A Word for Preachers...William Still on Preaching the Whole Word of God

"Beyond the deeper truths of the Gospel -- which, alas, so many do not teach and preach for, I fear, reasons obscure to others but known to themselves -- there is the darker blackcloth to the Good News, namely, the penal and corrective judgements of God, upon which the scintillating diamond of the Gospel shines with a thousand facets. The judgements are also the Word of God; and only he who preaches and teaches the whole Bible, dark and light, rightly dividing the Word of truth, fully proclaims the Word of God. After all, we see a rainbow only on the clouds."

William Still
The Work of the Pastor

A Word for Preachers...Mohler on the Need for Urgency in Preaching

"In all too many pulpits, God has become our next-door neighbor, our great cosmic companion, or the divine leader of our small group, rather than the holy God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Perhaps the lack of urgency in so much preaching today comes from a lack of understanding about humanity's awful predicament. The greatest problem we human beings face is not a shortage of self-esteem. It is that we have rebelled against God, and, in His holiness, God will one day hold us to horrible account for our sin.

"The gospel necessarily comes with an urgent warning, because the distinction between those who obey its call and those who disobey is not merely between a better life and a worse life. It is the difference between life and death. It is an eternal distinction, for the cost of disobedience and the coast of not hearing the gospel is eternal death.

"That is why we must preach with urgency of a dying man. It is because human beings are in desperate need of salvation. Time is short, God's wrath is certain, and eternity hangs in the balance. Moreover, there is for each of us only one way out of this predicament, and that is the salvation God Himself has won through the gospel of his Son, Jesus Christ."

Al Mohler
He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World

Churches and Haunted Houses

The other day, I saw a sign advertising "a live, multimedia, theatrical performance that will scare the 'Hell' out of you."  It wasn't your run-of-the-mill Halloween haunted house, it was actually a production put on by a local church, no doubt with the best of evangelistic intentions.

Though certainly not my cup of tea, my purpose here is not to out-and-out condemn this type of practice.  I would recommend though that before any church hosts such an event, they at least consider Russell Moore's thoughts as to why this type of outreach often misses the mark:

1. They’re not scary enough.
2. They assume people’s problem is that they don’t know about judgment.
3. They abstract judgment from the love of God. 
4. They abstract judgment from the glory of God. 
5. It’s hard to cry at a Judgment House. 
6. The Holy Spirit doesn’t usually like to work that way. 
7. They’re easier to pull off than talking to people.

Click here to read his entire post, in which he fleshes out each of the points.

How Can a Loving God Be So Violent?

Zack Eswine was my homiletics (preaching) professor when I attended Covenant Theological Seminary. If you’ve heard me preach and like what you heard, in large part you have Zack to thank for it. If you didn’t like what you heard, well, I must not have paid enough attention in class.

Zack now pastors at my former church home, Riverside Church in Webster Groves, Missouri. Last Sunday he preached on Genesis 6, Noah and the flood. In so doing he wrestled with the very difficult issue of how we are to understand a God who would willingly take the lives of almost all of humanity.

He wrote a blog post covering his thoughts and I recommend reading the whole post, but here is an overview of his thoughts:

1. The entire tone of Genesis 6 is lament
2. God is not presented as throwing a tantrum
3. God is not presented as a dictator hungry with exerting his power
4. Genesis 6 presents a picture closer to that of a lamenting judge
5. We all instinctively long for judgement
6. Finally, God begins to un-violent us through Jesus