8:28 And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose, 8:29 because those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 8:30 And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.
Baghdad, July 30th 1919.…
The text of a sermon can be anything from (less than) a single verse to (more than) an entire book. Proverbs, aphorisms, summary statements and theologically rich passages in, say, Paul’s letters serve well as short texts. Narratives and parables more suitably serve as longer texts.
Whatever the length of the text, the sermon based on that text must hang together. It must have unity. This means paying close attention to the context. How does your text (whether short or long) fit into the whole?…
Jn 20:29 – ‘Jesus said to [Thomas], “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are the people who have not seen and yet have believed.”’
2 Cor 5:7 – ‘We live by faith, not by sight.’
Heb 11:1 – ‘Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see.‘
The danger for preachers (and others) is to appeal to these texts to support the idea that [Christian] faith does not rely on evidence; that it is a leap in the dark.…
1 Peter 3:1-2 In the same way, wives, be subject to your own husbands. Then, even if some are disobedient to the word, they will be won over without a word by the way you live, 3:2 when they see your pure and reverent conduct.
It is fashionable these days for people to ‘big up’ this text in order to excuse themselves and others from the responsibility to witness verbally to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We say:
…‘Actions speak louder than words’.
What follows is based on
Preaching for a Verdict: Recovering the role of exhortation, by Josh Smith. B & H Academic, 2019.
Chapter 2 – A theological foundation for exhortation
A. God has spoken
(i) God’s word is inspired. 2 Tim 3:16 – ‘All Scripture is breathed out by God.’
(ii) God’s word is authoritative, because the One who speaks it has all authority. All things were created by him and for him, Rev 4:12. …
Preaching for a Verdict: Recovering the role of exhortation, by Josh Smith. B & H Academic, 2019.
Truly biblical preaching does not just involve explanation, illustration and application. It also seeks to persuade. It presses for a verdict. It involves exhortation.
Put another way, authentic preaching addresses the will, as well as the mind.
The recovery of exhortation is the burden of Josh Smith’s book. What follows is based on:
Chapter 1 – What happened to exhortation?…
2:6 While they were [in Bethlehem], the time came for [Mary] to deliver her child. 2:7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
‘No room in the inn’ (along with a grumpy inn-keeper) is part of the fabric of the nativity story, as popularly told. But the biblical text makes no mention of a stable, and the word commonly translated ‘inn’ may well mean something else.…
As popularly understood:
Cold = decidedly opposed to the things of God
Hot = enthusiastically committed to the things of God
Lukewarm = indifferent to the things of God
The implication would therefore be: better to be out and out against God than to sit on the fence.…
The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler, Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta, GA, preached this sermon on Heb 12:1-2.
12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, we must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us, 12:2 keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set out for him he endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.…
Towards the end of his review of Topical Preaching in a Complex World: How to Proclaim Truth and
Relevance at the Same Time, by Sam Chan and Malcolm Gill, Reginald D. Taylor makes the following intriguing comment:
‘This reviewer maintains that one can and should preach using various sermon forms in an expository manner. One can preach biographical expositions, doctrinal expositions, dramatic-monologue expositions, narrative expositions, and topical expositions.’
I shall leave it there for the moment. …
