preachers beware

I had this thought today:

It's easier to live heresy than to preach it. It's easier to preach holiness than to live it.

dual authorship of scripture

Wayne Grudem:

In cases where the ordinary human personality and writing style of the author were prominently involved, as seems the case with the major part of Scripture, all that we are able to say is that God’s providential oversight and direction of the life of each author was such that their personalities, their backgrounds and training, their abilities to evaluate events in the world around them, their access to historical data, their judgment with regard to the accuracy of information, and their individual circumstances when they wrote, were all exactly what God wanted them to be, so that when they actually came to the point of putting pen to paper, the words were fully their own words but also fully the words that God wanted them to write, words that God would also claim as his own.

Norman Geisler:

Judging by the various vocabulary, grammar, styles, figures of speech, and human interests of the various authors, God did not disregard the personality and culture of the biblical writers when He providentially guided them to be the vehicles through which He revealed His written Word to humankind. On the contrary, the Bible is a thoroughly human book in every respect, except that it is without error. Regardless of the mystery surrounding how God was able to make His word certain without the destroying the freedom and personality of the authors, several things are clear. The human authors of Scripture were not mere secretaries taking dictation; their freedom was not suspended or negated, and they were not automatons. What they wrote is what they desired to write in the style that they were accustomed to using. God in His providence engaged in a divine concurrence between their words and His so that what they said, He said.

John MacArthur:

God formed the personality of the writer. God made [him] into the man He wanted him to be. God controlled his heredity and his environment. When the writer reached the point that God intended, God directed and controlled the free choice of the man so that he wrote down the very words of God. God literally selected the words of each author’s own life, out of his personality, his vocabulary, and his emotions. The words were man’s words, but that man’s life had been so framed by God that they were God’s words as well.

reposted from expositorythoughts.wordpress.com

preacher or leader?

here is an interesting article about the "false dichotomy" between preaching and leading. the writer, Jeff Purswell, argues that for a pastor, preaching is the most effective form of leadership. he writes:

"There is no more powerful or fundamental expression of a pastor’s leadership than the preaching of the Word. At its core, that’s what biblical leadership is: setting forth for our people a biblical vision of God and his purposes, and then calling them to give their lives to it and live in light of it (and outside the pulpit, modeling for them what it looks like)."

i think that's spot on. the question though for every multi-site church that uses video teaching is what then is the role of the campus pastor? i think he answers that in his address to pastors who have "a specialized sphere of ministry" i.e. non-teaching. he says we should be "thinking about how the Sunday preaching can be applied in the life of the church in your sphere."

[click here] to read the full article.

power in preaching

"Power in preaching comes from intimacy with God not from trying to impress people with how much you know about the text."

- Rick Warren

leading and leaving

"Success without a successor is net failure."

- author unknown

credibility

a great quote from Mark Batterson, lead pastor of National Community Church:

"credibility is NOT a byproduct of perfection. credibility is a byproduct of authenticity."

Expectation and Preaching

Here's an amazing thought from Alistair Begg about the role of prayerful expectation in preaching. He says this in the context of explaining that effectiveness in preaching comes from the Word itself in the power of the Holy Spirit rather than from the preacher's delivery.

"Do you understand that I can preach the same sermons if you would pray harder and they will be ten times more effective? Because for a meaningful preaching event, you need an expectant praying preacher and you need an expectant praying congregation and when the expectations meet at the throne of grace whereby both preacher and listeners are looking to God rather than to one another then suddenly there's a divine chemistry that takes place there."

- Alistair Begg, sermon called "Four Marks of a Healthy Church"

a call to faithfulness

A thought from Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:

The uniqueness of the call to Christian ministry is bound up in the fact that ministers will not finish what they started because they are laying the foundation upon which God is constructing his church. The call to ministry is not one of completing a task, but of faithful gospel proclamation that God grows and finishes. The biblical conception of the Christian ministry is, as we should not be surprised to find, radically at odds with worldly wisdom. Every minister must take care to build faithfully upon the foundation. The one who plants and the who waters are nothing in themselves. The agent of all true Gospel ministry is God himself. As 1 Corinthians 3 makes clear, the worthiness of our work will be fully disclosed on the day of judgment and tested by fire.

two questions for preaching

"A preacher is no good unless he answers two questions: 'So what?' and 'How?'" Lon Solomon

My senior pastor at McLean Bible Church said this tonight during his sermon and I think it's so insightful. The 'So What' question explains why a particular Bible text or topic matters in everyday life. The 'How' question explains how (obviously) you can actually implement what's being taught.

Whenever we preach, those two questions are actually objections, conscious or subconscious, in the minds of our audience. And, unfortunately, sermons are, too often, just conceptual and not practical. They give you lots to think about but no direction as to what to DO about it.

If we want to see them become doers and not just hearers of the Word, we have to address those two questions.

now i know

I used to think a pastor should be the smartest, most qualified person in the church.

Then I became a pastor.

richard baxter on pastoring

I just read this about Richard Baxter, an English pastor and theologian in the mid 1600's:

"He aimed to spend about an hour a year with each family in his flock questioning their understanding of the catechism and giving them spiritual direction. He found that nominal Christians could be shaken out of their complacency more effectively by half an hour's personal discussion than by ten years of preaching."

Wow.

preaching as biography

i had a thought today:

i want my preaching to be as biographical as it is instructional (if not more).

i want my preaching to not just show people what to do but, through my preaching, to really be painting a vivid, accurate, overwhelmingly compelling picture of God. i want my preaching to show people the character and nature of God as much, if not more, than it gives them practical ways to live their life.

matt chandler makes a very good point about the "de-churched" (i.e. people who grew up in church and left). he says that the primary reason they bail on the church is because they weren't being taught the character and nature of God, only pragmatism and behavior modification. he says that their theology is based on this idea: "if i do certain things or abstain from certain things, i will have God's favor." so inevitably, they face tragedy or some situation that totally shakes their faith and they roll out.

i think that's so true and i'm hoping that each sermon of mine would be a brushstroke, painting a clearer and clearer picture of God for the people listening, so that, over time, they would really have an accurate understanding of who God is and live in response to that.

an objective for every meeting

i was reading an article on planning effective meetings and one very basic statement jumped out at me. the author said "every meeting should have a written objective and a written agenda."

i think most of us agree with the agenda part but clarifying (and writing down) the OBJECTIVE is so critical. how many meetings have you planned or simply attended where you had no idea what you were trying to accomplish? you've met, you've talked, you've given updates, but it doesn't lead to any particular conclusion or goal.

i've been challenging myself lately to be much more intentional with my meetings. i'm heading out of town for vacation this week. so yesterday, the written objective for a short meeting with my team was "to make decisions on things that would require my input while i'm gone." clarifying that objective ahead of time was SO HELPFUL! it helped me keep us focused on specific issues that might come up this week instead of drifting into the many other things that, while important, don't require a decision this week.

hopefully instead of more meetings, we can all have more effective meetings.

atheists worship too

It's interesting that in the ancient Roman empire, in the first century A.D., early Christians were seen as atheists. Why? Because they had no visible gods.

The Roman pantheon comprised of hundreds of visible gods who were appeased and worshiped as part of everyday Roman culture. Christians, on the other hand, worshiped the risen Jesus, an "invisible god."

Not much has changed today. Atheism isn't "worshipping no god"; it's worshipping visible gods while rejecting the one, true, living, invisible God.

humor done right

i think the most effective humor in sermons is that which is used to disarm or explain rather than to simply entertain. Humor, done right, helps people identify with and even understand biblical truth. Humor, done wrong, is simply a joke, with no other purpose than to make the preacher feel good about himself.

serving God

a lot of people struggle with the idea of “serving the Lord” because in reality we do all sorts of things that have nothing to do with God directly. you spend 50hrs a week building database software, not reading your Bible or singing Chris Tomlin. but serving God is not just doing “spiritual” things that are directly related to God per se; serving God is simply doing whatever God wants you to do. it’s carrying out whatever God’s will is for your life, for a particular decision, in a particular situation.

when Paul talks about "serving the Lord" in Romans 12:11, he uses the word douleuo which means "to be a slave." a slave serves his master not just by shining his shoes or making his dinner, but by doing anything the master commands. so even if the master commands the slave to serve someone else, that act of service is still in fact serving the master's will.

so the way to serve God is not to unplug from the rest of the world and sing all day. It’s to constantly be asking the question, “God, what do you want me to do?” and, before even getting an answer, being enthusiastically willing to do it.

Charles Spurgeon put it well when he asked: "Has it occurred to you frequently, and does it occur to you constantly to see what the Lord would have you do?"

invest wisely

i was driving to work yesterday morning and had this thought:

Life is short. Eternity is long. Invest wisely.

actions speak louder

this thought came to mind recently and it has really been pushing me to examine myself:

our living should outdo our preaching, by far.

listen to how Paul describes himself in 1 Thessalonians 2:10 - "You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed." the people he ministered to could vouch for his LIFE, not just his sermons. but they weren't the only witnesses. he, with all integrity and confidence, had the audacity to say that God Himself would testify of his personal holiness. this is the God who sees and examines our thoughts and desires (1 Chron.28:9b), who knows our lives when noone else is watching. and paul could confidently call God as a witness to his integrity.

i want my preaching to always be lagging behind my living. not the other way around.

TMI

i was talking to a friend of mine, Will Pavone, today. he was on our staff as a worship leader, now he's finishing up his Th.M at DTS, and he's coming back on staff in December. he shared with me a pretty good preaching principle that he's observed in Tim Keller's preaching:

don't reference Greek (or Hebrew) unless its absolutely essential for understanding what the passage is trying to communicate.

it reminds me of what my dad once told me about preaching: "your fascination can become other people's frustration."

no need to "wow" people with everything you know. just share what helps them understand the passage better.

(by the way, tmi stands for too much information)

online study tools

Here are the standard sites that I typically use when I'm preparing for a sermon:

www.biblegateway.com - great bible search site

www.blueletterbible.com - basically all the Bible study tools you need

www.biblestudytools.com - i particularly love the NAS with Strong's Numbers but you can also click "include study tools" and it'll pull up commentary on each verse

http://www.antioch.com.sg/bible/vines/ - online Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words

www.dictionary.com - self-explanatory plus their thesaurus site

what are your favorite online resources?