Category Archives: Preaching

Christ-centred preaching – some pitfalls

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Edmund Clowney, Sidney Greidanus, Graeme Goldsworthy, Bryan Chappell, Christopher Wright, David Murray, Christopher Ash and others have done the church a great service by their advocacy, in various ways, of a Christ-centred approach to preaching from the Old Testament.

What’s not to like?

Amid all the enthusiasm, Daniel Block sounds a note or two of caution.

Block agrees that Christ-centred preaching

  1. ‘has a long history, beginning with the apostles, the church fathers, the reformers (especially Luther), and extending to more a recent revival [of] Christ-centered preaching in some circles.
…

Mind the gap

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In The Hermeneutical Spiral, Grant Osborne discusses the issue of ‘distanciation’ (the cultural gap that exists between biblical times and today.  Preachers have devised a number of erroneous approaches, including:

  1. Literalistic preaching assumes God automatically bridges the gap and preaches the text as if it were written for today. Normally this is accompanied by a lack of serious effort to understand the text, resulting in shallow, subjective sermons.
  2. Allegorizing…assumes that beneath the literal, surface meaning lies the “real” meaning, such as the Song of Songs as a picture of Christ and the church.
…

Stand-up preaching

Walking With Giants Posted on by

What can the preacher learn from the stand-up comic and other expert communicators?

Not a lot, it might be supposed.  The preacher shouldn’t go all-out for laughs: his message is far too serious.  He shouldn’t preach time again the same message, honing it until every word is in the right place, and the delivery timed to perfection.  He shouldn’t try to create any kind of unnatural persona, but rather be in the pulpit the same person that he is at home, at work, and amongst his friends.…

Wiersbe: the use of imagination in preaching

Walking With Giants Posted on by

A few thoughts from Warren Wiersbe.

“The purpose of preaching is not to explain a subject, but to achieve an object.” (Fosdick)

‘We have forgotten that the Bible is an imaginative book. It contains every kind of literature, from funeral dirges and pastoral poems to epigrams, parables, allegories, and creative symbols that have captured poets, artists, and composers for centuries. For some reason, our views of inspiration and inerrancy have robbed us of a living book, a book that throbs with excitement and enrichment.…

Ministries of the word

Walking With Giants Posted on by

As the pages of the New Testament testify, the ministry of the Word encampasses a wide range activities.  Over thirty verbs are employed.  According to Peter Adam, these may be categorised as follows:

Words of Information: teach, instruct, make known, remind.

Words of Declaration: preach, proclaim, cry out, testify, bear witness, declare, write, read, pass on, set forth.

Words of Exhortation: call, denounce, warn, rebuke, command, give judgment, encourage, appeal, urge, ask.

Words of Persuasion: explain, make clear, prove, guard, debate, contend, refute, reason, persuade, convince, insist, defend, confirm.…

Preaching from the Old Testament? Use Biblical theology!

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Biblical theology (a slightly unfortunate expression, because all theology should be biblical!) means ‘looking for, and following, the connecting themes that run through the Scriptures’ (Millar and Campbell).  In other words, it is discerning the Bible’s overall story; its big picture.

How can biblical theology be used to preach Christian truth from the Old Testament?

Gary Millar offers the following options:

  1. Follow the plan.  Sometimes, a forwards trajectory is present in the OT passage itself.  Ruth 4 (which traces Ruth’s descendants down to King David) and 2 Kings 11 (where that same royal line is in jeopardy) are cases in point. 
…

Dabney: the preacher’s text

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Every sermon should have a text.  That is to say, it should be an explication and application of some portion of Holy Scripture.

A distinction is often made been ‘textual preaching’ and ‘expository preaching’.  The supposition is that there is a fundamental difference between preaching from a short section of the Bible (a single verse, say) and preaching from a longer portion (such as a paragraph).  But there is (or should not be) any fundamental difference. …

Simplicity in preaching

Walking With Giants Posted on by

J.C. Ryle was a master of a simple, forthright style.  His advice to fellow-preachers is invaluable.

Here’s a summary.

Prefatory remarks

1. Simplicity in preaching is of the utmost importance.  We cannot be useful if we cannot be understood, and we cannot be understood if we are not simple.

2. Simplicity in preaching is not easy to attain.  It is easier to appear clever than to be intelligible.

3. Simple preaching does not mean childish preaching.…

The ‘preacherhood of all believers’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

G. P. Hugenberger writes:

While it is true that preachers are not self-appointed (“how can they preach unless they are senṭ” Rom 10:15), it should be noted that Jesus commissioned not merely the Twelve but also the rank and file of his disciples to preach the kingdom of God (cf. the extensive parallels between Mt 10 and Lk. 10, though the latter lacks the term kērýssō). Likewise, in Luke’s account of the “Great Commission” (that “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations,” Lk 24:47) Jesus’ immediate audience included other disciples (e.g.,…

Preaching Christ through film titles

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Richard Bewes writes:

Way back on September 1st, 1957, Billy Graham spoke to some 120,000 people crammed into New York’s Times Square.  Basing his address on the visit of the apostle Paul to Mars Hill in Athens, his text was Acts 17:23 –

‘For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with the inscription to the unknown God.’

The speaker might have made four academic points.  Instead, he emulated Paul – drawing attention, not to surrounding religious altars, as in the case of Mars Hill, but to their modern equivalents in Times Square; the surrounding advertising hoardings for four cinema films then showing. …