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Forming and Being Formed
When an expositor studies his Bible, the Holy Spirit probes the preacher's life. As a man prepares sermons, God prepares the man. As the expositor masters a passage, he will...
Reviewing the Main Points 06.14.13
Enjoy these preaching-related links and summaries from the past week. Especially note Peter Mead's helpful 3-part series on explanation in preaching. 9 Teaching Methods of...
Show Your Support! Your Main Points Need It.
How often do we simply assert our main point in a sermon, read a couple of supporting verses with little to no comment, and then move on to illustrate or apply the concept?...
Are My Motives as Christ-Centered as My Message?
Obviously as a preacher of the gospel I am concerned about the what of preaching--my message. But I must not stop there. I cannot content myself with simply asking "What am...
A Prayer for Preachers
My gracious Master and my God, Assist me to proclaim, To spread through all the earth abroad The honors of Thy name. - Charles Wesley
Reviewing the Main Points 06.07.13
The web was alive with preaching resources this past week, especially with discussions related to Christ-centered preaching. Enjoy! Christ-Centered Preaching (Part 1): The...
Why Expository Preaching Must Be at the Center of Church Life
http://vimeo.com/67330361 In this video interview with David Platt, Mark Dever argues that if you're going to have a healthy church you begin by letting it be calibrated by...
Christ-Centered Homiletics or Human Author-Centered Hermeneutics?
I don't get excited about reading too many dissertations, but here's one I hope to tackle soon. In 2011Â Jason Allen, president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary,...
Reviewing the Main Points 05.31.13
Looking for something to read this weekend related to preaching? Here are some links and "main points" collected from recent blog posts and other online resources. When Your...
One-Note, One-Nail Preaching
Is there a temptation in preaching to become a one-note messenger? To be so singularly focused on a particular issue or doctrine that every sermon ends up sounding the same...
What Kind of Shape Is Your Sermon In?
There are a lot of things to think about when preparing a message. But how many of us think about how we think? And let me go one step further--how many of us think about...
Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount Underscores the Importance of Application
What is your view of the significance of application in preaching? If you were forced to put a price tag on "application," what value would you assign it? Oddly enough,...
What Is the Foundation of an Expository Sermon?
In a recent Preaching Points podcast Jeffrey Arthurs argues that the exegetical idea is the foundation of an expository sermon. What is the exegetical idea? It is...
Is It Really About Him, or Is It Mostly About Me?
In a chapter entitled "Less Joe, More Jesus," Joe Stowell reminds us that it's easy to become preoccupied with ourselves as preachers. Preaching has a way of sucking us down...
The Divinely-Defined Content of Divinely-Approved Preaching
In one of the classic New Testament texts on preaching, Paul commands Timothy to "preach the word." It's easy to gloss over familiar, oft-quoted texts like this without...
You’re Invited to a Wedding!
There's a wedding that should be taking place in every church on every Sunday from every pulpit. It's the wedding of biblical content and passionate delivery. Unfortunately,...
Christ-Centered Sermons: Models of Redemptive Preaching
If you're like me and have read Bryan Chapell's Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon and benefited from his discussion of redemptive-historical...
Bullmore on the Critical Necessity of Biblical Exposition
http://vimeo.com/61181592 Mike Bullmore begins his 9Marks at Southern 2013 session with this "strong claim:" Preaching God's word is the fundamental task of pastoral...
Lloyd-Jones on the Golden Rule of Biblical Interpretation
The first thing you have to do [in sermon preparation] is to deal with the meaning of your text. At this point there is one golden rule, one absolute demand— honesty. You...
Is My Sermon Preparation Steeped in Prayer?
A good reminder from James Rosscup: Prayer is not an elective but the principal element in the kaleidoscope of spiritual characteristics that mark a preacher. These traits...
Your Sermon Text Is Not Just a Text
What is your sermon text for tomorrow? Of course, when we hear the words "sermon text" we immediately think of some passage of Scripture. That's all well and good. But have...
The Underlying Nonnegotiable in All Truly Christian Preaching
For many people the word "preaching" is confined to "the pulpit monologue." However, "preaching" is a much broader term, of which the sermon is simply a subcategory. This...
Preaching to Impress: Conveying a Superlative Sense of God’s Glory
How would you personally answer the following questions? What is the "consistent tendency" of my preaching? In other words, what do I tend to magnify and highlight in my...
Mohler on Why Expository Preaching Is Such a Bad Idea
A provocative title, for sure. What is Mohler talking about--expository preaching a bad idea? Isn't Al Mohler an advocate for expository preaching in our day? Yes, he is....
The Ultimate Source of Authority in Preaching
There is something inherently horrid about human beings who claim and attempt to wield a personal authority they do not possess. It is particularly inappropriate in the...
Greidanus Talks about Preaching Christ from the Old Testament
Sidney Greidanus is well known for his work on preaching Christ from the Old Testament. He is the author of Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary...
Three Biblical Foundations of Preaching
In his book Speaking God's Words: A Practical Theology of Preaching, Peter Adam gives three biblical foundations of preaching: 1. God has spoken. Without God's words there...