that they may dare boldly to do all things by God's Word

Here, then, is the sovereign power with which the pastors of the church, by whatever name they be called, ought to be endowed. That is that they may dare boldly to do all things by God’s Word; may compel all worldly power, glory, wisdom, and exaltation to yield to and obey his majesty; supported by his power, may command all from the highest even to the last; may build up Christ’s household and cast down Satan’s; may feed the sheep and drive away the wolves; my instruct and exhort the teachable; may accuse, rebuke, and subdue the rebellious and stubborn; may bind and loose; finally, if need be, may launch thunderbolts and lightnings; but do all things in God’s Word. – Calvin, Institutes IV.Viii.9.

Every sermon is a "salvation sermon"

Preaching is a means of grace to assist the saints to persevere. Perseverance is necessary for final salvation. Therefore, every sermon is a "salvation sermon"—not just because of its aim to convert sinners, but also in its aim to preserve the holy affections of the saints and so enable them to confirm their calling and election and be saved.
  -- p81, The Supremacy of God in Preaching by John Piper

Not assuming the gospel

Could you have preached that sermon if Christ had not died on the cross? Could you have developed that Christian leadership principle had Christ not been crucified? I’m not saying be impractical—the Bible has much to say about being practical—but make sure that the practical is tied to the message of Jesus. Otherwise we are on the road to an assumption that will lose the gospel.
   – p. 41, Marks of the Messenger by Mack Stiles

The grand design of preaching

The word is called a hammer. Jer. 23:29. Every blow of the hammer is to fasten the nails of the building; so the preacher's words are to fasten you the more to Christ; they weaken themselves to strengthen and settle you. This is the grand design of preaching, no only for the enlightening, but for the establishing of souls; not only to guide them in the right way, but to keep them in it.
  -- Thomas Watson (from A Body of Divinity, pp. 1-2)

Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? Jeremiah 23:29 (ESV)

Image credit: "Thomas Watson (Puritan)" by Eugenio.Graziano - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Bad preaching examples

Michael Jensen posted 10 examples of bad preaching. You'll do well to remember them if you are preaching.

(HT: Giraffe Pen)

Preaching

I've preached in a church gathering four times so far, and it feels as though it is getting more and more difficult every time.
I am preparing for another sermon next Sunday for the High School Ministry at our church, and I feel so inadequate, not just under-prepared.

I take preaching as a tremendous privilege, yet, it seems I am not quite ready for it.
Lack of courage?
Lack of knowledge?
Lack of integrity/self-discipline?

Pray for me this week, as I will continue preparing for the delivery of the sermon.

Communication by words

BBC reports that Ammon Shea from New York likes reading dictionaries. Yes, dictionaries. His interest may surprise you, but what he says about communication and words is gold.

"I'm not against big words per se or fancy or obscure words, obviously I love them, but I'm opposed to using them for their own sake," [Mr. Shae] says.
"If words are to form a communication, you use them as a tool to communicate to people and it's pointless to intentionally use a word that no-one else knows."

Christians who want to bring the gospel to others should remember that whomever you are speaking to. If you are talking to a friend at work, why don't you try using languages they use to present the biblical truths and the gospel to them, instead of the religious, church-like terms that are so foreign to them, or have become too much of a cliche to them that the meanings are lost to them? Hard? If you know the gospel really well, you will soon get better and become much more effective in presenting the gospel. If you don't know the gospel well, if you vaguely know it, or if you only memorised it in point forms, you won't do well in this, but at least you will discover that you don't know the gospel well. You can work on that. If you know the gospel well, you will do fine after a few times of practice, I think, to that particular person with his particular language and cultural background.

A question spinning off from this is, what does it mean to know the gospel well?
I'll leave it for you to think about it for now, but I'll post about it sometime soon.

May the slain Lamb receive His reward

(HT: Christ is deeper still)

Multi-site video preaching

An interesting point made about Multi-site video preaching.

Ultimately, video venues strike me as a poor compromise. They may be necessary at times, but are certainly not a strategy to be pursued, even alongside traditional church plants. They focus entirely too much on the preaching gifts of one person, a trend even we small "emerging" types need to counter.

Thinking about preaching, I think Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones would have said one word about a video preaching: abomination.
Of course, there's no way of knowing that for sure, and I may not go as far as saying that "a"-word. But I strongly agree with Bob Hyatt on the point that video venues are a poor compromise. I may not defend my position analytically and critically as I should, but let me just state a question for those who think it is ok to have video preaching. If you need to be present physically at a Sunday worship together with other brothers and sisters, why is it ok for the preacher to be physically absent?

(HT: Between Two Worlds

The Religious Affections - 3: on Preaching

And the impressing divine things on the hearts and affections of men is evidently one great and main end of which God has ordained that His Word delivered in the holy Scriptures should be opened, applied, and set home upon men, in preaching. And therefore it does not answer the aim which God had in this institution, merely for men to have good commentaries and expositions on the Scripture, and other good books of divinity; because, although these may tend as well as preaching to give men a good doctrinal or speculative understanding of the things of the Word of God, yet they have not an equal tendency to impress them on men's hearts and affections. God hath appointed a particular and lively application of His Word to men in the preaching of it, as a fit means to affect sinners with the importance of the things of religion, and their own misery and necessity of a remedy, and the glory and sufficiency of a remedy provided; and to stir up the pure minds of the saints, and quicken their affections, by often bringing the great things of religion to their remembrance, and setting them before them in their proper colours, though they know them, and have been fully instructed in them already, 2 Peter 1:12-13.
- Jonathan Edwards, from The Religious Affections p.44-45

Preach the Word, the Apostle Paul beseeched Timothy.

(On a lighter note, these sentences were so long that they reminded me of the Apostle Paul.)

Questions to Ask before You Preach

An excellent list of questions that will help shape one's preaching. Be sure to read it through (it's not long), and even write them down somewhere so you can refer to them next time you prepare a sermon.

(HT: JT)

Need for the Gospel, again and again

Jerry Bridges said we need to preach the Gospel to ourselves continuously. In other words, we need to hear the Gospel over and over again.

He began by saying that we tend to slip into the understanding that the gospel is addressed only to sinners. We can forget that we are practicing sinners—sinners every day in thought, word, deed and motive. Hence we need to continue basing our lives on the gospel and need to continue to preach the gospel to ourselves. This is the foundation on which he will build his messages.

(HT: Tim Challies)

What Christian ministry cannot do without

Preachers, and especially the full-time ministers of the Word.
Gordon Cheng has posted an important quote from David Broughton Knox with his own comments here.

Christ-less preaching?

Michael Spencer posted an excellent essay that is marked with a holy desire of seeing and preaching Jesus.
Oh, yes! He who has ears, let him hear.
How often has your heart burned and bled sitting in a sermon that did not have Jesus? What a great deceiver is that preacher! O, may God give us another time of reformation in this lost world!

Bible bash me, please...

I know, I know... that was a catchy title, and considering how that phrase "Bible-bash" has been used normally, it is a strange title, too.
But these days, I've been hearing too many "Bible-talks", "sermons", or "preachings" that have so little Bible in it, or perhaps even worse, twist meaning of a passage, or press one's own view too hard that it does not sound consistent with the rest of the Bible any more. I call that "bashing the Bible."

If you asked me, I'd prefer getting "bible-bashed" by a preacher than hearing someone "bashing the Bible" any day.

Of course I don't mean that we can be irrelevant in preaching, but seriously, think about it, when you get the Bible right, you can't be irrelevant!

Gospel Preaching

Gordon Cheng quoted from "The Priority of Preaching: Prepare and Preach Properly or Perish", in Selected Works Vol II, by D. Broughton Knox, regarding the... well, the title of the article where Gordon quoted says all.

Oh, how I yearn for the gospel to be preached at my church every week. Oh, how I yearn for the gospel to be preached to me everyday! I should pray more for this.