Because it sells Carl, besides it’s what the “hip” do.

Carl Trueman has read my mind on more than one occasion:

Why, for example, do we only ever have Christian conferences on things such as the performing arts, or politics, or literature, or movies?  Why never on toilet cleaning, factory floor sweeping, or production line manufacturing?   Is it because God is not sovereign over these things?  Or is it because the whole Christianity and culture thing has been essentially hijacked and subsequently defined by the chatterati of the intelligentsia?  Is Shakespeare intrinsically more susceptible to being approached from a Christian perspective than working in a call centre?

Read the whole thing here

Glenn Beck and your preaching

How is your preaching different from what your congregation hears on cable news? Do you think they notice a difference at all? While many preachers are rightly placing an emphasis on preaching Christ others seem to be asking “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?” (Luke 22:49).

Here is an encouraging note from a church member to her pastors. The moral of the story is preach the Word!

Step back, you’ll only mess things up

More than a few times I tried to “fix” something when I was a wee lad only to hear my father say something like, “step back son, if we leave it that way you’ll blow-up the house.” I’m thankful for those life-lessons along the way. Harder still is when the Lord presents us with a situation to which our knee-jerk response is to try and “fix” it. When James Montgomery Boice informed his congregation (May 7, 2000) that he had liver cancer he counseled them along these lines:

“If God does something in your life, would you change it? If you’d change it, you’d make it worse. It wouldn’t be good. So that’s the way we want to accept it and move forward, and who knows what God will do?”

Preaching 101: Always finish your points

R. Kent Hughes on Preaching

Commenting on Colossians 1:25-29, “This charge has preaching as its main function, and specifically Biblical exposition.  The phrase ‘to present to you the word of God’ literally reads, ‘that i might complete the Word of God.”  The idea is to lay out the Word of God fully.  People cannot know Christ better without knowing the Word of God fully.  Preaching (exposition) was the heart of God’s call to Paul.

Preaching must open the Word of God.  Paul affirms here such preaching is primary to an authentic ministry.  There is no shortcut-it takes work.  Joseph Parker put it this way:

If i had talked all the week, I could not have preached on Sunday.  That is all.  Mystery there is none.  I have made my preaching work my delight, the very festival of my soul.  That is all.  Young brother, go thou and do likewise, and God bless thee.”

John Calvin on Colossians 1:24-27

Paul suffered as a minister of the gospel, not to give the price of redemption but to proclaim it!