and written down, preserved so that we might have it today. All true theological ideas begin with God’s sovereign initiative. “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets” (Heb. 1:1). That God is (Heb. 11:6), is stupendous enough, but that He would speak to man is a staggering truth. That He would speak in love, drawing us to Himself, is inexplicably amazing (Jn. 6:44; 12:32).

This message from God to man is what scripture and theologians refer to as revelation , which is defined as the act of disclosing or discovering to others what was before unknown to them; appropriately, the disclosure or communication of truth to men by God Himself, or by His authorized agents, the prophets and apostles. In theology, revelation is often divided into two categories: general and specific (or special). General revelation is what is made known to all men through creation (Ps. 19:1-6; Rom. 1:17-21). The 1689 London Baptist Confession says, “…the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary unto salvation.” In specific revelation, God has spoken to man in particular times and places through particular events (i.e., the Exodus, Isaiah 6, etc.) and codified those expressions in scripture.

Because of the fastidious rectitude of the Jewish priesthood, the Old Testament text has been preserved without significant controversy. Through the faithful watch care of the priesthood of the believer (the church, 1 Tim. 3:15), we have God’s word in the New Testament. Edward F. Hills said:

God preserved the Old Testament text by something physical and external, namely, the Aaronic priesthood. God has preserved the New Testament text by means of something inward and spiritual, namely, the universal priesthood of believers. Hence, the preservation of the New Testament text is not due to the decisions of any ecclesiastical organization, council or committee.

As we understand that we have the words of God concerning all things necessary for knowing and pleasing Him (2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Tim. 2:15), and as we experience the indwelling, illuminating work of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:9; Jn. 16:13; 1 Cor. 2:12-14), we can be delivered from every onslaught of error. We can forgo the fruitless, misguided forays into mysticism. We eliminate confusing searches for elusive, nebulous, self-authenticating contrivances falsely called “the will of God.” We can all know His will because it is written down for us (Ep. 5:17). God’s will and expectations for us are not found in the stars or psychological naval gazing but discovered as we are filled with His word (Col. 3:16).

The Christian life is a life of faith. We live it by believing what God has revealed, written down, and preserved in His word. As we read it, study and understand it, and “let it dwell in us unto all wisdom,” we are enabled to walk in the Spirit. Scripture is not merely one of the choices the Christian refers to for direction. It is our complete, inerrant guide and final authority in all matters of faith and practice. When dealing with trials, temptations, and disappointments, nothing will clear the way to victory like seeing our world - viewing our circumstances through the lenses of scripture. Seeing our world theologically is how we face life faithfully. Read the Bible, Study the Bible. Memorize and meditate upon it. Hear it preached and taught. Read it publicly and share it with others. Charles Spurgeon said, “Many books in my library are now behind and beneath me. They were good in their way once, and so were the clothes I wore when I was ten years old, but I have outgrown them. Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.”

Face it! - Faith Over Feelings

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 22:21:20 GMT

Facing The World By Viewing All Things Through The Lenses Of Truth

Fundamental to the Christian life is the concept of walking by faith. Our lives are lived in step-by-step increments, directed by what we believe (2 Cor. 5:7, 8). Faith, often described as a blind leap into the dark, is, according to scripture, a visionary step into well-lit paths (Ps. 119:130; Acts 26:18; Jn. 3:18-21). Faith is simply and scripturally defined as believing what God has revealed or believing what God said because He said it. That is faith (Rom. 10:16-17; 1 Thess. 2:13; et al.).

One of the most destructive influences in Christianity at large would be the misleading notions of mysticism. This philosophical determination to look within for truth, judging all things by the voices in one’s head, has replaced biblical discernment for much of the Christian world. Some denominations and movements are more affected by mysticism than others. However, even some of the most conservative Bible-believing groups conflate emotional conclusions and internal impulses with the voice of God. If we add to the tendency to “look within” for truth, the tsunami-level waves of opinion from social media sources, pop culture, and liberal theology, we are confronted with a Christian culture riddled with confusion but determined to continue without rebuke. Postmodernism has attempted to make acquiescence with reprehensible levels of contradiction appear principled. To these people, radical degeneracy is fine. Being judgmental is sin of the darkest hue. Rank blasphemy and profane utterances amount to free expression and authenticity. Being faithful to one’s religious convictions is not nice. It is not kind to see distinctions and recognize the disparity between up and down, good and evil, upright and perverse.

We should expect sin from sinners and godlessness from those who have rejected God. The more pertinent issue with the faithful believer is our tendency to remove the lenses of scripture and view the world with unsanctified eyes. Too often, secularism overtakes our thinking. We adopt the philosophies of the pagan world without noticing. The only antidote to this ideological and behavioral seepage is to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom” (Col. 3:16).

We all have complex, some even unbearable realities to face. We have a choice concerning how we see them. We can view these struggles with the eyes of humanism like most people or face them faithfully by examining them through the lenses of scripture - understanding our world theologically. While some of our struggles are the unavoidable consequences of Providence and circumstance, much of our trouble results from nurturing unscriptural ideas - vain imaginations exalted against the knowledge of God (Rom. 1:21-23; 2 Cor. 10:4-5). Flawed thinking is a pitfall for us all. I can be anxious because of my refusal to trust God with details beyond my control. I can be resentful because of my inability to be gentle in spirit and content with whatever state I am required to endure. I can be angry because of self-will or frustrated by the machinations of evil men. By humility and seeing myself through biblical lenses, spiritual wisdom can replace my foolish emotions and philosophies.

Western civilization has become a culture defined by its determination to “do that which is right in its own eyes” (Jud. 21:25). This milieu of moral chaos should be expected in a society more offended by rectitude than compromise. Twentieth Century evangelist and philosopher, Francis Schaeffer, identified the change in how modernity views the truth as the culprit for our shocking, moral declension. This change, he said, is how you account for the generation gap. For the first time in the history of the West, father and son sit at the same table with nothing in common. Schaeffer taught that this change is how society views the truth - a rejection of absolutes. This change marks the line of despair for the culture. Without a belief in presuppositional absolutes, there can be no other destination than despair.

Schaeffer illustrates this descent as a cascading decline of influences, with sundry ideological disciplines leading the culture beyond the parameters of hope. In this diagram, Schaeffer suggests that philosophy (the intellectuals in higher education) influences art and entertainment, which shapes the general culture. The culture then influences politics and theology. In summary, the godless intellectuals facilitate “progress,” which, in turn, determines popular theology. This move takes place chronologically and geographically (from Europe to America). The most shocking point is that once these ideas reach the theological departments, what seems to be a new idea has already taken root in society. Lies and perversion have been taught in the colleges, portrayed in art, embraced by the people, and then, sadly, preached from the pulpits as virtue. Apostasy does not emerge from a meaningless vacuum. It is propagandized with diabolical purpose.

Bible-believing Christianity must begin with God and His clearly communicated will concerning all essential matters and strive to live accordingly. Our faith must navigate, not our emotions or alliances. Our challenge is to stand up against the crashing tides of infidelity and sin. By facing life with a biblical, Christian, and theological worldview, we find order, stability, and peace with God. This outlook will bring the richness of genuine worship into our hearts but will not earn us favor with the world that hates God and always has (Jn. 15:18-19).

You have one life to live. Face it faithfully. Following your heart, guided by your feelings will lead to error and ruin. Believe God’s truth concerning the Godhead, yourself, and the world in which you live. Base your convictions on the clear teaching of God’s word and educate your preferences and emotions accordingly.

Face it! - An Introduction To Our Content

pastor@pbctrinity.com (Dolton Robertson II) — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 16:45:37 GMT

Facing The World By Viewing All Things Through The Lenses Of Truth

I played on my first little league football team in the third grade. Those were fun days, with early life lessons about winning, losing, teamwork, and enduring pain. We lost every game. Our team was struggling on one particular Saturday morning, which was normal. In that kids' league, the coaches were on the field calling plays in the huddle. Our team was a mess in performance and behavior, and my coach walked off the field in frustration, leaving us to call our own plays. In the next play, we scored a touchdown. I saw that as an outstanding achievement by our underperforming offense.

In the car on the way home from the game, with the audacity of a cocky third grader, I said, "The coach left the game and we scored on our own!" Obviously disapproving of my assessment, my Dad said, "You scored because you wanted to." He then proceeded to lecture me about attitude and effort.

Dad saw things differently than I did as a third grader. He was right. This incident in childhood and others like it initiated a lifelong effort on my part to see the world the way my father saw it. I wanted to see through his eyes. For the believer, seeing the world… Facing It! …by viewing all things through the lenses of God's absolute truth is essential. Our own carnal, selfish perspective will tarnish everything we try to do without the purifying effect of God's word. The Psalmist understood this. He said, "Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way" (Ps. 119:128). When we begin with complete submission to the authority of God's word, we start with an advantage. We are protected from the negative outcomes of "every false way." Solomon understood this. He said, "Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, That I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee?" (Pr. 22:20, 21). God's word provides the only certain counsel. By viewing our world through the filter of the absolute truth of God's word, we can judge with insights beyond our ordinary capacity. Paul understood this. He made it clear. The inspired scripture is profitable to the extent that it furnishes (supplies and equips) the man of God throughly (wholly) unto all good works. God's word is perfect (Ps. 19:7), sufficient, and effectual (1 Thess. 2:13).

Another way of describing this matter is what philosophers call a "worldview." The Germans, Kant and Hegel, used the word Weltanschauung . The basic idea involves a "conceptual scheme" or paradigm through which we view the world, determining what we believe and how we interpret everything. For the Bible-believing Christian, our worldview begins and ends with what the scripture says. Carl F. H. Henry said, "Our theological systems are not infallible, but God's propositional revelation is." Because I believe the Bible to be the word of God, I reject naturalistic evolutionary humanism. That does not mean I can single-handedly triumph over the skepticism of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. It does, however, ensure that I trust God's word over theirs…every time and in every way.

The 1689 London Baptist Confession begins with these words:

The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain , and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience, although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in diversified manners to reveal Himself, and to declare (that) His will unto His church; and afterward for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan, and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing ; which makes the Holy Scriptures to be most necessary, those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now completed.

In a later paragraph, the confession says, "The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself ; and therefore when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture ( which are not many, but one ), it must be searched by other places that speak more clearly." These historic Baptists were saying "We believe the word of God and trust its interpretation of itself above all other sources and impulses. While the confessions of historic Baptists are only as reliable as they are biblical, the determination of those Baptists to believe God's word alone to be binding on the conscience, prevented the kind of hysterical error that currently infects popular Christian expression.

Traditions shared along cultural, familial, or religious lines may be meaningful, but they often hinder facing our world biblically. The Bible must be the arbitrator when our traditions are in question. Sadly, feelings and internal impulses are the guiding therapists for so many Christians today. God has spoken only when you can identify the message biblically. No one is to "follow their hearts." Self-authenticating, inner-guide mysticism is the ruin of discernment. Even the conscience can only hold you to the highest level of good and evil that it has been educated to know. Christian scholarship can be a tremendous help, but even the most brilliant voices can be wrong, thus the injunction to "…let God be true, but every man a liar" (Rom. 3:4).

Faith is believing what has been revealed. THE faith is what is known by revelation. When the Christian speaks of revelation, he refers to the collective truth that God has made known to us. Therefore, we understand that Christianity is a revealed religion. Man did not find it or invent it. God spake unto the fathers (He. 1:1, 2). The fathers did not wake up one day and say, "Let us find the Creator." D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said about Romans 1:17:

There is no Christianity apart from revelation. And the Christian church is as she is today because men have forgotten revelation, and have been putting philosophy in its place. They have been trying to find God. They have been trying to reconstruct a Saviour, a 'Jesus of Nazareth.' They have been making a gospel of their own. We have heard so much about the quest for truth, the 'search' for reality. Now that is the exact opposite of the gospel. The gospel is not something that invites us to join in a great search or a great quest. It is an announcement. It is revelation. It is an unfolding, and unveiling of something. It means 'making manifest' or 'making plain and clear.' That is the meaning of revelation - the exact opposite of what has been so popular for at least the last hundred years. And the apostle says he is not ashamed of this gospel because it is the revelation of God's righteousness 'from faith to faith.’

Through revelation, inspiration, preservation, canonization, translation, and daily illumination, the believer can hear from God - he can Face It - by viewing the world through the lenses of God's absolute truth. Charles Spurgeon said, "If your creed and Scripture do not agree, cut your creed to pieces, but make it agree with this book." I say amen. I also say the same about traditions, emotions, family preferences, and any other expression of human opinion. Our new work with Face It media content is an effort to encourage a biblical approach to seeing the world - a return to sound, theological presuppositions. Face It seeks a revival of scriptural faith and practice that would value theology and exposition over pop Christianity and superficial spirituality. No one, especially me, has all the answers. My primary goal is to help struggling saints and sincere preachers re-value God's truth in all matters of faith and practice.

Better Preaching: A Matter of Faithfulness

Mon, 19 Aug 2019 17:40:19 GMT

Preaching is the primary business of the church. It remains front-and-center in Christian worship because it demonstrates that God still speaks through His word. The act of preaching the Bible points the congregation to the only authoritative source for knowing God. Unfortunately, the grand nature of communicating truth is not always reflected in the content of the sermons and the behavior of the preachers. Often, humanistic philosophy, personal anecdotes, and fraternal qualifiers replace scripture for content, and shocking examples of sensationalism and gimmickry masquerade as the power of God.

Our belief in the inspiration and preservation of the scripture should keep us committed to the practice of expounding the word of God faithfully . The conviction that we have God’s words written down ( scripture ) should demand that we always seek to preach them (2 Tim. 3:14-17). In doing so, we succeed in our efforts to preach faithfully and to fail to do so, we fail to preach at all.

Better preaching requires faithfulness . Great preaching can be accomplished without intellectualism, entertaining personalities, and highly developed delivery techniques. However, great preaching will remain an endangered species without faithfulness . One of the salient verses in scripture concerning ministerial faithfulness is found in Paul’s dissertation to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:24:

But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.

This kind of faithfulness was described by John Gill, as, “to testify the gospel of the grace of God, to profess and preach it, to bear a constant and public testimony to it at death, as in life, and faithfully to declare it, and assert it to the last.” Concerning Paul’s commitment to preaching with faithfulness, John Phillips said, “Paul…looked at life from a higher perspective than most of us. Self-preservation was not high on his list of priorities ( Exploring Acts , p. 403).” If one is willing to be faithful unto death, certainly nothing will deter him from preaching faithfully. In contrast, who would die for humanistic anecdotes and syllogisms?

THREE FACTORS FOR FAITHFULNESS FROM ACTS 20

1. Humility

Humility is the opposite of pride (Pr. 6:3; 16:19; 29:23) and consists of lowliness of mind - a proper self-assessment. Pride is haughty, high-minded self-interest, which is a sure killer of faithfulness in preaching. J. I. Packer, called pride the number-one occupational hazard for the preacher. When we begin to preach and promote self , the biblical perspective will be lost and the power gone, or, as Spurgeon said, “You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.” Acts 20 is clear - Paul lived for God and others, not himself. He served “the Lord with all humility of mind” (v. 19), he did not count his life dear unto himself (v. 24), and he frequently warned “with tears” (v. 31). It is difficult to imagine Paul discouraged because the church forgot his birthday. Paul was satisfied by the truth that God alone stood with him (2 Tim. 4:17).

Historically, humility has been considered an obvious prerequisite to ministerial success. Lowliness of mind is expected in a man of God. While we all have encountered those top-heavy, self-ascribed dignitaries who are proud of their virtue, we must not allow their oft’ intimidating pretense to dissuade us from pursuing humility. In spite of clear scriptural rebukes for pride such as, “the Lord will destroy the proud,” and “every one that is of a proud heart is an abomination to the Lord” (Prov. 16:5; 16:25), preachers are often more peacock that plow mule. Many would rather strut than serve. Hubris, even bullying, and belligerence is preferred by some over sound exposition and charitable application. It is so bad in certain circles that preachers even boast of their willingness to fight other preachers. It would be funny if it were not so humiliating. The obvious pitfall is to assume that fruitfulness in preaching is predicated upon the exaltation of the preacher. This colossal error has caused many to take refuge in the misinterpretation of verses such as…

“The Lord forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against the Lord’s anointed…” (1 Sam. 26:11).

“…I magnify mine office.” (Rom. 11:13).

“Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” (1 Cor. 11:1)

…To the exclusion of verses like…

“…that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another. For who maketh thee to differ from another?” (1 Cor. 4:6, 7).

“For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves…” (2 Cor. 10:12).

“…lest I should be exalted above measure.” (2 Cor. 12:7).

“And I will gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.” (2 Cor. 12:15).

“…for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me.” (Gal. 2:6).

Being humble, for the preacher, necessitates submission to a text of scripture. This trajectory precludes arrogance. This kind of genuine humility in the heart of a preacher is essential to faithfulness. Without it, authentic ministry suffers insurmountable blows to reputation and usefulness. Subtle forms of pride will show up in the preaching experience in two ways: the notion that the preacher must be considered “great” in order to do big things and in the aggrandizement of personal agenda. The antidote to each respectively is self-awareness and self-denial, the combination of both is de facto, humility.

2. Commitment to People

To the elders of Ephesus, Paul rehearsed his commitment to the people God called him to serve. He said, “Ye know…after what manner I have been with you at all seasons” (v. 18) and “I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you” (v. 20), “I am pure from the blood of all men” (v. 26), “I ceased not to warn every one” (v. 31), and “I coveted no man’s silver, or gold or apparel” (v. 33). A lack of humility will lend itself to an ego-centric, preaching ministry. Contrariwise, the humble man of God will prioritize people - their needs, burdens, and concerns - above his own. Paul’s profound love for those to whom he ministered is a matter of record (Rom. 1:7-12; 9:1-3; 10:1; 2 Cor. 1:24; 1 Thess. 2; et al.). As this kind of love is produced in our hearts for the people to whom we preach, we will experience fruitfulness in kind. The glorious gospel is worthy of this consistency.

Paul’s care for of the saints at Thessalonica provides an insightful guide for how to treat the people to whom we preach. Here’s a simple, observational rundown of the characteristics of faithful preaching from 1 Thessalonians 2. Look for…

1. Boldness (v. 1), not belligerence. Paul’s boldness was not displayed in his willingness to challenge other preachers to a brawl (re: nutty social media accounts), but his determination to speak unto them the gospel of God with much contention. Paul was defensive of the gospel, not his silly, personal opinions about every matter on earth from Lebron James to Donald Trump.

2. Honest exhortation (vv. 3-4), not manipulative, intimidating diatribes (a bitter and abusive speech or piece of writing). Paul had no personal agenda to perpetuate, nor fraternal loyalties to highlight, thus, deceit was not a temptation. His aim was to please God by preaching the gospel. He was not trying to raise money or get ahead (v. 5); he was living and dying for the gospel.

3. Gentle affection (vv. 6-8), not glory-seeking, self-promotion. A nurse does not enter the nursery, hoping the children will see how great she is. A nurse comes to cherish the children, to feed and protect them. The nurse provides an example of what the pastor is supposed to do through his preaching ministry - love his people by preaching the gospel and expounding its exigencies. This, and this alone is faithful preaching.

The backdrop against which this amazing example of service is set is Paul’s steadfast belief in the effectuality of God’s word (2 Thess. 2:13). He believed in the sufficiency of scripture and that conviction drove him. Faith in God’s word and its efficacy will lead us to preach it. Weak faith leads to weak preaching.

3. The Content of the Message

There was no doubt about Paul’s message. He preached “repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 21). He testified “the gospel of the grace of God” (v. 24), preached “the gospel of the kingdom of God…all the counsel of God,” (v. 25, 27), and “the word of his grace” (v. 32). He laid down the most lucid and comprehensive order for the work of preaching found in scripture - “Preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:1-8). While this should be obvious, it is not; for much time is spent in the pulpit on things that are not in the Bible, do not relate to anything in the Bible and indeed do not illustrate biblical truth. The energy expended in many sermons on subject matter not supported by the text or any other passage of scripture is stunning.

THE fundamental truth of Christianity is that God has spoken and continues to speak through His word. God…wrote…a book. We must preach that book. The Bible is our agenda. We do not “get our message” from the text; the text is the message. We labor to understand it in study, work to communicate what we understand in the preparation of the sermon and we deliver it faithfully by communicating just that - the content of scripture as God has revealed it.

Imagine the tragedy of an ordinary man getting up on Sunday morning, often his only day off, and going to church. He is a lost man, but he can sense his need for something more in life. He awakens his family; they get dressed and rush out the door with little more than a donut for breakfast. They pull onto the property of a local church to which they have been invited and navigate the off-putting currents of awkwardly, happy people. They are greeted and herded into place. They take in the music, sing some hymns (hopefully), stare at the decor, people and preacher. The moment of “truth” arrives and the pastor ascends the steps to the platform and preaches a sermon that is part Rush Limbaugh and part Jerry Seinfeld with a little religious jargon sprinkled in. The text of scripture is like the national anthem at a ball game. Once read, it is hardly referenced again. The pastor preaches patriotism, old-fashioned values, morals, work ethic and an assortment of things that may be amenable to whatever degree, but there is very little gospel, no Bible expounded in context and applied faithfully. What is said might be the truth, but it is not God’s truth. This scenario is dreadful. Every preacher of the word of God should fear their potential for this tragedy above all else.

Better preaching requires faithfulness and faithfulness involves humility, a commitment to people, and the right message. When we strive for these things, the difference will be self-evident. The difference will be faithfulness and in the these three areas, we can all do better.

Better Preaching = Work!

Fri, 15 Mar 2019 18:06:32 GMT

In pursuit of better preaching, I began to research the subject over a year ago. The observations are noteworthy, and I felt it might be encouraging to some if I shared them. While challenging preachers to preach better sermons is as precarious as having lunch with Emily Post , the potential for good is staggering. One encouraged preacher can be used of God to shape eternity.

Once the preacher is immersed in the effects of having remobilized the axioms of biblical authority , better preaching will demand… work . It is life -work. Preaching that pulls back the shades of ordinary misapprehension and enables people to see the riches of God’s grace, will only be developed with hard work - daily, relentless work. One could not find a better example of pastoral labor than the oft’ quoted, ubiquitous, Charles Spurgeon. The English Baptist pastor preached thousands of sermons, published in 63 volumes - the largest set of books by anyone in Christian history. Spurgeon’s son said, “There was no one who could preach like my father. In inexhaustible variety, witty wisdom, vigorous proclamation, loving entreaty and lucid teaching, with a multitude of other qualities, he must, at least in my opinion, be ever regarded as the prince of preachers” ( C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography , Vol. 2, p. 278).

One biographer said that Spurgeon read six books a week, wrote over 140 of his own and often worked eighteen hours a day. This from the man who said, “Brethren, do something; do something ; DO SOMETHING. While committees waste their time over resolutions, do something. While societies and unions are making constitutions, let us win souls. Too often we discuss and discuss and discuss, while Satan only laughs in his sleeve. It is time we had done planning and sought something to plan. I pray you, be men of action all of you. Get to work and quit yourselves like men” ( An All-Round Ministry , p. 55). This work, this commitment to doing , must value preaching as the pastor’s ultimate priority. Spurgeon certainly did, and Paul required it (1 Tim. 4:13-16; 5:17; 2 Tim. 2:15). Spurgeon said, “Emotion, doubtless, is a very proper thing in the pulpit, and the feeling, the pathos, the power of heart, are good and great things in the right place; but do also use your brains a little, do tell us something when you stand up to preach the everlasting gospel. The sermons that are the most likely to convert people seem to me to be those that are full of truth…Tell your hearers something, dear brethren, whenever you preach, tell them something, tell them something” ( The Soul Winner , p. 99).

It is easy for the sundry demands of ministry to crowd out the vital work that goes into good preaching. The inimitable, Brown University President and Baptist leader, Francis Wayland, lamented his struggles with the conflicting concerns of the pastorate:

When a man’s mind is thus occupied, his interest in his people will gradually diminish. His outside work seems to be religious; it must be done today: his work for his people may be done tomorrow or next week, and in the end it is not done at all. At last his real work, the work for which he is paid - labor for the souls committed to his care - receives only the chippings and leavings of his time; and even those chippings and leavings have in them no vitality ( A Memoir of the Life and Labors of Francis Wayland , Vol. 2, p. 196).

The tangling effects of the pastor’s potential involvements may lead, not only to preaching that is less than good, but personal and moral crises as well. Wayland continued:

Another effect of this multiplication of business is, to break up all habits of devotion, till a man’s religion becomes often a dry skeleton of orthodox doctrine, rather than a living fountain within him, quickening his own soul, and refreshing the souls of others. But the minister has the same liability to sin as other people, and some temptations peculiar to himself. If his religion has become inoperative, the power of temptation is redoubled, and nothing but the especial grace of God can preserve him from falling into sin ( Wayland , pp. 196, 197).

What an unspeakable tragedy it is for the man of God to give only the “chippings and leavings” of his time to the work of preaching. It is worth more and requires more. Could we not give more to this great work? Granted, every pastor faces variations of scheduling imposition. Each situation allows for fluctuating combinations of time, talent and toil. Some men have the privilege (Lk. 12:48) of giving “full-time” to the work of edifying the body of Christ while necessity requires others to serve bi-vocationally (something many men of God have done with great usefulness throughout the years). Some have vast resources for building libraries and collecting material without end, while others, as Alexander Whyte suggested, sell their shirts to buy books. Some are vehicles of near peerless, God-given talent for moving people with persuasiveness and charm; others plod beneath the weight of their inherent limitations. Regardless, let us take the time and talent that God has given us and work ! God can take the hands-full of meal that we can gather from the bottom of the barrels of our human resources and feed His people well.

A simple, two-fold admonition is in order:

Let us seize our opportunities by faith and work hard!

Could it be that the potential for better preaching among us dies, not for lack of ability, but the absence of vigorous faith? If we believe that God will bless His word, then our efforts should be proportionately applied to the significance of the duty before us. Because we believe, because we expect God to work - we work! Every opportunity is big. Every Lord’s day sermon is monumental. Every open door is meaningful. May we prepare accordingly. May we seize our opportunities by faith and work hard!

Faith that expects God to work that believes what God said because He said it in His word has sustained centuries of preaching from the darkest of places and through the severest of trials. One American example of rare, faith-based fortitude in preaching and ministerial labor is Isaac Backus. Born in 1724 in Norwich, Connecticut, Backus grew, by slow degree, into a Baptist by conviction and an ardent defender of religious liberty. Alvah Hovey described the labors of this “firm, consistent, earnest and charitable Baptist” in this way:

Without turning back to rail at those whom he had left, his energies were faithfully applied to the great work of preaching Christ at home and by the way. From year to year the little church under his care grew in numbers and strength; neglected districts were made glad as heretofore by his occasional but zealous proclamation of the gospel; and feeble interests were kept alive by his wise counsels and stout-hearted faith ( The Life and Times of Isaac Backus , Alvah Hovey, p. 129).

During a space of eleven years (1756-1767), Backus preached 2,412 sermons (avg. 4 per week) and traveled 14,691 miles on horseback, not counting the travel and labor within the immediate reach of his local church labor. Cathcart recorded that Backus traveled, in a six-month stretch in 1789, through Virginia and North Carolina to strengthen the churches. He traveled 3,000 miles and preached 126 sermons. He accomplished, according to Cathcart, an immense amount of work during his ministerial life.

Alvah Hovey wrote of the journeys of Backus:

These were frequent and laborious until the end of life. Over the hills, across the valleys, and beside the streams of New England, he pursued his rugged and toilsome way, and accomplished his useful mission…Once he was thrown from his horse and severely injured; at another time was near losing his life by the cold; and very often he rode from morning till night in the chill and drenching rain ( Hovey , pp. 312, 313).

Backus set the example for seizing the God-given opportunities by faith and working hard! His labor involved more than enduring the difficulties of eighteenth-century travel; he gave himself to study . Hovey said, “He applied himself with deep earnestness to the study of God’s word, with the best helps accessible and examined with great care the chief works in his own language upon systematic theology, ecclesiastical history and church polity.” Backus, a prolific author and powerful influence with the pen, “keenly watched the shifting forms of error and assiduously qualified himself to withstand their approaches,” a commitment that necessitated reading “the fugitive writings of the day.”

What would be the fruit of the Backus brand of ministerial commitment? Would we not all desire to see souls converted by the grace of God? Besides the passion for God’s glory, what longing could legitimately overshadow the burden for souls in the heart of the preacher? Backus said this:

(March 28, 1756) Preached twice to this people, and the Lord did draw near of a truth and give my soul sweet enlargement. Such bowels of compassion for sinners I haven’t felt for a long while. Oh, that the Lord would appear for the deliverance of these precious souls!

(March 30, 1756) After meeting in the evening, I spoke with a young woman who gave me a clear account of her conversion. I hear that some others have been recently converted in this place. How blessed a thing it is to see a new-born soul!

(April 3, 1756) Upon returning home and finding his family in good health, Backus wrote: The divine favors have been distinguishing here; and while I have been gone, the assistance which I have enjoyed in preaching and the conversions which I have seen among sinners, together with the language of new-born souls, have made it the most comfortable journey to me that I have taken this winter.

Maybe, those of us who enjoy comfortable, heated and air-conditioned vehicles with advanced audio technology; warm, dry homes and hotel rooms; a near-endless restaurant selection in every single town; comfort-oriented wardrobes, offices, and libraries; affordable laptops, iPads, smartphones, internet and all the advancements resulting from scientific and medical progress, the industrial revolution and the subsequent information age…could work a little harder at preaching good sermons. May God help us to seize each opportunity by faith and work hard at the work of preaching!

Better Preaching and Biblical Authority

Mon, 25 Feb 2019 16:34:35 GMT

In a recent blog, I declared, since preaching is our priority trust, a commitment to improvement therein would be in order. The work of feeding the sheep by preaching God’s word is a labor worthy of our most arduous industry. As New Testament believers, we are continuing in “the apostles’ doctrine" (Acts 2:42), and as they, contending for the faith once delivered unto the saints (Jude 3). The apostles are our examples of how to minister. They were the original preachers of the New Testament message. Thomas Armitage called them “comprehensive expositors of Him and His gospel.” Preaching is lofty, challenging work. Doing it well - better than ever - is worthy of our deliberate effort.

What does better preaching involve? We are commanded to “Preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:2) because it is “able to make thee wise unto salvation” (2 Tim. 3:15), it is “profitable for doctrine” (2 Tim. 3:16), and it is, to state the distinctive principle of the Baptists, the final authority in all matters of faith and practice. It appears; consequently, the first necessity for better preaching is:

Routine remobilization of the axioms of biblical authority.

Often, the influence of extreme challenges to our ideological norms, move us imperceptibly toward positions once unthinkable. This digression happened to preaching in the 20th century. Many charge Harry Emerson Fosdick as a prominent influence in this regard.

Fosdick, the leading 20th-century liberal, famous for the sermon, “Shall the Fundamentalist Win?” and the book, The Modern Use of the Bible , brought a modernistic philosophy to sermonizing. In his frustration with the difficulties of preaching, Fosdick “came to the conclusion that a new approach to preaching was needed.” In an analysis of Fosdick’s methods, found in the book entitled Preaching As Counseling , Edmund Holt Linn said:

The highly regarded expository method seemed to him fraught with weakness. It gave unwarranted importance to some passage in the Bible instead of to the business of living…”

Fosdick himself said, “Only the preacher proceeds still upon the idea that folk come to church desperately anxious to discover what happened to the Jebusites.” It is this kind of dismissiveness for God’s word that led an admirer of Fosdick to say, “If any young man wished to learn what to preach, he might look elsewhere; but if he would learn how to preach, let him tarry here.” Separating the how from the what is precisely how preaching took a downward trajectory in the last century. Preaching that is pithy, inspiring and informative and yet without biblical content…is not preaching.

Fosdick’s humanistic, liberal approach was described as “personal counseling on a large scale” where “the scriptures seemed to afford a source of interesting materials other than any kind of authority for Fosdick.” Sadly, some very influential fundamentalists, while rejecting Fosdick’s modernism, adopted an approach to preaching that is strikingly similar and theologically vapid. It hardly matters what one professes to believe doctrinally if it never makes it into his sermons.

If our preaching is to improve, the authority of the scripture must be our overarching, regulatory principle. When our preaching is shaped and informed by this conviction, that is, when we have remobilized the axioms of biblical authority in our preaching, some things will surface:

1. We will submit our own personal and fraternal agendas to the will of God.

The will of God is not, like some strategically located Easter egg, intended to be kept from us. His will is clearly communicated in His word. It is the plain thing that is the main thing, most of the time. By striving to preach God’s word and only His word, to never be wise above what is written, we will find ourselves limited to a more sanctified message. This determination keeps us trained on the goal of speaking what God has said, not so much what we want to say. God’s agenda does not accommodate ours. We are obligated to submit to His.

The solution is not to say that in our avoidance of personal crusades, we should seek unity at all costs. E. Y. Mullins said, “If denominationalism ever ceases to exist and all Christians become one it will be not by artificial schemes of union, but through the gradual growth of unity of view, that is, through the operation of the voluntary principle.” The gradual development of this "unity of view" will only be produced through the preaching and teaching of the word of God. Biblical persuasion is what produces the “voluntary element" upon which all genuine Christian profession depends. Intimidation, ridicule and backroom politics will not do.

The chaffing effect of God’s applied authority is not just for those who are ideologically divergent. His Providence and convicting work will resist our carnal impulses as well. Through the years, I have found some of my own most cherished plans and ideas to be wholly personal and not of God. Remobilization of the axioms of biblical authority will cause us to submit our will to His, in preaching, teaching, leadership, and ministry in general.

2. The content of the word of God will be the message.

I wish I could recover the time and energy I burned each week in the first ten years of my pastoral work, searching for a “message,” or what I called, “something to preach.” While I was aware of the command to “Preach the word,” I had my own ideas of how to do that. It took years for it to sink in that whatever passage I studied laboriously and delivered faithfully on any given Sunday, would be light years better than the clever sermonizing I might produce. I was commanded to preach the word with “longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Tim. 4:2), to hold “forth the words of life” (Phil. 2:16), but I was motivated by the desire to be sensational. I valued emotional contrivances over communicating truth clearly and sensibly. There is no correlation between constancy to biblical study and spiritual deadness. There is; however, a direct line between doctrinal ignorance and powerless, wild-eyed mysticism.

It is common for some to make a distinction between a classroom and the pulpit. They love to say, “Get out of the library and back to the pea patch.” While I am not exactly sure what that means, I do know that the word of God commands the preacher to work hard in the field of study (2 Tim. 2:15). Paul requested, not only the parchments but the books as well. Bible preaching (the bold proclamation of God’s word that demands a response) cannot exist without the component of teaching (the transfer of knowledge with attention to detail). Doctrine is what is taught . To “continue in the apostles’ doctrine” is to be devoted to strong, informative, theological preaching, teaching, and learning. A commitment to the scripture as “the final authority in all matters of faith and practice” will, without a doubt, result in the distribution of God’s truth as our primary ministry commitment.

3. Salient doctrines will not be trivialized by absurdity.

I have become increasingly alarmed by the distasteful, irreverent, undignified way in which God’s highest truth is being delivered. I must say, I have been guilty myself. I have preached about hell and resorted to sensational anecdotes to provide the “power.” I have preached about holiness and utilized the ridicule of others as a means for challenging God’s people. I have preached the gospel and relied upon gut-wrenching stories to bring people to a decision instead of exercising faith in His word and sending it out with painstaking clarity.

False ideas abound concerning the Godhead, eternity and the gospel. How necessary it is for God’s men to preach every sermon with faithfulness! We must preach, knowing that lost, confused, ignorant people will formulate their impressions of Christianity by how we handle the truth. “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God,” (Rom. 10:17), not by stories, tantrums, tirades, comedy routines, mysticism and guilt trips.

I offer these thoughts, not as a high-toned criticism of others, but as an expression of my painful realization that I have failed here myself. While I am abundantly thankful for God’s merciful demonstrations of grace in using me to the extent that He has, I am loath to continue without careful examination of my own heart and habits. With God’s help, I must preach better.

A Priority Trust: Committed To Better Preaching In 2019

Wed, 23 Jan 2019 21:34:47 GMT

Institutions become dilapidated when discontinuity between their importance and our commitment to them is allowed to exist. Few enterprises are marked with more pervasive mediocrity than preaching. This is dreadful. The apostle Paul told Titus that God has “manifested his word through preaching which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Saviour” (Tit. 1:3). The incomprehensibly important truth of “eternal life” which God promised before the world began, is made known to the world, through preaching.

It is hardly possible to overrate the priority of preaching God’s word. It is God’s plan for saving sinners (1 Cor. 1:17-21; Rom. 10:14-17), the means for equipping the saints (Ep. 4:11-12; 2 Tim. 4:1-3), and the centerpiece of corporate worship in this age (Acts 2:41-42; 1 Cor. 14:1-3, 23-25). John Broadus said, “But alas! How difficult it is to preach well! How small a proportion of the sermons heard weekly throughout the world are really good.” While the assessment of John Broadus rings true, it is unnecessary. Erasmus famously said, “If elephants can be trained to dance, lions to play and leopards to hunt, surely preachers can be taught to preach!” If it is true that good preaching is so scarce and yet so achievable, why the scarcity?

1. Good Preaching is Work

The pastor’s responsibility is more demanding than what may be accomplished in a few brief hours, polishing an assortment of stories and syllogisms. Preaching that lays open the word of God is laborious. It involves more than clever wordplay and creative alliteration. Ecclesiastes 12:12 says, “…much study is a weariness of the flesh” and 2 Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

2. Honest self-analysis is painful.

What preacher wants to discover egregious flaws in his content and delivery? Some truths are just too much to bear. Perhaps a better way of seeing this would be to rejoice that as long as we are alive, we have the opportunity to improve our craft. We can dig deeper, work harder, learn more and increase our passion for doing so. When we are honest with ourselves, we can see many ways that our preaching could improve.

3. The altered the objective and therefore the process.

It is so easy to get lost in the effort to please men. While attendance numbers and statistical metrics should not be what motivates the preacher of God’s word, it is almost impossible to avoid the temptation to measure one’s success with numbers. The natural response to this struggle is to preach to entertain and woo instead of edify, exhort and warn. To preach the word of God is our primary duty as pastors. Without biblical preaching, whatever we are winning people “to” is not what we are called to extol.

4. Bad examples prevail.

In a little book entitled, How to Improve Your Preaching (1945), Bob Jones, Jr. said, “People who write books on etiquette have my sympathy. They must - poor creatures - find little pleasure at a dinner party…When one presumes to set down rules of practice in any art…he immediately becomes the object of observation when he, himself, attempts to practice it…” No one should seek to become so critical of epidemic insipidity in the pulpit that he cannot be encouraged by the simplest and most sincere exhortations from good men. Even in our most gracious analysis, there is an abundance of absolute nonsense in preaching these days. Foolishness in the pulpit is no new thing, for Spurgeon said, “I have frequently said of myself that I would not go across the road to hear myself preach, but I will venture to say of certain brethren that I would even go across the road in the other direction not to hear them preach. Some sermons and prayers lend a color of support to the theory of Dr. William Hammond, that the brain is not absolutely essential to life” (An All-Around Ministry, by Charles Spurgeon, pp. 316-317).

5. We prioritize practical application over sound doctrine and thorough exposition.

Application is helpful as far as it goes; however, a passage carefully explained (exposit = explain; expound = explain) will contain much implicit application. When the meat and meaning of a text is overlooked for agenda-driven practicality, the discourse has become something other than biblical preaching. Coaching, counseling, advising, cajoling or motivating it may be, but biblical preaching it is not when we have failed to communicate the word of God .

Preaching demonstrates in its form and function the vital truth that God has spoken and is speaking to man. God speaks through scripture, and; the medium of preaching reminds us of this when accomplished faithfully. Consequently, to stand with God’s word open and preach could be the most urgent of all Christian responsibilities. It is an irreplaceable act of the highest order.

To preach; therefore, is something specific . It is clear what preaching is and is not . To preach is to speak God’s word to an individual or group of listeners so that they understand it in the way in which God intended. Sounds simple, but it is not. It is laborious always, frequently complex and seldom without a direct challenge to our presuppositions.

In 2019, with God’s help, I would love to preach with a more meaningful commitment to the trust that God has bestowed upon me. I want to improve. I long to preach well. Here are two ways that I intend to approach this objective:

By laboring in a text of scripture every week. Imagine the profit a local church would enjoy if their pastor toiled weekly to expound scripture to them with care. It can be shocking to examine what we are doing in the pulpit. Analyze some of your sermons. Remove the jokes, long stories, rants, politics, and personal opinions and notice how short the sermons become. Take some of the time back and preach God’s word to the people. In a decade you could effectively cover large portions of God’s word where families will be influenced by truth instead of belligerence and silliness.

Preach with the glory of God and the good of others in mind - a much nobler motive than performing for laughs or admiration. God is exalted when His word is communicated in clarion presentations of boldness and conviction. Speak the truth in love. Know that when the hearers of God’s word believe it, His word will change them. What an amazing privilege! What a vital trust!