Preachers and their preaching – Phillips Brooks

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Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) famously defined preaching as ‘the bringing of truth through personality’.

I have long considered this definition to be pregnant with meaning, for it seems to suggest a number of important corollaries.  It suggests that in addition to the non-negotiable truth content that is fundamental to the preacher’s message:-

  • the preacher is not ‘anonymous’, but is a real person, speaking to real persons
  • each preacher should have something distinctive (unique, perhaps) to offer by way of style and emphasis that arises from the distinctive (unique, perhaps) aspects of his own personality
  • it is proper (desirable, perhaps) for the preacher to draw on his personal characteristics and life experiences while shaping his message
  • Christian truth which has not been, and cannot be, ‘lived’, is mere theorising
  • this seems to confirm John Owen’s dictum that, ‘no man preaches that sermon well to others that doth not first preach it to his own heart.’
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16 bad atheist arguments

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I rather like how Jeremy Linn has captured some of the most popular atheist arguments against Christianity, and hinted at where some of its weaknesses might lie.

Moreover, says Linn, ‘for each of the arguments, we give an example question you can ask to better understand where the person who gave the argument is coming from. The goal is to listen and understand, rather than to dominate and tear down.’

1: Who created God?

This question is asked under the assumption that God needs a creator.…

The value of the Psalms

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Fee and Stuart (How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth) outline three benefits of the Psalms for both their ancient and modern readers:-

1. ‘The psalms can serve as a guide to worship. By this we mean that the worshiper who seeks to praise God or to appeal to God or to remember God’s benefits can use the psalms as a formal means of expression of his or her thoughts and feelings.…

Mt 5:1-10 – The Beatitudes (sermon notes, v2)

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Text: Matthew 5:1-10

Picture a sumo wrestler…an aging rock star…a mad professor…a spiritual person.  What did you see?  Mother Teresa?  A Buddhist monk?  The Archbishop of Canterbury?  Yourself?

Here is a description of a Christian disciple.

It all begins, not with a set of instructions, but with a pronouncement of blessing.  There are people who might be considered unfortunate, pitiable even.  But they live under God’s favour.  They are the luckiest people in the world.

Does this describe me?…

The Great Commandment and the Great Commission

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Is it possible so to emphasise Jesus’ Great Commission that we neglect his stress on the Great Commandment to love our neighbours (second only to loving God with our entire beings)?

John Stott thought so.  Here’s what he wrote about it:-

‘I venture to say that sometime, perhaps because it was the last instruction Jesus gave us before returning to the Father, we give the Great Commission too prominent a place in our Christian thinking.  Please do not misunderstand me.  …

Was ‘the wrath of God satisfied’ on the cross?

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‘In Christ alone’ (Stuart Townend and Keith Getty) is a fine Christian song.

But what about the words that stick in the throats of many:-

Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied.

Please don’t tell me you won’t sing these words because you unwilling to think or speak of God’s wrath, and wish to sing only of his love.  The song as a whole does a great job in exploring the various dimensions of Christ’s death and resurrection. …

Intentional ‘contradictions’ in John’s writings

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In Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know about Them), Bart D. Ehrman writes about one of his ‘favourite apparent discrepancies’ in John’s Gospel:-

It ‘comes in Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse,” the last address that Jesus delivers to his disciples, at his last meal with them, which takes up all of chapters 13 to 17 in the Gospel according to John. In John 13:36, Peter says to Jesus, “Lord, where are you going?”

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The Holy Spirit in the New Testament

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In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is given as ‘”another (i.e. a second) Paraclete” (Jn. 14:16), taking over Jesus’ role as counsellor, helper, strengthener, supporter, adviser, advocate, ally (for the Gk. paraclētos means all of these).’

The personality of the Holy Spirit is clear: ‘Like the Father and the Son, he acts as only a person can do—he hears, speaks, convinces, testifies, shows, leads, guides, teaches, prompts speech, commands, forbids, desires, helps, intercedes with groans (Jn.…

The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament

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The ‘Holy Spirit’ is named as such only three times in the Old Testament: Psa 51:11; Isa 63:11, 12. The concept of ‘progressive revelation’ reminds us that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, like a number of other doctrines, is present in the Old Testament only in embryonic form.

If the Christian era is identified as ‘the ministry of the Spirit’ (2 Cor 3:8) then it is to be expected that that era will be characterised by a clearer and fuller revelation of the person and work of the Spirit.…