Category: Ecclesiology (The Study of the Church)

Ecclesiology is so named because of the two words from the Greek: ekklesia – “church, called out of” and logos – “study of.” The study of the church as a biblical and theological topic is referred to as Ecclesiology. The New Testament presents various images that the early church struggled with as it sought its self-understanding in light of the gospel and controversies.

Dr. James Boice on How We Can Find Fulfillment and Happiness in Life

The sermon below “The Fast Lane or the Right Path” was excerpted from James Boice. Psalms 1-41: An Exposition of the Psalms. Grand Rapids: Baker, Grand Rapids, 2003. Today, July 7th is Dr. Boice’s birthday in Heaven!

“The Fast Lane or the Right Path” – A Sermon on Psalm 1

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked

or stand in the way of sinners

or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither.

Whatever he does prospers.

Not so the wicked!

They are like chaff

that the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked will perish. – Psalm 1:1-6

The first psalm is among the best known, if not the best known, psalm in the entire Psalter, and rightly so, for it stands as a magnificent gateway to this extraordinary ancient collection of Hebrew religious verse. To use another image, it is a text of which the remaining psalms are essentially exposition. Psalm 1 is a practical psalm. Since it leads the collection, we are taught at once that study of the Psalter must have practical effects if the psalms are to achieve the purpose for which God gave them to us. Psalm 1 introduces us to the way in which we may find happiness and fulfillment in life. It is by meditation on and delight in the law of God. The psalm also warns us of sure, eventual, and eternal ruin if we do not.

Divergent Ways

Psalm 1 introduces us to the doctrine of the two ways, which is a very common concept. Most Americans are acquainted with Robert Frost’s use of the idea in the poem “The Road Not Taken.”

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Those who know literature a bit more thoroughly are aware that the idea of paths diverging in a wood is also found in Dante Alighieri, the Florentine poet of the Middle Ages, whose Divine Comedy begins,

Midway this way of life we’re bound upon,

I woke to find myself in a dark wood,

Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.

But there are biblical examples too. The most important is the use of the idea by Jesus toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount as recorded by Matthew. The last section of the sermon lists a series of contrasts, between which choices must be made: two gates and two roads, two trees and their two types of fruit, two houses and two foundations. The part regarding the two ways says, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matt. 7:13–14). Psalm 1 is the clearest, most carefully developed, and first full expression of this idea in the Bible.

But let me back up slightly.

The psalms have been classified in a variety of types or genres, about seven of them, and one of them is “wisdom psalm,” which is what this is. It portrays the way the wise man chooses. But Psalm 1 is more than this. It is the father of all the wisdom psalms. Saint Jerome, the translator of the Latin Vulgate, calls Psalm 1 “the preface of the Holy Spirit” to the Psalter. The great Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who also calls Psalm 1 a “Preface Psalm,” adds, “It is the psalmist’s desire to teach us the way to blessedness, and to warn us of the sure destruction of sinners. This then, is the matter of the first psalm, which may be looked upon in some respects, as the text upon which the whole of the psalms make up a divine sermon.”

In his helpful introduction to the psalms Tremper Longman III, an associate professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, writes, “Psalm 1 deliberately [draws] two portraits in our minds: the portrait of the wicked man and the portrait of the wise man. The question then is posed: Which are we? As we enter the sanctuary of the psalms to worship and petition the Lord, whose side are we on?”

The Two Ways Described

The first verse of Psalm 1, and therefore also the first verse of the Psalter, begins with the word blessed. This is important certainly, for it is a way of saying that the psalms (as well as all Scripture) have been given to us by God to do us good. Blessed means supremely happy or fulfilled. In fact, in Hebrew the word is actually a plural, which denotes either a multiplicity of blessings or an intensification of them. The verse might correctly be translated, “O the blessednesses of the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.”

At first glance it might seem surprising that the idea of the blessed or the happy man is followed immediately by a description of the wicked man, particularly since a description of the way of the wicked also appears later in verses 4 and 5. But it is actually an excellent device. By starting in this way the poet achieves three important things.

First, he begins where we are. None of us automatically starts out being righteous. We start out being sinners, and if we do eventually enter by the straight gate upon the narrow road that leads to life, it is by God’s grace. No one, either in the Old Testament or in the New Testament period, was saved in any other way.

Second, the poet is able to introduce the doctrine of the two ways from the start. We do not have to wait until verse 4 to read that there is a way other than the way of the godly.

Third and finally, the author says something important about godliness. He is going to present godliness positively as the way of the one who delights in the law of the Lord. But any positive affirmation, to have meaning, must have a negative to go with it. Thus, in order to say what the way of the godly man is, we must also be able to say what it is not, and that is what the first verse of the first psalm accomplishes.

How beautifully it does it! The most striking feature of Hebrew poetry is what is known as parallelism, that is, saying the same thing or a variety of the same thing, in two linked lines. That is what we have here, only in this verse there are three linked lines and there are three parallel terms in each line: set 1, “walk, stand, sit”; set 2, “counsel, way, seat”; and set 3, “wicked, sinners, mockers.”

Because of this common feature of Hebrew poetry, a number of writers are reluctant to see any special progression in these terms. But it is hard to believe that the phrases are not saying that the way of the wicked is downhill and that sinners always go from bad to worse. Certainly Spurgeon thought so. He said, “When men are living in sin they go from bad to worse. At first they merely walk in the counsel of the careless and ungodly, who forget God—the evil is rather practical than habitual—but after that, they become habituated to evil, and they stand in the way of open sinners who willfully violate God’s commandments; and if let alone, they go one step further, and become themselves pestilent teachers and tempters of others, and thus they sit in the seat of the scornful. They have taken their degree in vice, and as true Doctors of Damnation they are installed.”

This interpretation is built into the psalm. The psalm does not merely describe the lifestyle of the wicked; it shows the fruit of that way of life and its end. To the unsaved, “the way of sinners” may seem wonderful and exciting. It is the track they want to be on. But the psalmist warns that it is actually a fast track to emptiness and frustration here as well as judgment in the life to come.

What about the other way, the way of the righteous? We might expect, since the wicked man has been described in terms of his associations, that the godly man will now be described in terms of his associations too, that is, as a person who associates with the godly. But that is not the case. Instead, he is described as one whose “delight is in the law of the Lord” on which “he meditates day and night” (v. 2).

That is a powerful expression: to “delight” in the law of the Lord. But it is also somewhat puzzling, at least at first glance. The British scholar and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis found it to be so. In Reflections on the Psalms he describes how at first he found the psalmist’s delight in God’s law “utterly bewildering” and “mysterious.” Lewis said he could understand how one could delight in God’s mercies, visitations, and attributes, but not how one could delight in God’s law. You do not delight in law, not really. Rather law is something you respect and (one hopes) obey.

I would argue that it is possible to delight in a good law, one that is both well written and effective in promoting righteousness. But I think Lewis is also right when he suggests that more than this is involved. He finds the clue to the psalmist’s meaning in the idea of meditation on God’s law. This makes the law a subject of the righteous man’s study. So, for the ancient Jew, saying that he delights in the law is much like what we might mean if we said that we love history or physics or archaeology. But, of course, it is even more than that. For when we study the Bible—the word law is used to refer to the whole of God’s inscripturated revelation—we are really learning, not about human beings or nature primarily (which is what the other disciplines teach us), but about God. And, as Lewis says, “The Order of the Divine mind, embodied in the Divine Law, is beautiful.” The language of the poet is “not priggery nor even scrupulosity; it is the language of a man ravished by a moral beauty.”

John R. W. Stott adds wisely that this delight “is an indication of the new birth, for ‘… the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so’ (Rom. 8:7). As a result of the inward, regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, however, the godly find that they love the law of God simply because it conveys to them the will of their God. They do not rebel against its exacting demands; their whole being approves and endorses it. … Delighting in it, the godly will meditate in it, or pore over it, constantly, day and night.”

The contrast between the two ways may be put like this. It is the difference between those who are in love with sin and those who love God. The first class love sin’s ways and follow it. The second love God and seek him in Scripture, where he may be found.

Flourishing or Fruitless

When most people think of the results of upright or godly living they think of rewards. That is, they think that if they do what God tells them to do, he will reward them, but that if they do not, they will be punished. There is an element of truth in this; it is what is involved in the doctrine of the final judgment. But what the psalmist actually says here is quite different. He is talking about “blessedness,” the blessedness of the man “who does not stand in the way of sinners” but whose “delight is in the law of the Lord.” His point is that this is not a reward but rather “the result of a particular type of life.”

The poet uses two images to show the result of these two ways. The first is a fruitful tree. It describes the man who delights in the law of God and draws his spiritual nourishment from it as a tree that draws its nourishment from an abundantly flowing stream. The land about might be quite dry and barren. The winds might be hot. But if the tree is planted by the stream, so that it can sink its roots down and draw nourishment, it will prosper and yield fruit. This is the godly man.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither.

Whatever he does prospers.

Years ago a couple who had gone to China as missionaries used this image to describe their life there after the communists had taken over China at the end of the Second World War. Their name was Matthews, and they were the last missionaries of the China Inland Mission to escape from that country. They were under communism for two years, during which time they lived with their young daughter Lilah in a small room. Their only furniture was a stool. They could not contact their Christian friends for fear of getting them into trouble. Except for the smallest trickle, their funds were cut off by the government. Heat came from a small stove which they lit once a day to boil rice for dinner. The only fuel they had was dried animal refuse that Art Matthews collected from the streets. These were indeed dry times. But afterward, when they wrote their testimony to God’s grace in the midst of such privations, they called their book Green Leaf in Drought Time, because they found that those who delight in the Word of God do not wither but instead produce the Holy Spirit’s fruit.

The second illustration the psalmist uses is chaff, to which he compares the wicked. The picture here is of a threshing floor at the time of the grain harvest. The threshing floors of Palestine are on hills that catch the best breezes. Grain is brought to them, is crushed by animals or by threshing instruments that are drawn over it, then is pitched high into the air where the wind blows the chaff away. The heavier grain falls back to the threshing floor and is collected. The chaff is scattered or burned, and it is what the psalmist says those who live wickedly are like.

The wicked are like chaff in two senses. Chaff is worthless, and chaff is burned. This pictures the futile, empty, worthless life of the godless, as well as their inevitable judgment.

If only those who are running away from God could see this! But they cannot, because they will not listen to God and the world is shouting the exact opposite of the Bible’s teaching. The world says that to be religious is foolishness. Religious people never have any fun or accomplish anything, the wicked say. If you want to amount to something and enjoy yourself doing it, get on the fast track of sin, reach out for whatever you want, and take it. Be happy. That is what the world teaches. But it is all a lie, which is exactly what Paul calls it in Romans 1 where he analyzes this fast downward spiral (v. 25).

In Eden, the devil told Eve that if she disobeyed God by eating of the forbidden tree, her eyes would be “opened” and she would be “like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). But she did not become like God; she became like Satan. And her eyes were not opened; they had been open. Now she (and her husband) became blind to spiritual realities.

Do not believe the devil’s lie. Do not follow the world when it tries to draw you from righteous living by beguiling falsehoods.

Two Final Ends

Verse 6 is a fitting end to the psalm and a proper thematic statement from which to proceed on into the Psalter. It distinguishes between the final end of the righteous and the final end of the wicked, saying,

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

The verse describes the destiny of these two groups of people. Wise King Solomon wrote,

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death (Prov. 14:12).

That is the way of the wicked. The way of the righteous is the way of the Lord Jesus Christ, who described himself as “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6) and promised to keep those who follow him (Matt. 28:20).

I do not want to read too much prophecy into the psalms, though there is some, and I do not want to suggest that the author of this psalm, whoever he may have been, was looking forward to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ when he wrote it. I do not believe he was. Nevertheless, it is hard not to notice, as Arno C. Gaebelein, an excellent devotional writer on the psalms, has said, that “the perfect man portrayed in the opening verses … is … the Lord Jesus.” He is the only one who was really like this.

Let me close with this story. Harry Ironside, the Bible teacher, told of a visit to Palestine years ago by a man named Joseph Flacks. He had an opportunity to address a gathering of Jews and Arabs and took for the subject of his address the first psalm. He read it and then asked the question: “Who is this blessed man of whom the psalmist speaks? This man never walked in the counsel of the wicked or stood in the way of sinners or sat in the seat of mockers. He was an absolutely sinless man.”

Nobody spoke. So Flacks said: “Was he our great father Abraham?”

One old man said, “No, it cannot be Abraham. He denied his wife and told a lie about her.”

“Well, how about the lawgiver Moses?”

“No,” someone said. “It cannot be Moses. He killed a man, and he lost his temper by the waters of Meribah.”

Flacks suggested David. It was not David.

There was silence for a long while. Then an elderly Jew arose and said, “My brothers, I have a little book here; it is called the New Testament. I have been reading it; and if I could believe this book, if I could be sure that it is true, I would say that the man of the first Psalm was Jesus of Nazareth.”

Jesus is that man, of course. He is the only perfect man who ever lived, and he is the sinner’s Savior. It is he who stands at the portal of this book to show us the way to live and help us do it.

Author: James Montgomery Boice, Th.D., (July 7, 1938 – June 15, 2000) was a Reformed theologian, Bible teacher, and pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1968 until his death. He is heard on The Bible Study Hour radio broadcast and was a well known author and speaker in evangelical and Reformed circles. He also served as Chairman of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy for over ten years and was a founding member of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. He is the author of numerous Bible expositions and one of my favorite Systematic Theologies called Foundations of the Christian Faith.

10 Excellent Tips on Personal Evangelism from Dr. Tim Keller

Tim Keller Teaching Below at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York:

  1. Let people around you know you are a Christian (in a natural, unforced way)
  2. Ask friends about their faith – and just listen!
  3. Listen to your friends’ problems – maybe offer to pray for them
  4. Share your problems with others – testify to how your faith helps you
  5. Give them a book to read
  6. Share your story
  7. Answer objections and questions
  8. Invite them to a church event
  9. Offer to read the Bible with them
  10. Take them to an explore course

These are arranged from 1-10 as a progression. We too often start with numbers 8-10, but we need to start with 1-4 with most people. In fact, he says, we may need to loop through 1-4 multiple times before getting to the later steps. Not only is it more humble of us to begin with 1-4, but it is more loving.

By being real with our friends (#1), we show we trust them enough to be open with them. By listening to their thoughts about faith (#2) and to any problems they may be facing (#3), we show we value them and are genuinely interested in what they have to say. Showing love for our friends may even open opportunities to serve them by praying for them. #4 comes back full circle to being real and honest with our friends in an unforced way.

If we believe that our life is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3), then we should feel the freedom to share our lives with our neighbors, and to love them enough to take the time to listen and get to know them. It isn’t our life anyway, but Jesus’s (Gal. 2:20). We’re just sharing with others that which doesn’t belong to us.

*This article has been posted on several excellent websites:http://gospeldots.com/2012/06/28/tim-kellers-top-10evangelismtips/;http://faithim.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/572/;http://timchester.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/kellers-top-ten-evangelism-tips/ – The Ten tips originating with Dr. Tim Keller.

About Dr. Tim Keller: He is an a Pastor, Writer, and sought after speaker. He is wonderfully Christocentric and gospel centered in all that he teaches. Some of his well known books are: The Prodigal God; The Reason for God; and Counterfeit Gods. He will soon be releasing a book entitled Center Church based on his missional and gospel centered philosophy of ministry and church planting – this book has been much anticipated by pastors and church planters for several years!

Great Questions to Ask Your Mentoree/Disciple

[Bobb Biehl is a personal and organizational leadership expert – below are some great questions to go over = personally; with your staff, team, mentoree, small group, disicple/s, etc.]

(Adapted from Bobb Biehl, Mentoring, pp. 201-202)

 DREAMING…about the Future in a Practical Way

  1. God: What three changes in me would most please our Eternal God in His Holy Heaven?
  1. Dream/Purpose: What can I do to make the most significant difference for God in my lifetime? Why am I on the earth? What is the very best organizational context for my dream?
  1. Primary Result: What is the single best measurable indicator that I am making progress with my dream?
  1. Life Priorities: If I could accomplish only three measurable priorities before I die, what would I accomplish?
  1. Ten-Year Focus: If I could accomplish only three measurable priorities in the next ten years what would make a 50% difference in my life-long contribution, what would I accomplish?
  1. Annual Focus:
    • Focus – What single word best captures the focus of my next year?
    • Opportunity – Where was my greatest unexpected success last year? Why? What three steps could I take now to take full advantage of this “Window of Opportunity” this coming year?
    • Land Mines – What three land mines or roadblocks need my immediate attention? What have I been praying most about in the past 30 days? What three changes could reduce my “risk” by 50%?
    • 30/10/50% – If I could only accomplish three measurable priorities in the next twelve months that would make a 50% difference in my contribution in the next ten years, which 3 things would I most want to accomplish?
  1. Quarterly Focus: What three measurable priorities could I accomplish in the next ninety days to make a 50% difference in the results I see by the end of the year?
  1. Organization: What three categories could I make to see a 50% difference in our morale as a family or team?
  1. Cash: If I had to cut my budget 21%, what would be the first three things to go? If I got a surprise gift of 21% of my budget, what three things would I do immediately?
  1. Quality: What three changes could improve the quality of my work by 50% in the next twelve months?

Bobb Biehl is an executive mentor. He graduated from Michigan State University (psychology major) in 1964 and received a Master’s degree (counseling) from Michigan State in 1966.

In 1976, Bobb founded Masterplanning Group International. As its president, he has consulted personally with over 400 clients. In that time, he has met one-on-one with over 3,500 executives (board members, senior executives, and staff members) and invested an estimated 40,000 hours in private sessions with some of the finest leaders of our generation. His clients are primarily large or fast-growing churches, nonprofit organizations, for profit corporations, and government agencies.

Based on these thousands of hours of practical “rubber-meets-the-runway” experience, Bobb has originated 35 resources (books, tapes, notebooks) in the area of personal and organizational development. These resources include published books entitled Boardroom Confidence, Dreaming, Leading with Confidence, Masterplanning, Mentoring, Stop Setting Goals, and Why You Do What You Do. His latest book, Dreaming Big, is co-authored with Dr. Paul Swets.

Bobb is a founding member of the board of directors of Focus on the Family. He is also a member of the board of directors of Liquid Metal (publicly traded). Prior to starting Masterplanning Group, Bobb was on the executive staff of World Vision International. While at World Vision he designed and developed the Love Loaf program, which has raised millions of dollars worldwide.

Bobb and his wife, Cheryl, have been married since 1964.

Good Acronym for Life Applications from the Bible by Rick Warren

The “S.P.A.C.E.  P.E.T.S” Acronym

 WHEN STUDYING THE BIBLE ASK THE FOLLOWING 9 QUESTIONS: “Is There Any?”

Sin to confess? Do I need to make restitution with anyone?

Promise to claim? Is it a universal promise? Have I met the conditions of the promise?

Attitude to change? Am I willing to work on changing my attitude to a Christ-like one?

Command to obey? Am I willing to do it no matter how I feel?

Example to follow? Is there a positive example to copy or a negative one to avoid?

Prayer to pray? Is there anything I need to pray back to God?

Error to avoid? Is there any problem that I should be aware of, or alert to?

Truth to believe? What can I learn about the character or nature of God?

Something to praise God for? What can I be thankful or grateful for?

10 Wise Reminders on Preaching From Some Of The Best Preachers Of The Last 200 Years

Here are ten reminders for those who preach and teach the Word of God … as confirmed by some of history’s greatest preachers.

1. Effective ministry consists not of fads or gimicks, but of faithfully preaching the truth.

Charles Spurgeon: Ah, my dear friends, we want nothing in these times for revival in the world but the simple preaching of the gospel. This is the great battering ram that shall dash down the bulwarks of iniquity. This is the great light that shall scatter the darkness. We need not that men should be adopting new schemes and new plans. We are glad of the agencies and assistances which are continually arising; but after all, the true Jerusalem blade, the sword that can cut to the piercing asunder of the joints and marrow, is preaching the Word of God. We must never neglect it, never despise it. The age in which the pulpit it despised, will be an age in which gospel truth will cease to be honored. . . . God forbid that we should begin to depreciate preaching. Let us still honor it; let us look to it as God’s ordained instrumentality, and we shall yet see in the world a repetition of great wonders wrought by the preaching in the name of Jesus Christ.

Source: Charles Spurgeon, “Preaching! Man’s Privilege and God’s Power,” Sermon (Nov. 25, 1860).

2. Preaching is a far more serious task than most preachers realize.

Richard Baxter: And for myself, as I am ashamed of my dull and careless heart, and of my slow and unprofitable course of life, so, the Lord knows, I am ashamed of every sermon I preach; when I think what I have been speaking of, and who sent me, and that men’s salvation or damnation is so much concerned in it, I am ready to tremble lest God should judge me as a slighter of His truths and the souls of men, and lest in the best sermon I should be guilty of their blood. Me thinks we should not speak a word to men in matters of such consequence without tears, or the greatest earnestness that possibly we can; were not we too much guilty of the sin which we reprove, it would be so.

Source: Richard Baxter, “The Need for Personal Revival.” Cited from Historical Collections Relating to Remarkable Periods of the Success of the Gospel, ed. John Gillies (Kelso: John Rutherfurd, 1845), 147.

3. Faithfulness in the pulpit begins with the pursuit of personal holiness.

Robert Murray M’Cheyne: Take heed to thyself. Your own soul is your first and greatest care. You know a sound body alone can work with power; much more a healthy soul. Keep a clear conscience through the blood of the Lamb. Keep up close communion with God. Study likeness to Him in all things. Read the Bible for your own growth first, then for your people. Expound much; it is through the truth that souls are to be sanctified, not through essays upon the truth.

Source: Robert Murray M’Cheyne, letter dated March 22, 1839, to Rev W.C. Burns, who had been named to take M’Cheyne’s pulpit during the latter’s trip to Palestine. Andrew Bonar, ed, Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne (Banner of Truth, 1966), 273-74.

4. Powerful preaching flows from powerful prayer.

E. M. Bounds: The real sermon is made in the closet. The man – God’s man – is made in the closet. His life and his profoundest convictions were born in his secret communion with God. The burdened and tearful agony of his spirit, his weightiest and sweetest messages were got when alone with God. Prayer makes the man; prayer makes the preacher; prayer makes the pastor. . . . Every preacher who does not make prayer a mighty factor in his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God’s work and is powerless to project God’s cause in this world.

Source: E.M. Bounds, Power Through Prayer. From chapter 1, “Men of Prayer Needed.”

5. Passionate preaching starts with one’s passion for Christ. 

Phillip Brooks: Nothing but fire kindles fire. To know in one’s whole nature what it is to live by Christ; to be His, not our own; to be so occupied with gratitude for what He did for us and for what He continually is to us that His will and His glory shall be the sole desires of our life . . . that is the first necessity of the preacher.

Source: Phillips Brooks, Lectures on Preaching, originally published in 1877. Republished in 1989 by Kregel under the title The Joy of Preaching. As cited in “The Priority of Prayer in Preaching” by James Rosscup, The Masters Seminary Journal, Spring 1991.

6. The preacher is a herald, not an innovator.

R. L. Dabney: The preacher is a herald; his work is heralding the King’s message. . . . Now the herald does not invent his message; he merely transmits and explains it. It is not his to criticize its wisdom or fitness; this belongs to his sovereign alone. On the one hand, . . . he is an intelligent medium of communication with the king’s enemies; he has brains as well as a tongue; and he is expected so to deliver and explain his master’s mind, that the other party shall receive not only the mechanical sounds, but the true meaning of the message. On the other hand, it wholly transcends his office to presume to correct the tenor of the propositions he conveys, by either additions or change. . . . The preacher’s business is to take what is given him in the Scriptures, as it is given to him, and to endeavor to imprint it on the souls of men. All else is God’s work.

Source: R.L. Dabney, Evangelical Eloquence: A Course of Lectures on Preaching (Banner of Truth, 1999; originally published as Sacred Rhetoric, 1870), 36-37.

7. The faithful preacher stays focused on what matters.

G. Campbell Morgan: Nothing is more needed among preachers today than that we should have the courage to shake ourselves free from the thousand and one trivialities in which we are asked to waste our time and strength, and resolutely return to the apostolic ideal which made necessary the office of the diaconate. [We must resolve that] “we will continue steadfastly in prayer, and in the ministry of the Word.”

Source: G. Campbell Morgan, This Was His Faith: The Expository Letters of G. Campbell Morgan, edited by Jill Morgan (Fleming Revell, Westwood, NJ), 1952.

8. The preacher’s task is to make the text come alive for his hearers.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: As preachers we must not forget this. We are not merely imparters of information. We should tell our people to read certain books themselves and get the information there. The business of preaching is to make such knowledge live. The same applies to lecturers in Colleges. The tragedy is that many lecturers simply dictate notes and the wretched students take them down. That is not the business of a lecturer or a professor. The students can read the books for themselves; the business of the professor is to put that on fire, to enthuse, to stimulate, to enliven. And that is the primary business of preaching. Let us take this to heart. … What we need above everything else today is moving, passionate, powerful preaching. It must be ‘warm’ and it must be ‘earnest’.

Source: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Jonathan Edwards and the Crucial Importance of Revival.” Lecture delivered at the Puritan and Westminster Conference (1976).

9. The preacher is to be Christ-exalting, not self-promoting.

R. B. Kuiper: The minister must always remember that the dignity of his office adheres not in his person but in his office itself. He is not at all important, but his office is extremely important. Therefore he should take his work most seriously without taking himself seriously. He should preach the Word in season and out of season in forgetfulness of self. He should ever have an eye single to the glory of Christ, whom he preaches, and count himself out. It should be his constant aim that Christ, whom he represents, may increase while he himself decreases. Remembering that minister means nothing but servant, he should humbly, yet passionately, serve the Lord Christ and His church.

Source: R.B. Kuiper, The Glorious Body of Christ (Banner of Truth, 1966), 140-42.

10. Faithful preaching requires great personal discipline and sacrifice.

Arthur W. Pink: The great work of the pulpit is to press the authoritative claims of the Creator and Judge of all the earth—to show how short we have come of meeting God’s just requirements, to announce His imperative demand of repentance. . . . It requires a “workman” and not a lazy man—a student and not a slothful one—who studies to “show himself approved unto God” (2 Tim. 9:15) and not one who seeks the applause and the shekels of men.

Source: A. W. Pink, “Preaching False and True,” Online Source.

These 10 reminders were compiled by Nathan Busenitz on his website June 7, 2012: http://thecripplegate.com/preachers-on-preaching/

3 Reasons Christians Have Victory Over Death by Warren W. Wiersbe

The 3 P’s of Jesus’ Comfort to Christians in the Face of Death:

 1)    Because of the Price Jesus Paid

1 Thessalonians 5:9-10, “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.

2)    Because of the Promise Jesus Made

John 14:1-6, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

3)    Because of the Prayer Jesus Prayed

John 17:24, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

Dr. R.C. Sproul on the Essence of God’s Sovereignty in Our Salvation

The Pelagian Captivity of the Church

by R.C. Sproul

Shortly after the Reformation began, in the first few years after Martin Luther posted the Ninety-Five Theses on the church door at Wittenberg, he issued some short booklets on a variety of subjects. One of the most provocative was titled The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. In this book Luther was looking back to that period of Old Testament history when Jerusalem was destroyed by the invading armies of Babylon and the elite of the people were carried off into captivity. Luther in the sixteenth century took the image of the historic Babylonian captivity and reapplied it to his era and talked about the new Babylonian captivity of the Church. He was speaking of Rome as the modern Babylon that held the Gospel hostage with its rejection of the biblical understanding of justification. You can understand how fierce the controversy was, how polemical this title would be in that period by saying that the Church had not simply erred or strayed, but had fallen — that it’s actually now Babylonian; it is now in pagan captivity.

I’ve often wondered if Luther were alive today and came to our culture and looked, not at the liberal church community, but at evangelical churches, what would he have to say? Of course I can’t answer that question with any kind of definitive authority, but my guess is this: If Martin Luther lived today and picked up his pen to write, the book he would write in our time would be entitled The Pelagian Captivity of the Evangelical Church. Luther saw the doctrine of justification as fueled by a deeper theological problem. He writes about this extensively in The Bondage of the Will. When we look at the Reformation and we see the solas of the Reformation — sola Scriptura, sola fide, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria, sola gratia — Luther was convinced that the real issue of the Reformation was the issue of grace; and that underlying the doctrine of solo fide, justification by faith alone, was the prior commitment to sola gratia, the concept of justification by grace alone.

In the Fleming Revell edition of The Bondage of the Will, the translators, J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, included a somewhat provocative historical and theological introduction to the book itself. This is from the end of that introduction:

These things need to be pondered by Protestants today. With what right may we call ourselves children of the Reformation? Much modern Protestantism would be neither owned nor even recognised by the pioneer Reformers. The Bondage of the Will fairly sets before us what they believed about the salvation of lost mankind. In the light of it, we are forced to ask whether Protestant Christendom has not tragically sold its birthright between Luther’s day and our own. Has not Protestantism today become more Erasmian than Lutheran? Do we not too often try to minimise and gloss over doctrinal differences for the sake of inter-party peace? Are we innocent of the doctrinal indifferentism with which Luther charged Erasmus? Do we still believe that doctrine matters? (J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnston, “Introduction” to the Bondage of the Will. Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming Revell, 1957: pp. 59-60)

Historically, it’s a simple matter of fact that Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and all the leading Protestant theologians of the first epoch of the Reformation stood on precisely the same ground here. On other points they had their differences. In asserting the helplessness of man in sin and the sovereignty of God in grace, they were entirely at one. To all of them these doctrines were the very lifeblood of the Christian faith. A modern editor of Luther’s works says this:

Whoever puts this book down without having realized that Evangelical theology stands or falls with the doctrine of the bondage of the will has read it in vain. The doctrine of free justification by faith alone, which became the storm center of so much controversy during the Reformation period, is often regarded as the heart of the Reformers’ theology, but this is not accurate. The truth is that their thinking was really centered upon the contention of Paul, echoed by Augustine and others, that the sinner’s entire salvation is by free and sovereign grace only, and that the doctrine of justification by faith was important to them because it safeguarded the principle of sovereign grace. The sovereignty of grace found expression in their thinking at a more profound level still in the doctrine of monergistic regeneration (Ibid).

That is to say, that the faith that receives Christ for justification is itself the free gift of a sovereign God. The principle of sola fide is not rightly understood until it is seen as anchored in the broader principle of sola gratia. What is the source of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received, or is it a condition of justification which is left to man to fulfill? Do you hear the difference? Let me put it in simple terms. I heard an evangelist recently say, “If God takes a thousand steps to reach out to you for your redemption, still in the final analysis, you must take the decisive step to be saved.” Consider the statement that has been made by America’s most beloved and leading evangelical of the twentieth century, Billy Graham, who says with great passion, “God does ninety-nine percent of it but you still must do that last one percent.”

What Is Pelagianism?

Now, let’s return briefly to my title, “The Pelagian Captivity of the Church.” What are we talking about? Pelagius was a monk who lived in Britain in the fifth century. He was a contemporary of the greatest theologian of the first millennium of Church history if not of all time, Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa. We have heard of St. Augustine, of his great works in theology, of his City of God, of his Confessions, and so on, which remain Christian classics.

Augustine, in addition to being a titanic theologian and a prodigious intellect, was also a man of deep spirituality and prayer. In one of his famous prayers, Augustine made a seemingly harmless and innocuous statement in the prayer to God in which he says: “O God, command what you wouldst, and grant what thou dost command.” Now, would that give you apoplexy — to hear a prayer like that? Well it certainly set Pelagius, this British monk, into orbit. When he heard that, he protested vociferously, even appealing to Rome to have this ghastly prayer censured from the pen of Augustine. Here’s why. He said, “Are you saying, Augustine, that God has the inherent right to command anything that he so desires from his creatures? Nobody is going to dispute that. God inherently, as the creator of heaven and earth, has the right to impose obligations on his creatures and say, ‘Thou shalt do this, and thou shalt not do that.’ ‘Command whatever thou would’ — it’s a perfectly legitimate prayer.”

It’s the second part of the prayer that Pelagius abhorred when Augustine said, “and grant what thou dost command.” He said, “What are you talking about? If God is just, if God is righteous and God is holy, and God commands of the creature to do something, certainly that creature must have the power within himself, the moral ability within himself, to perform it or God would never require it in the first place.” Now that makes sense, doesn’t it? What Pelagius was saying is that moral responsibility always and everywhere implies moral capability or, simply, moral ability. So why would we have to pray, “God grant me, give me the gift of being able to do what you command me to do”? Pelagius saw in this statement a shadow being cast over the integrity of God himself, who would hold people responsible for doing something they cannot do.

So in the ensuing debate, Augustine made it clear that in creation, God commanded nothing from Adam or Eve that they were incapable of performing. But once transgression entered and mankind became fallen, God’s law was not repealed nor did God adjust his holy requirements downward to accommodate the weakened, fallen condition of his creation. God did punish his creation by visiting upon them the judgment of original sin, so that everyone after Adam and Eve who was born into this world was born already dead in sin. Original sin is not the first sin. It’s the result of the first sin; it refers to our inherent corruption, by which we are born in sin, and in sin did our mothers conceive us. We are not born in a neutral state of innocence, but we are born in a sinful, fallen condition. Virtually every church in the historic World Council of Churches at some point in their history and in their creedal development articulates some doctrine of original sin. So clear is that to the biblical revelation that it would take a repudiation of the biblical view of mankind to deny original sin altogether.

This is precisely what was at issue in the battle between Augustine and Pelagius in the fifth century. Pelagius said there is no such thing as original sin. Adam’s sin affected Adam and only Adam. There is no transmission or transfer of guilt or fallenness or corruption to the progeny of Adam and Eve. Everyone is born in the same state of innocence in which Adam was created. And, he said, for a person to live a life of obedience to God, a life of moral perfection, is possible without any help from Jesus or without any help from the grace of God. Pelagius said that grace — and here’s the key distinction — facilitates righteousness. What does “facilitate” mean?

It helps, it makes it more facile, it makes it easier, but you don’t have to have it. You can be perfect without it. Pelagius further stated that it is not only theoretically possible for some folks to live a perfect life without any assistance from divine grace, but there are in fact people who do it. Augustine said, “No, no, no, no . . . we are infected by sin by nature, to the very depths and core of our being — so much so that no human being has the moral power to incline himself to cooperate with the grace of God. The human will, as a result of original sin, still has the power to choose, but it is in bondage to its evil desires and inclinations. The condition of fallen humanity is one that Augustine would describe as the inability to not sin. In simple English, what Augustine was saying is that in the Fall, man loses his moral ability to do the things of God and he is held captive by his own evil inclinations.

In the fifth century the Church condemned Pelagius as a heretic. Pelagianism was condemned at the Council of Orange, and it was condemned again at the Council of Florence, the Council of Carthage, and also, ironically, at the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century in the first three anathemas of the Canons of the Sixth Session. So, consistently throughout Church history, the Church has roundly and soundly condemned Pelagianism  —  because Pelagianism denies the fallenness of our nature; it denies the doctrine of original sin.

Now what is called semi-Pelagianism, as the prefix “semi” suggests, was a somewhat middle ground between full-orbed Augustinianism and full-orbed Pelagianism. Semi-Pelagianism said this: yes, there was a fall; yes, there is such a thing as original sin; yes, the constituent nature of humanity has been changed by this state of corruption and all parts of our humanity have been significantly weakened by the fall, so much so that without the assistance of divine grace nobody can possibly be redeemed, so that grace is not only helpful but it’s absolutely necessary for salvation. While we are so fallen that we can’t be saved without grace, we are not so fallen that we don’t have the ability to accept or reject the grace when it’s offered to us. The will is weakened but is not enslaved. There remains in the core of our being an island of righteousness that remains untouched by the fall. It’s out of that little island of righteousness, that little parcel of goodness that is still intact in the soul or in the will that is the determinative difference between heaven and hell. It’s that little island that must be exercised when God does his thousand steps of reaching out to us, but in the final analysis it’s that one step that we take that determines whether we go to heaven or hell — whether we exercise that little righteousness that is in the core of our being or whether we don’t. That little island Augustine wouldn’t even recognize as an atoll in the South Pacific. He said it’s a mythical island, that the will is enslaved, and that man is dead in his sin and trespasses.

Ironically, the Church condemned semi-Pelagianism as vehemently as it had condemned original Pelagianism. Yet by the time you get to the sixteenth century and you read the Catholic understanding of what happens in salvation the Church basically repudiated what Augustine taught and Aquinas taught as well. The Church concluded that there still remains this freedom that is intact in the human will and that man must cooperate with — and assent to — the prevenient grace that is offered to them by God. If we exercise that will, if we exercise a cooperation with whatever powers we have left, we will be saved. And so in the sixteenth century the Church reembraced semi-Pelagianism.

At the time of the Reformation, all the reformers agreed on one point: the moral inability of fallen human beings to incline themselves to the things of God; that all people, in order to be saved, are totally dependent, not ninety-nine percent, but one hundred percent dependent upon the monergistic work of regeneration in order to come to faith, and that faith itself is a gift of God. It’s not that we are offered salvation and that we will be born again if we choose to believe. But we can’t even believe until God in his grace and in his mercy first changes the disposition of our souls through his sovereign work of regeneration. In other words, what the reformers all agreed with was, unless a man is born again, he can’t even see the kingdom of God, let alone enter it. Like Jesus says in the sixth chapter of John, “No man can come to me unless it is given to him of the Father” — that the necessary condition for anybody’s faith and anybody’s salvation is regeneration.

Evangelicals and Faith

Modern Evangelicalism almost uniformly and universally teaches that in order for a person to be born again, he must first exercise faith. You have to choose to be born again. Isn’t that what you hear? In a George Barna poll, more than seventy percent of “professing evangelical Christians” in America expressed the belief that man is basically good. And more than eighty percent articulated the view that God helps those who help themselves. These positions — or let me say it negatively — neither of these positions is semi-Pelagian. They’re both Pelagian. To say that we’re basically good is the Pelagian view. I would be willing to assume that in at least thirty percent of the people who are reading this issue, and probably more, if we really examine their thinking in depth, we would find hearts that are beating Pelagianism. We’re overwhelmed with it. We’re surrounded by it. We’re immersed in it. We hear it every day. We hear it every day in the secular culture. And not only do we hear it every day in the secular culture, we hear it every day on Christian television and on Christian radio.

In the nineteenth century, there was a preacher who became very popular in America, who wrote a book on theology, coming out of his own training in law, in which he made no bones about his Pelagianism. He rejected not only Augustinianism, but he also rejected semi-Pelagianism and stood clearly on the subject of unvarnished Pelagianism, saying in no uncertain terms, without any ambiguity, that there was no Fall and that there is no such thing as original sin. This man went on to attack viciously the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and in addition to that, to repudiate as clearly and as loudly as he could the doctrine of justification by faith alone by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. This man’s basic thesis was, we don’t need the imputation of the righteousness of Christ because we have the capacity in and of ourselves to become righteous. His name: Charles Finney, one of America’s most revered evangelists. Now, if Luther was correct in saying that sola fide is the article upon which the Church stands or falls, if what the reformers were saying is that justification by faith alone is an essential truth of Christianity, who also argued that the substitutionary atonement is an essential truth of Christianity; if they’re correct in their assessment that those doctrines are essential truths of Christianity, the only conclusion we can come to is that Charles Finney was not a Christian. I read his writings and I say, “I don’t see how any Christian person could write this.” And yet, he is in the Hall of Fame of Evangelical Christianity in America. He is the patron saint of twentieth-century Evangelicalism. And he is not semi-Pelagian; he is unvarnished in his Pelagianism.

The Island of Righteousness

One thing is clear: that you can be purely Pelagian and be completely welcome in the evangelical movement today. It’s not simply that the camel sticks his nose into the tent; he doesn’t just come in the tent — he kicks the owner of the tent out. Modern Evangelicalism today looks with suspicion at Reformed theology, which has become sort of the third-class citizen of Evangelicalism. Now you say, “Wait a minute, R. C. Let’s not tar everybody with the extreme brush of Pelagianism, because, after all, Billy Graham and the rest of these people are saying there was a Fall; you’ve got to have grace; there is such a thing as original sin; and semi-Pelagians do not agree with Pelagius’ facile and sanguine view of unfallen human nature.” And that’s true. No question about it. But it’s that little island of righteousness where man still has the ability, in and of himself, to turn, to change, to incline, to dispose, to embrace the offer of grace that reveals why historically semi-Pelagianism is not called semi-Augustinianism, but semi-Pelagianism.

I heard an evangelist use two analogies to describe what happens in our redemption. He said sin has such a strong hold on us, a stranglehold, that it’s like a person who can’t swim, who falls overboard in a raging sea, and he’s going under for the third time and only the tops of his fingers are still above the water; and unless someone intervenes to rescue him, he has no hope of survival, his death is certain. And unless God throws him a life preserver, he can’t possibly be rescued. And not only must God throw him a life preserver in the general vicinity of where he is, but that life preserver has to hit him right where his fingers are still extended out of the water, and hit him so that he can grasp hold of it. It has to be perfectly pitched. But still that man will drown unless he takes his fingers and curls them around the life preserver and God will rescue him. But unless that tiny little human action is done, he will surely perish.

The other analogy is this: A man is desperately ill, sick unto death, lying in his hospital bed with a disease that is fatal. There is no way he can be cured unless somebody from outside comes up with a cure, a medicine that will take care of this fatal disease. And God has the cure and walks into the room with the medicine. But the man is so weak he can’t even help himself to the medicine; God has to pour it on the spoon. The man is so sick he’s almost comatose. He can’t even open his mouth, and God has to lean over and open up his mouth for him. God has to bring the spoon to the man’s lips, but the man still has to swallow it.

Now, if we’re going to use analogies, let’s be accurate. The man isn’t going under for the third time; he is stone cold dead at the bottom of the ocean. That’s where you once were when you were dead in sin and trespasses and walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. And while you were dead hath God quickened you together with Christ. God dove to the bottom of the sea and took that drowned corpse and breathed into it the breath of his life and raised you from the dead. And it’s not that you were dying in a hospital bed of a certain illness, but rather, when you were born you were born D.O.A. That’s what the Bible says: that we are morally stillborn.

Do we have a will? Yes, of course we have a will. Calvin said, if you mean by a free will a faculty of choosing by which you have the power within yourself to choose what you desire, then we all have free will. If you mean by free will the ability for fallen human beings to incline themselves and exercise that will to choose the things of God without the prior monergistic work of regeneration then, said Calvin, free will is far too grandiose a term to apply to a human being.

The semi-Pelagian doctrine of free will prevalent in the evangelical world today is a pagan view that denies the captivity of the human heart to sin. It underestimates the stranglehold that sin has upon us.

None of us wants to see things as bad as they really are. The biblical doctrine of human corruption is grim. We don’t hear the Apostle Paul say, “You know, it’s sad that we have such a thing as sin in the world; nobody’s perfect. But be of good cheer. We’re basically good.” Do you see that even a cursory reading of Scripture denies this?

Now back to Luther. What is the source and status of faith? Is it the God-given means whereby the God-given justification is received? Or is it a condition of justification which is left to us to fulfill? Is your faith a work? Is it the one work that God leaves for you to do? I had a discussion with some folks in Grand Rapids, Michigan, recently. I was speaking on sola gratia, and one fellow was upset.

He said, “Are you trying to tell me that in the final analysis it’s God who either does or doesn’t sovereignly regenerate a heart?”

And I said, “Yes;” and he was very upset about that. I said, “Let me ask you this: are you a Christian?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “Do you have friends who aren’t Christians?”

He said, “Well, of course.”

I said, “Why are you a Christian and your friends aren’t? Is it because you’re more righteous than they are?” He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t going to say, “Of course it’s because I’m more righteous. I did the right thing and my friend didn’t.” He knew where I was going with that question.

And he said, “Oh, no, no, no.”

I said, “Tell me why. Is it because you are smarter than your friend?”

And he said, “No.”

But he would not agree that the final, decisive issue was the grace of God. He wouldn’t come to that. And after we discussed this for fifteen minutes, he said, “OK! I’ll say it. I’m a Christian because I did the right thing, I made the right response, and my friend didn’t.”

What was this person trusting in for his salvation? Not in his works in general, but in the one work that he performed. And he was a Protestant, an evangelical. But his view of salvation was no different from the Roman view.

God’s Sovereignty in Salvation

This is the issue: Is it a part of God’s gift of salvation, or is it in our own contribution to salvation? Is our salvation wholly of God or does it ultimately depend on something that we do for ourselves? Those who say the latter, that it ultimately depends on something we do for ourselves, thereby deny humanity’s utter helplessness in sin and affirm that a form of semi-Pelagianism is true after all. It is no wonder then that later Reformed theology condemned Arminianism as being, in principle, both a return to Rome because, in effect, it turned faith into a meritorious work, and a betrayal of the Reformation because it denied the sovereignty of God in saving sinners, which was the deepest religious and theological principle of the reformers’ thought. Arminianism was indeed, in Reformed eyes, a renunciation of New Testament Christianity in favor of New Testament Judaism. For to rely on oneself for faith is no different in principle than to rely on oneself for works, and the one is as un-Christian and anti-Christian as the other. In the light of what Luther says to Erasmus there is no doubt that he would have endorsed this judgment.

And yet this view is the overwhelming majority report today in professing evangelical circles. And as long as semi-Pelagianism, which is simply a thinly veiled version of real Pelagianism at its core — as long as it prevails in the Church, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I know, however, what will not happen: there will not be a new Reformation. Until we humble ourselves and understand that no man is an island and that no man has an island of righteousness, that we are utterly dependent upon the unmixed grace of God for our salvation, we will not begin to rest upon grace and rejoice in the greatness of God’s sovereignty, and we will not be rid of the pagan influence of humanism that exalts and puts man at the center of religion. Until that happens there will not be a new Reformation, because at the heart of Reformation teaching is the central place of the worship and gratitude given to God and God alone. Soli Deo gloria, to God alone be the glory.

About the Author: Dr. R.C. Sproul is the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries, an international Christian education ministry located near Orlando, Florida. His teaching can be heard on the program Renewing Your Mind, which is broadcast on hundreds of radio outlets in the United States and in 40 countries worldwide. He is the executive editor of Tabletalk magazine and general editor of The Reformation Study Bible, and the author of more than seventy books (including some of my all time favorites: The Work of Christ; The Holiness of God; Chosen By God; Reason to Believe; Knowing Scripture; Willing to Believe; The Intimate Marriage; Pleasing God; If There’s A God, Why Are There Atheists?, and Defending The Faith) and scores of articles for national evangelical publications. Dr. Sproul also serves as president of Ligonier Academy of Biblical and Theological Studies and Reformation Bible College. He currently serves as Senior Minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s in Sanford, FL. The article above was adapted from Modern Reformation, Vol 10, Number 3 (May/June 2001), pp. 22-29.

John Frame on The Importance of Seminary Training

“Learning At Jesus’ Feet: A Case For Seminary Training” 

At some point in their walk with Jesus, many Christians ask whether they should attend seminary — either to earn a degree or just to take a few courses. I’ve been teaching in seminaries for thirty-five years, and I’ve done some thinking about this question. In this article, I’ll encourage you to go to seminary if you can, and I’ll try to help those who are seeking guidance for this important decision.

First of all, what is a seminary? A seminary is, of course, an academic institution that teaches knowledge and skills needed for Christian ministry. By “ministry” here, I mean both the official ministries of the church and ministries independent of churches: “parachurch” campus ministries, missions, mercy ministries, etc. But seminary also offers opportunities for anyone who wants to explore God’s Word in depth. Most seminaries offer master’s programs that are open to people who are not called to full-time ministry, and they offer “special student” status to people who just want to take a course or two, to deepen their knowledge of Scripture.

So a seminary is not just for professionals, not just for those who are seeking a credential for ordination. Its purpose is broader than that: it is a place for people to study God’s Word together. And, since Jesus is the Word made flesh (John 1:14), to study in seminary is to study at Jesus’ feet.

What a time it must have been, when Jesus shared His words and heart with His disciples (students) for the three years of His earthly ministry! They saw His compassionate healings, marveled at His miraculous power, listened to His word, saw His glory (Matt. 17:1- 13), and were humbled by His servant-leadership (Matt. 20:25-28, John 13:1-20). But these great events left them perplexed on the fundamental questions: who was Jesus? Why did He come?

Jesus had often told them that He was to die, as a sacrifice for sins (Matt. 20:28, John 12:33, 18:32), but they did not understand (Mark 9:31-32, Luke 8:33-34). After He was raised, however, there was a mysterious meeting between Jesus and two disciples on the road to Emmaus. The disciples had treated reports of His Resurrection as wild rumors. But “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself ” (Luke 24:27). What a time that must have been! Now they saw that Jesus’ resurrection was not a wild rumor, but a divine necessity (verse 26). It not only did happen; it had to happen, so that God could save us from our sins. Afterward, the two disciples said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the Scriptures?” (verse 32; my quotations are from the ESV).

Luke, who tells us about this mysterious meeting, tells us also that Jesus appeared to His disciples “during forty days… speaking about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). During this time, Jesus evidently taught the whole body of apostles, as He had taught the two on the road to Emmaus, how the Old Testament Scriptures pointed to Him. Afterwards, when the Holy Spirit came upon the church in Acts 2, Peter, and later other disciples, began preaching and teaching the Old Testament in a very different way from the Jewish teachers: everything pointed to Christ! Certainly the apostles had learned from Jesus, during the forty days, how to read and teach the Bible.

Seminary is something like those three years and those forty days. In many ways, of course, it is different. Jesus didn’t need to teach His disciples how to read Hebrew and Greek. He didn’t need to teach them post-canonical church history, because at the time there wasn’t any. Nor, most likely, did He give reading and writing assignments. He knew their hearts, so He knew how much they had learned. And although He didn’t give letter grades, He regularly evaluated their progress, often negatively. To the two on the road to Emmaus, He said, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” (Luke 24:25).

Nor, of course, did Jesus charge tuition in any formal way. But the disciples and Jesus shared expenses and the generosity of supporters in a common fund — managed, unfortunately, by Judas Iscariot, (John 12:6, 13:29). Seminaries also must have money to survive, and they too live from the contributions of students and the generosity of supporters, mostly the latter.

Of course the main difference between Jesus’ teaching and a modern seminary is that most seminaries require college degrees for admission. Seminary, therefore, is not for everybody. It is for those who are intellectually prepared to learn from Jesus at a scholarly level. Does Jesus, then, restrict his teaching to academic types? Certainly not. Jesus today teaches people of all ages, nationalities, educational backgrounds, and socio-economic levels. He teaches through sermons, Sunday schools, missionaries, evangelists, TV and radio ministries, the internet, personal Bible study, and through godly families teaching their children. But He also teaches His church through the discipline of academic courses, and seminary is one place to get teaching at that level.

This is not to say that everything in seminary is abstract and theoretical. Seminaries also teach preaching, counseling, evangelism and church planting, subjects we call “practical theology.” And seminaries usually require students to do “field work,” getting experience in actual ministry, with evaluation. Further, seminaries try their best to maintain a Christian community, where people love and support one another through prayer, communal worship, counseling, and modeling Christ. Seminary, of course, is not the church. Students, like all Christians, should turn to the church as their main place of worship and nurture. But a good seminary will understand that Christians should nurture one another wherever they are, so that even an academic institution, if it is Christian, should be a community of love. So even with tuition and exams and papers, the essence of seminary will be sitting at the feet of Jesus. We learn from Him as He teaches us through His brothers and sisters.

So I ask you to consider the privilege of sitting at Jesus’ feet. Once when He lived on earth, Jesus visited His friends, sisters Mary and Martha, in the town of Bethany. Martha was preoccupied with serving her guests, but Mary “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to His teaching” (Luke 10:39). Martha was upset that Mary was not helping. That seemed to be a legitimate complaint. But Jesus surprises us by commending Mary. She had “chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (verse 42). Now normally sisters should help one another out in household tasks. But this was a special occasion. If the Lord were to come to your house, would you want to miss anything? Martha was doing a good thing by working to serve Jesus and her other guests. But she didn’t quite understand what she was missing: the eternal Son of God, teaching in her own living room!

Don’t miss the opportunity to sit at the feet of Jesus. Many other things are important, such as housework, employment, and ministry itself. But we all need to take time away from it all to meditate on the Word.

Facing the temptations of Satan, Jesus said, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). We need to understand that the Word of God is every bit as important to us as food and drink. It is God Himself speaking to us, the words that He has breathed out (2 Tim. 3:16). Without it, we die. But blessed are those who delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on it day and night (Psalm 1:2). They are like trees planted by the streams, who bear fruit and prosper in all they do (verse 3).

So the only question remaining is, how will you sit at the feet of Jesus? Personal Bible study is one way, and God honors that. Listening closely to your pastor’s sermons is also a good thing. Attending Sunday school classes and going to Bible conferences will take you still further. But if you have the academic background for more advanced study, and you have opportunity, shouldn’t you take advantage of that also? Just think what it would mean to be able to read God’s Word in its original languages. Imagine spending several years, getting a systematic survey of all the teachings of the Bible and learning how to communicate them persuasively to this dying world. And imagine getting resources for continuing education —tools that will enable you to continue studying God’s Word in depth for the rest of your life.

Think about the relationships that can develop at seminary: with learned and godly professors who will become friends and mentors or life; with other students, with whom you’ll compare notes. Friends you make at seminary tend to stick closer to you than high school and college buddies. You often meet your seminary classmates in church meetings, common ministries, or just traveling around. (Evangelical circles, for better or worse, are a small world.)

In the process, you’ll also learn a lot about yourself. You’ll probably be surprised to find out how much you don’t know about God’s Word, and that will teach you humility. You’ll learn more about your spiritual strengths and weaknesses, where you are gifted and where you are not. Thus you’ll be better able to pinpoint the place in the kingdom where God wants you to be.

Let me now deal with seven problems people often raise about going to seminary:

(1) Can I afford it?

As I said earlier, seminary is not free. Jesus and His disciples also needed funds to support themselves. But God supplied their needs, and in my experience God has supplied the needs of most people who want in a serious way to attend seminary. Sometimes He does not, for His own various reasons. And for some it is certainly a financial stretch. But that shouldn’t discourage those who really want to study God’s Word at seminary level. The tuition can look expensive, but a careful look at financial aid, loan programs, and work-study opportunities can considerably reduce the sticker shock.

(2) Could seminary be a spiritual danger to me?

This objection is not as strange as it may sound at first hearing. For some, seminary can be a trial of faith. One can become so immersed in academic assignments, papers, technical terminology, Hebrew paradigms and such that he comes to feel far from God. I’ve addressed some of these concerns in another pamphlet, Studying Theology as a Servant of Jesus. Seminary does require a devotional discipline to match our academic discipline, but that challenge, on the whole, is a good thing. And what most students find is that once we face that challenge, the academic and the devotional merge in a wonderful way. The dry periods tend to be at the beginning, when you are struggling to master the basics. But when the theology of the Bible starts to come together in your mind, when you start to see the overall shape of it, your academic study will feed your soul. In the end, sitting at the feet of Jesus cannot be anything other than uplifting.

Further, as I mentioned earlier, a good seminary will seek to help students who are going through dry periods, by being a Christian community.

(3) Will seminary reduce my effectiveness?

Sometimes, it is true, people go to seminary and they come back speaking jargon, making fine distinctions that nobody can under- stand, looking down their noses at folks who have less education than they (but who may be more mature in the Lord) generally making nuisances of themselves. Such people are ineffective, even detrimental to the work of the Lord. It is a shame that people like this are found at seminary and at graduation get unleashed to afflict the church. For what it’s worth, let me say that at our seminary we continually warn our students against this sort of thing, but it does happen. I would say, however, that these theological nuisances would probably be nuisances even if they hadn’t attended seminary. If seminary does not sufficiently deter their pride, at least it probably has the effect of knocking them down a notch or two, showing them a few things that they don’t know. And it may also plant some seeds of biblical self-image that may provoke later reflection. But seminary doesn’t do away with original sin. Only the grace of God in Christ can do that. So your planning for seminary should include a lot of prayer — not only for finances and academic success, but also for your relation to God, that the power of the Word that you study will get deep into your heart.

(4) Is it right to leave my present ministry in order to go to seminary?

Every Christian has his own ministry, right where he is — perhaps as a Sunday school teacher, an elder or deacon, a church staff member, a parachurch worker, or simply one who seeks to witness for Christ on the job. Sometimes you can continue such ministries even while you are at seminary. There may be a seminary in your local area where you can schedule classes that don’t interfere with your current labors. There are also some seminaries that have distance education programs in which you can stay home and take classes by tape or webcast. But often students have to pick up stakes and move to a new place in order to attend seminary.

(5) Is it worth it?

I can’t address every situation of this kind. But I think that in many cases the answer is yes. What you learn at seminary can make you a far more effective Sunday school teacher, campus evangelist, or on-the-job witness than you were before. It can make you a better support to your local pastor. And it can qualify you for an even larger sphere of ministry, and that will be good for the kingdom of God.

Your present ministry may be vital in the lives of many people, as you lead them through the spiritual battle. But a spiritual warrior, like a literal soldier, must be well trained and equipped. You should ask whether you are now able to use the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, well enough to deal with the enemy. Some time at seminary may make you far better able to continue your ministry at a later point in time. And as for now, remember that if God is calling you to seminary, He is sovereignly able to care for those you have been ministering to.

(6) But I have opportunities for training with my church or ministry organization. Isn’t that sufficient?

For some people it may be. And I would hope that someday, somehow, seminary-level training might be available through every local church and ministry organization. But, as of now, most of them just aren’t at that point. In most cases, seminary training takes you to a whole new level of understanding, beyond local ministry training.

You might think that you can get this level of understanding just by reading books by seminary professors. But if you go to seminary, you’ll be studying with the people who write the books. You can ask them questions, which will help you not only to get answers, but also (and more important) to learn how they think. You’ll get frameworks, paradigms and ways of bringing Bible truth together that just aren’t available elsewhere. Consider these examples:

a. Do you understand the covenant? Jesus came to put the “new covenant” into effect. But what is the new covenant, and how is it different from the old? When we present the Gospel, we teach people to believe in Christ as their personal “Lord and Savior.” But both Lord and Savior are covenantal terms. Lord is the name of God that designates Him as the head of the covenant, and Savior tells us what He does in that office. I’ve written an 850- page book, The Doctrine of God, to show that covenant Lordship is the key to what the Bible says about God and about Jesus. Do you know what covenant Lordship means? If not, are you sure you can present the Gospel as the apostles did? You can learn about this in seminary — at least in the seminary where I teach! I don’t know where else you can study this doctrine in depth.

b. When the apostles were filled with the Spirit to evangelize the world, they presented Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures. As Jesus taught the two disciples in Luke 24, the apostles proclaimed from the Old Testament that the death and Resurrection of Christ had to happen. It was not just an accident. So they preached that anyone who really believes the Old Testament must believe in Jesus. Can you do that? That’s a basic part of preaching the Gospel, according to Scripture, but almost nobody knows how to do that today. After His Resurrection, Jesus taught His disciples how to do it (Luke 24:27). You can learn how to do that at seminary, and maybe nowhere else.

c. Do you understand how Jesus fulfills the Old Testament offices of prophet, priest, and king, and what difference this makes to church government and to your personal Christian life? Do you understand why the church is so important to God, as His people, the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, and not just a collection of individuals? Learning about this can revolutionize your mission strategy and the priorities of your own life. But where can you study this in depth other than in seminary?

d. What about just reading and teaching the Bible? Can you imagine how much richer your teaching could be if you could read Scripture in the original languages and learn how to interpret the Greek and Hebrew texts? You could learn the basic grammar from going through a book. But you need also to learn idioms and literary styles. You need to learn about the literary genres in the Bible. You need to learn the difference between synonymous and antithetical parallelism, and where the emphasis falls in a chiastic structure (note: it doesn’t fall at the beginning or the end). Well, I don’t know where you can learn this sort of thing except in seminary.

e. How much do you know about the history of the church? It’s true that Scripture, not church history, is our final authority. But it’s also true that “those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it,” and “we should not try to re-invent the wheel.” Many of the heresies appearing today are just repetitions of heresies that have appeared before in church history. Many of our questions about worship, nurture, and evangelism have appeared before as well. It’s good to know how the church dealt with these issues in the past. Sometimes they’ve been wrong, sometimes right. But we need to be able to avoid their mistakes and to build on their achievements. Where can you get that kind of knowledge other than in seminary?

(7) But isn’t it better to prepare for ministry while doing ministry?

Yes it is. That is why every seminarian should be involved in ministry while he is at seminary. That is why field work is a requirement in most seminary curricula. There should be a regular dialogue between what you learn in class and what you do in ministry. Your studies should help you to minister, as God drives the Word into your heart and increases your effectiveness. And your ministry should help you to ask good questions in your classes and to tailor your program to be relevant to your ministry. You should not think of seminary as a time-out from ministry.

But of course if you go to seminary you will probably spend less time than you do now in actual ministry. You will have to make time for your classes and assignments. I think that for most of us this temporary change in priorities is a good thing.

Remember the biblical metaphor of warfare. A soldier should always be ready to fight for his country. But good soldiers need periods of training, even classroom instruction, to be at their best, ready for the more difficult challenges. The disciples experienced that training at Jesus’ feet. They ministered with Him and served Him. But like Mary of Bethany, they sometimes just listened, as when Jesus took them away from the crowds for time alone with Him (Matt. 8:18, 13:36, 14:22-23). And for forty days they listened to Jesus’ teaching, waiting for the fullness of the Holy Spirit, before they went on to the great ministry to which God had called them. Remember also that the Apostle Paul spent three years in Arabia and But is God calling me to seminary?

God’s calling can sometimes be spectacular, as when Moses met God in the burning bush and when Paul met the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. Isaiah’s calling in Chapter 6 of his prophecy is another case in point. But often God’s calling is spectacularly unspectacular. In 1 Cor. 7, Paul tells the church, “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him” (verse 17). Some, when God called them to believe in Christ, were single, others married, some Jews, some Gentiles, some slave, some free. Those were their callings. I doubt that many of them had dramatic encounters with God, telling them what to do with their lives. Their calling was simply to serve God in the place where they were.

So at one level, your calling is to serve Christ wherever you find yourself. That doesn’t mean you can never do anything different from what you’re doing now, though Paul tells the Corinthians generally to avoid major changes in their lives (such as marriage), due to “the present distress” in Corinth (verse 26), (perhaps persecution or famine). Your calling may well change, for any number of reasons. But don’t wait for a dream, a vision, or a sign from heaven. Look prayerfully at your gifts and opportunities, and see how you can best serve the Lord. That will be His calling for you. And that calling may well include seminary.

I hope you will consider what I’ve said prayerfully and that you will search the Scriptures yourself to determine whether what I’ve said is true (see Acts 17:11). Not all of you should conclude that seminary is the right place for you, but I believe many of you should. I think it would be a great benefit to the church, and to the lost, if many more Christians attended good seminaries. That would do much to reduce the appalling ignorance and immaturity in many Christian circles, which brings such discredit on the name of Christ.

Most of all, I want you to have the burning heart that the two disciples had when the risen Christ explained the Scriptures to them (Luke 24:32). I want you to have, at the deepest possible level, the sense that Jesus Himself is speaking to you in His Word, revealing His secrets, renewing your mind, showing you how to love as He loved. Seminary is not the only place where you can experience that burning heart. But at seminary you can sit at Jesus’ feet for several years, immersing yourself in His Word, and thereby getting to know Him personally. If God opens this door to you, you will have a tremendous privilege, one open to few other Christians. I have never known anyone who was not profoundly changed by his seminary experience, most of them very much for the better. I pray that God will help you in making this decision and that He will open the door to bring you to seminary, to sit at Jesus’ feet.

About John Frame: (A.B., Princeton University; B.D., Westminster Theological Seminary; A.M. and M.Phil., Yale University; D.D., Belhaven College) is Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He is author of The Doctrine of God; Doctrine of the Knowledge of God; The Christian Life; Salvation Belongs to the Lord; Contemporary Worship Music; Worship in Spirit & Truth; Cornelius VanTil: Analysis of His Thought; The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God; Apologetics to the Glory of God and Medical Ethics: Principles, Persons and Problems.

How To Build a Church “Of” Rather Than Just “With” Small Groups

BUILDING A CHURCH OF SMALL GROUPS – Willow Creek Community Church: A Case Study

(These are notes I [DPC]  took from the excellent book pictured above – Building A Church of Small Groups co-authored by Bill Donahue & Russ Robinson. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005)

A PLACE WHERE NOBODY STANDS ALONE – By Bill Donahue & Russ Robinson

Willow Creek CC story –  “The people that we had worked with so hard to win to Christ were having an increasingly difficult time making the church a part of their life and making themselves a part of the church’s life. In many cases people couldn’t connect meaningfully to the church, but only about 10-15% of our congregation could get connected into one of those smaller settings (p. 11).”

Community – “It means first, that a Christian needs others because of Jesus Christ. It means second, that a Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ. It means, third, that in Jesus Christ we have been chosen from eternity, accepted in time, and united for eternity.” ([Dietrich Bonhoeffer from Life Together, p.21] quoted on pp. 11-12)

New Vision for WCCC: “We began moving from a church where small groups were optional to a church where small groups defined the core organizational strategy (p. 12).”

Elder’s Comment: “We loved the movement of the HS, the changed lives, the catalytic energy, the sense of awe as we saw God at work; but we hated the disorderly organizational dynamics, burned-out staff and lay leadership, displaced people, and undisciplined masses (p. 13).”

The End Result:  “WCCC since 1992 (as of 2001) has gone from a church with small groups—that is, small groups being one of our programs—to being a church of small groups. Instead of 10-15% of the congregation connected into a small group, we have become a place where over 18,000 individuals are connected in 2,700 small groups (p. 14).”

 Part 1: Making the Case for Community

C1 – In the Beginning God: The Theological Evidence

  • “The Theological case for community depends on three basic ideas: First, God exists in community; He has forever existed as and will into eternity remain three persons in One. Second, God was incarnate in Jesus, whose transformational relationships offer a model you cannot ignore. Third, Jesus dreams of oneness for all Christians, which is why you must move your church toward His vision (P. 21).”
  • God is a plurality of oneness – “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…(Gen. 1:26).” And … “The LORD our God, the LORD is one (Deut. 6:4).”
  • The Small Group is a generic form of human community that is transcultural, trans-generational and even transcendent. The call to human gathering in groups is a God-created (ontological) and God-directed (theological) ministry, birthed out of the very nature and purpose of God’s being. God as Being exists in community. The natural and simple demonstration of God’s communal image for humanity is the gathering of the small group (p. 22 quoting Garth Icenogle, from Biblical Foundations for Small Group Ministry, p. 13)
  • True community is both horizontal and vertical – like the bars on the cross…they meet in the center, when we experience God and all of His fullness and His people in all their fullness.
  • The Importance of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:20-21, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in You, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
  • “This concern for the survival of the church down through the ages provides the explanation for the anguished tones of Jesus’ prayer. He knew that if the church should fail to demonstrate community to the world. It would fail to accomplish its mission, because the world would have reason to disbelieve the gospel (vv. 21, 23). According to that prayer, the most convincing proof of the truth of the gospel is the perceptible oneness of his followers (Quoting from Gilbert Bilezekian’s, Community 101, p. 37 [p. 32])

C2 – Created for Community: The Sociological Evidence

1)   SG’s provide strength for life’s storms – Many of the heroes of the faith (e.g. David @ Jonathan) survived adversity through faith and community.

  • Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, “Two are better than one…if one falls down, his friend can pick him up.” ; John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble;” Romans 12:15, “Weep with those who weep;” Galatians 6:2, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ;” Leviticus 19:18, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

2)    SG’s provide wisdom when we face important decisions.

  • Proverbs 15:22, “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed.”

3)   SG’s provide accountability and offer us acceptance while we change.

  • Proverbs 27:17, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.”

4)   SG’s provides acceptance that help heal our wounds.

  • Interesting point: “When you talk to people about their families, you’ll discover a startling truth few want to admit. Many people experience more pain than love and acceptance in their families (p. 42).”
  • John 15:12-13, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

C3 – What the Church Needs to Grow: The Organizational Evidence

  • Two Principles: 1) Your church will best meet each member’s needs by honoring each leaders “span of care” (i.e. this principle insures that everyone is cared for, but no one cares for too many people); 2) the church cannot function as God intends unless people see themselves as members of one body.
  • “Reorganizing your congregation into a church of small groups is hard work. You need to present the organizational case to every segment of your church, including your ministries to children and adults, couples and singles, men and women, jocks and computer geeks, the mature and the emotionally unstable, the leaders and the newly converted. But span of care  (Exodus 18) can help your church achieve reorganization.
  • “Coach” is the term that WCCC uses for their leaders of small groups…
  • “We at WC had no way to achieve this level of care until we put span of care to work by organizing everyone into small groups. We designated leaders to care for groups of children, women, men, couples, and families. Coaches care for leaders, and coaches receive care from staff leaders (p.49).”
  •  “As everyone works together, God transforms individual lives, creating the kind of oneness experienced in the Trinity, the kind of community Christ dreams for us (p. 49).” Two key passages: 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 & Ephesians 4:3-7, 11-16
  • “I can tell you this: sizzling services, extra ministry programs, or new curricula will not transform yours into a church where people really do build each other up in love, ‘as each part does its work.’ The churches that come closest to this ideal share a common vision and practice. Their leaders—senior pastor, staff, elders, key volunteers—our bold enough to imagine the seemingly impossible. They believe the church can experience oneness by transforming people through community. And these leaders have recognized that small groups are the key, the common practice, for realizing the vision. They have taken action (p. 51).”

Part 2: Pursuing Community in Small Groups

C4 – Small Groups Are Built on Authentic Relationships

  • “Small groups are microcosms of God’s creation community. Wherever two or more persons come together, they become an actual reflection of the image and likeness of God. Small groups are the basic arena for either imaging the redeeming presence of God or projecting destructive human systems. Every small or large gathering of humanity exists in this tension of manifesting an inhuman structure or embodying divinely redemptive relationships.” – Gareth Icenogle, Biblical Foundations of SG Ministry
  • Key elements of authenticity: Growing in community; Self-disclosure; Care-giving; humility; truth-telling; & affirmation

C5 – Small Groups Are Places Where Truth Meets Life

  • Truth-Focused Groups = Know the right answers to the right questions; Focus on information—“What does it mean? Reward members for being right; Community is built on the principle of agreement; the goal is a well-informed student.
  • Life-Focused Groups = Know the right answers to personal problems; focus on introspection—“How do I feel?” Reward members for being real; Community is built on the principle of acceptance; The goal is a well-understood self
  • Transformation-Focused Groups = Know the truth about God and me; Focus on transformation—How am I becoming like Christ? Reward members for being on honest with God and others; Community is built on the principle of authenticity; The goal is a well-ordered heart.

C6 – Small Groups Experience Healthy Conflict

  • Setting Boundaries for Managing Group Conflict:

1)   If it happens in the Group, Process it in the group.

2)   The Leader is responsible for Process, Not Outcomes

3)   Validate the conflict

4)   The conflict does not need to be resolved at this meeting

5)   Conflict Must be processed with trust and confidentiality

  • Confronting an individual:

1)   Start as soon as possible

2)   Meet face to face

3)   Affirm the relationship

4)   Make observations, not accusations

5)   Get the facts

6)   Promote resolution

  • The “A” Guidelines for Confession:

1)   Address everyone involved (Ps. 32:5; Luke 19:8; James 5:16)

2)   Avoid using “if,” “but,” and “maybe.” What excuses or blaming do you need to avoid?

3)   Admit specifically what was done or said (Ezra 9:5-15)

4)   Apologize: How might others feel as a result of your sin?

5)   Accept the consequences (Luke 15:9; 19:8)

6)   After your behavior. What changes do you intend to make, with God’s help, in the way you think, speak, and behave in the future? (Matt. 3:8; Acts 26:20)

7)   Ask for forgiveness and allow time. What might make the person whom you have wronged reluctant to forgive you?

C7 – Small Groups Provide Well-Balanced Shepherding

  • Bill Hybels, “Of all the things Jesus could have said concerning Peter’s ministry (referring to John 21:15-19), he said, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He told Peter to get some people and train them up in the school of life, to nurture them, and to guide them. Jesus made time in his life to tend a little flock. And if he were here today, above all else, he would make the time to tend a little flock. So, if you are a small group leader, or a leader of leaders, and you are making time to tend a little flock, you are doing Jesus’ work. Any time you wonder whether you are having any impact on the kingdom, remember that tending a flock reflects the very heart of God and his plan of redemption for the world (p. 109).”

Part 3: Developing Leaders of Small Groups

C8 – Enlisting Small Group Leaders

  • Look at who they ARE: Affections; Reputation; & Expectations
  • Affections: People suited to leadership love God, people, truth, and the church. The greatest gifts a leader can give to a small group are a relationship with Christ and the passion to be more like Him.
  • Reputation: A person’s reputation offers clues to that person’s preparation for leadership. Make it a point to meet people close to the potential leader. Inquire what they think of the person’s character, trustworthiness, and way of relating to others. Ask people to assess a candidate’s leadership potential. Do they believe the person could grow toward leadership? Why or why not? Have they served others or the church in ways that produce effective fruits of ministry?
  • Expectations: Make sure candidates understand and support expectations for service. As you discuss what senior staff, elders, or other key lay leaders expect form a small group leader, look especially for people who commit themselves to participating in membership, respect spiritual authority, and pursue life-long learning.
  • Where do you look for leaders? This is a trick question. Rather than look for leaders, we encourage churches to look for people. There’s always a greater supply of people than of obvious leaders. Some of these people will eventually emerge as leaders.

C9 – Training Small Group Leaders

During Meetings:           Between Meetings:

Gather – invite current or potential members into community Build intimacy, transparency, and authentic relationships in the group Build friends with existing group members and seek to invite new ones
Develop – Take each person the next step in spiritual growth or leadership Create a place where truth meets life Shepherd members and develop apprentice leaders
Serve – Complete ministry tasks together Plan and prepare for strategic serving opportunities Serve personally outside the group or serve together as a group

C10 – Coaching and Supporting Leaders

The Role of the Coach

 

Huddle

Visiting the Group

One-on-One
Leadership Development:

  • Vision casting
  • Skills
  • Apprentices

Lead

Affirm

Care
Pastoral Care:

  • Spiritual
  • Relational
  • Personal

and

and

and
Ministry Support & Expansion:

  • Prayer
  • Affirmation
  • Resources

Model

Observe

Develop

C11 – Make Decisions

5 Questions that Must Be Asked in order to Become a Church of Small Groups:

1)   Will we become a church of small groups?

2)   Who will be the point leader?

3)   What will be our long-term structure?

4)   How will we develop enough leaders?

5)   From where are we starting?

Regardless of your design, you will find that you need a number of leaders equal to 25-30% of the number of people connected in groups. That high percentage includes those who are apprentices or rising apprentices, people who are intentionally being developed as emerging leaders. Thus, a group of 10 will have a leader, an apprentice, and maybe one or two others the leader hopes to develop as future leaders.

  • A church built on SG’s will need a lot of volunteers.
  • You need to invest in many volunteer leaders.
  • You will give away ministry to an increasing corps of lay ministers.
  • There is good news: the ownership of the congregation’s life will expand.

What Are Our Core Values?

  • Building relationships: How much do parishioners naturally care for each other?
  • Loving lost people: Are people inclined toward outsiders?
  • Truth telling: Does your congregation acknowledge and deal with conflict?
  • Mutual ministry: What is the current lay ministry quotient?
  • Accountability: Is there enough vulnerability and submission to grow?
  • Commitment: Do people own the church’s mission and act like it? 

Five Major Types of Small Groups:

Disciple-Making Groups Community Groups Service Groups Seeker Groups Support Groups
Members Believers in a structured discipleship process Believers & non-believers Believers & non-believers Predominantly nonbelievers Believers & non-believers
Curriculum A set curriculum Leaders work with Coaches to choose curriculum Leaders work with Coaches to choose curriculum Determined by questions from the group Determined by the ministry leaders
Open Chair Used at breaks in curriculum Used regularly to add members Used regularly to add members Always has an open chair Used primarily to form new groups
Emphasis Develop spiritual disciplines, memorize Scripture, disciple others Build community, invite new members Complete the task, invite new members Lead people to Christ, disciple new converts To support members as they work through personal difficulties
Multiplication Apprentice leads new disciple-making group Groups grow and birth after 24 to 36 months Groups grow and birth at variable rates depending on the task Apprentice leads new seeker group or new believers group Apprentices are trained to form new groups
Duration 18 to 24 months Continue to grow and birth Continue to grow and birth Average length is about one year Varies depending on personal needs and the purpose of the group
  • “In SG ministry, your strategy must account for span of care. Open groups will aid your journey. Varied entry points will give everyone ways to connect in an aligned ministry. A self-perpetuating leadership corps will grow into shepherding the whole flock effectively, especially as you intentionally cultivate spiritual growth and contextualize your growth model (p. 193).” 

C12 – Choose a Strategy

Stephen Bartman, Hyperculture, “When we come home at the end of the day, it may not be just work we bring with us, but also our high-speed frustrations and electronic expectations. In short, we may come to expect the imperfect human beings in our lives to operate as efficiently as our equipment, quickly losing patience with those we might otherwise love because they do not answer as swiftly, or respond as rapidly, or obey as readily as the machines we know.

Four Lessons for Ministry Alignment (p. 186):

First, communication is critical. “We failed to communicate adequately with leaders of the “church with” version of small groups. We didn’t explain often enough or deeply enough about how they would fit within the new infrastructure. Instead of building on our strong foundation, we alienated a key audience—then we had to win them back.”

Second, stay flexible. “Whatever strategy you choose needs a ‘loose-tight balance.’ You need a uniform set of standards and definite understanding of what constitutes group life and what does not. Yet, the ministry-by-ministry expression of groups must permit increased variety in meeting every person’s need and readiness for community.”

Third, balance patience with restlessness. “It took us seven years to organize every part of the church on a full small groups foundation. Sometimes we made partial gains, backed off until change was accepted, then returned to chip away again. As one minister observed: ‘We are in year twelve of a twenty-year vision, and we are going to have to extend it beyond that.’ Alignment takes time.”

Fourth, Confrontation is essential. Speak the truth in love.

C13 – Phasing in the Small Group Ministry 

The Model Phase: The best way to embed community values into a small group ministry is to model them yourself. If your church is just beginning small groups, start with a few model groups, led (ideally) by the senior pastor and/or other key church leaders.

Turbo Groups: ratchet up the model group concept. Turbo groups are SG’s filled with apprentice leaders. In other words, everyone in the group is expected to someday lead his or her own group. Thus a turbo group functions as both a real small group and a training group. 

The following will help your turbo groups succeed:

  • Turbo groups must build authentic community. This is not simply a training group. These people must understand and practice community or they will never reproduce it in their own groups.
  • Turbo groups must experience all components of a regular group. They need to practice the open chair, identify apprentice leaders, create places where truth meets life, build authentic relationships, and appropriately handle conflict—so that the same things will take place in the next set of groups.
  • Turbo groups must seize teachable moments. In these groups, leadership lessons are often caught, not taught. It is appropriate in the context of a turbo group to pause and say, “Let’s talk about what just happened—and why—in the last ten minutes.” Or, leaders might ask, “Why did I do this? What did you see me doing that was good or needs improving?”
  • Turbo groups take time. Turbo groups probably need at least 9-12 months to appropriately train new leaders. It can happen more quickly if the group meets weekly or if leaders have prior small group experience. However, brand new leaders may need as long as eighteen to twenty-four months of preparation.

The Pilot Phase: After firmly establishing your core values and clarifying your small group development model, you are ready for the pilot group phase. This is a learning phase for a limited number of groups. New to the nature and meaning of small group community, many people will be wary of long-term commitments. During this phase, you start a limited number of small groups that last just 9-12 months. The time limit is a safety net; it gives everyone a chance to pause, evaluate, and redesign.

The Start-Up Group Phase: Your leaders have modeled appropriate values during the model/turbo group phase. You’ve run new groups through a pilot phase to discover difficulties. Now you can give the “green light” to starting small groups throughout the church. The start-up group phase is the final phase before going public. You are now giving permission for interested people to develop groups and explore leadership.

  • During the start-up phase, you will need a training strategy so emerging groups and leaders can learn more skills. You will need regular leadership gatherings and an annual retreat. But this is still not the time to go public. It’s too soon for weekly pulpit exhortations about joining small groups, because your structure isn’t ready for the potential response.

Going Public:

  • Don’t go public until you have enough leaders and infrastructure in place to handle the response.
  • For the traditional groups transition from big groups to more communal and relationally oriented groups.

Preacher: Do You Have A Theology of Preaching?

“A Theology of Preaching”

By Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr.,

“Preach the word!” That simple imperative frames the act of preaching as an act of obedience (see 2 Tim. 4:2, NIV). That is where any theology of preaching must begin.

Preaching did not emerge from the church’s experimentation with communication techniques. The church does not preach because preaching is thought to be a good idea or an effective technique. The sermon has not earned its place in Christian worship by proving its utility in comparison with other means of communication or aspects of worship. Rather, we preach because we have been commanded to preach.

Preaching is a commission—a charge. As Paul stated boldly, it is the task of the minister of the gospel to “preach the Word, … in season and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2,  NIV). Paul begins with the humble acknowledgment that preaching is not a human invention but a gracious creation of God and a central part of His revealed will for the church. Furthermore, preaching is distinctively Christian in its origin and practice. Other religions may include teaching, or even public speech and calls to prayer. However, the preaching act is sui generis, a function of the church established by Jesus Christ.

As John A. Broadus stated: “Preaching is characteristic of Christianity. No other religion has made the regular and frequent assembling of groups of people, to hear religious instruction and exhortation, an integral part of divine worship” (John A. Broadus, On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, rev. Vernon L. Stanfield. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1979, iv.). The importance of preaching is rooted in Scripture and revealed in the unfolding story of the church. The church has never been faithful when it has lacked fidelity in the pulpit. In the words of P. T. Forsyth: “With preaching Christianity stands or falls, because it is the declaration of the gospel” (P. T. Forsyth, Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964, 5).

The church cannot but preach lest it deny its own identity and abdicate its ordained purpose. Preaching is communication, but not mere communication. It is human speech, but much more than speech. As Ian Pitt-Watson notes, preaching is not even “a kind of speech communication that happens to be about God” (Ian Pitt-Watson, A Primer for Preachers. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1986, 14). Its ground, its goal, and its glory are all located in the sovereign will of God.

The act of preaching brings forth a combination of exposition, testimony, exhortation, and teaching. Still, preaching cannot be reduced to any of these, or even to the sum total of its individual parts combined.

The primary Greek form of the word “preach” (kērusso) reveals its intrinsic rootage in the kerygma—the gospel itself. Preaching is an inescapably theological act, for the preacher dares to speak of God and, in a very real sense, for God. A theology of preaching should take trinitarian form, reflecting the very nature of the self-revealing God. In so doing, it bears witness to the God who speaks, the Son who saves, and the Spirit who illuminates.

The God Who Speaks

True preaching begins with this confession: we preach because God has spoken. That fundamental conviction is the fulcrum of the Christian faith and of Christian preaching. The Creator God of the universe, the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Lord chose of His own sovereign will to reveal Himself to us. Supreme and complete in His holiness, needing in nothing and hidden from our view, God condescended to speak to us—even to reveal Himself to us.

As Carl F. H. Henry suggests, revelation is “a divinely initiated activity, God’s free communication by which He alone turns His personal privacy into a deliberate disclosure of His reality” (Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, Vol. 2. Waco: Word Books, 1976, 17). In an act of holy graciousness, God gave up His comprehensive privacy that we might know Him. God’s revelation is the radical claim upon which we dare to speak of God—He has spoken!

Our God-talk must therefore begin and end with what God has spoken concerning Himself. Preaching is not the business of speculating about God’s nature, will, or ways, but is bearing witness to what God has spoken concerning Himself. Preaching does not consist of speculation but of exposition.

The preacher dares to speak the Word of truth to a generation which rejects the very notion of objective, public truth. This is not rooted in the preacher’s arrogant claim to have discovered worldly wisdom or to have penetrated the secrets of the universe. To the contrary, the preacher dares to proclaim truth on the basis of God’s sovereign self-disclosure. God has spoken, and He has commanded us to speak of Him.

The Bible bears witness to itself as the written Word of God. This springs from the fact that God has spoken. In the Old Testament alone, the phrases “the Lord said,” “the Lord spoke,” and “the word of the Lord came” appear at least 3,808 times (As cited in Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Authority. London: InterVarsity Press, 1958, 50). This confession brings the preacher face to face with Scripture as divine revelation. The authority of Scripture is none other than the authority of God Himself. As the Reformation formula testifies, “where Scripture speaks, God speaks.” The authority of the preacher is intrinsically rooted in the authority of the Bible as the church’s Book and the unblemished Word of God. Its total truthfulness is a witness to God’s own holiness. We speak because God has spoken, and because He has given us His Word.

As Scripture itself records, God has called the church to speak of Him on the basis of His Word and deeds. All Christian preaching is biblical preaching. That formula is axiomatic. Those who preach from some other authority or text may speak with great effect and attractiveness, but they are preaching “another gospel,” and their words will betray them. Christian preaching is not an easy task. Those who are called to preach bear a heavy duty. As Martin Luther confessed “If I could come down with a good conscience, I would rather be stretched out on a wheel and carry stones than preach one sermon.” Speaking on the basis of what God has spoken is both arduous and glorious.

A theology of preaching begins with the confession that the God who speaks has ultimate claim upon us. He who spoke a word and brought a world into being created us from the dust. God has chosen enlivened dust—and all creation—to bear testimony to His glory.

In preaching, finite, frail, and fault-ridden human beings bear bold witness to the infinite, all-powerful, and perfect Lord. Such an endeavor would smack of unmitigated arrogance and over-reaching were it not for the fact that God Himself has set us to the task. In this light, preaching is not an act of arrogance, but of humility. True preaching is not an exhibition of the brilliance or intellect of the preacher, but an exposition of the wisdom and power of God.

This is possible only when the preacher stands in submission to the text of Scripture. The issue of authority is inescapable. Either the preacher or the text will be the operant authority. A theology of preaching serves to remind those who preach of the danger of confusing our own authority with that of the biblical text. We are called, not only to preach, but to preach the Word.

Acknowledging the God who speaks as Lord is to surrender the preaching event in an act of glad submission. Preaching thus becomes the occasion for the Word of the Lord to break forth anew. This occasion itself represents the divine initiative, for it is God Himself, and not the preacher, who controls His Word.

John Calvin understood this truth when he affirmed that “The Word goeth out of the mouth of God in such a manner that it likewise goeth out of the mouth of men; for God does not speak openly from heaven but employs men as His instruments” (John Calvin, Commentary on Isaiah [55:11], Corpus Reformatorum 37.291, cited in Ronald S. Wallace, “The Preached Word as the Word of God,” in Readings in Calvin’s Theology, ed. Donald McKim. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1984, 231). Calvin understood preaching to be the process by which God uses human instruments to speak what He Himself has spoken. This He accomplishes through the preaching of Scripture under the illumination and testimonium of the Holy Spirit. God uses preachers, Calvin offered, “rather than to thunder at us and drive us away” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV.1.5, tr. Floyd Lewis Battles, ed. John T. McNeill, 2 vols. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960, 1018). Further, “it is a singular privilege that He deigns to consecrate to Himself the mouths and toungues [sic] of men in order that His voice may resound in them” (Ibid).

Thus, preaching springs from the truth that God has spoken in word and deed and that He has chosen human vessels to bear witness to Himself and His gospel. We speak because we cannot be silent. We speak because God has spoken.

The Son Who Saves

“In the past,” wrote the author of Hebrews, “God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe” (Heb. 1:1–2, NIV). The God who reveals Himself (Deus Revelatus) has spoken supremely and definitively through His Son.

Carl F. H. Henry once stated that only a theology “abreast of divine invasion” could lay claim upon the church. The same holds true for a theology of preaching. All Christian preaching is unabashedly Christological.

Christian preaching points to the incarnation of God in Christ as the stackpole of truth and the core of Christian confession. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). Thus, preaching is itself an act of grace, making clear God’s initiative toward us in Christ. Preaching is one means by which the redeemed bear witness to the Son who saves. That message of divine salvation, the unmerited act of God in Christ, is the criterion by which all preaching is to be judged.

With this in mind, all preaching is understood to be rooted in the incarnation. As the apostle John declared, God spoke to us by means of His Son, the Word, and that Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (1:14). All human speech is rendered mute by the incarnate Word of God. Yet, at the same time, the incarnation allows us to speak of God in the terms He has set for Himself—in the identity of Jesus the Christ.

Preaching is itself incarnational. In the preaching event a human being stands before a congregation of fellow humans to speak the most audacious words ever encountered or uttered by the human species: God has made Himself known in His Son, through whom He has also made provision for our salvation.

As Karl Barth insisted, all preaching must have a thrust. The thrust cannot come from the energy, earnestness, or even the conviction of the preacher. “The sermon,” asserted Barth, “takes its thrust when it begins: The Word became flesh … once and for all, and when account of this is taken in every thought” (Karl Barth, Homiletics, tr. Geoffrey Bromiley and Donald W. Daniels. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991, 52). The power of the sermon does not lie in the domain of the preacher, but in the providence of God. Preaching does not demonstrate the power of the human instrument, but of the biblical message of God’s words and deeds.

Jesus serves as our model, as well as the content of our preaching. As Mark recorded in his Gospel, “Jesus came preaching” (1:14), and His model of preaching as the unflinching forth-telling of God’s gracious salvation is the ultimate standard by which all human preaching is to be judged. Jesus Himself sent His disciples out to preach repentance (Mark 6:12). The church received its charge to “preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15). Preaching is, as Christ made clear, an extension of His own will and work. The church preaches because it has been commanded to do so.

If preaching takes its ground and derives its power from God’s revelation in the Son, then the cross looms as the paramount symbol and event of Christian proclamation. “We preach not ourselves,” pressed Paul, “but Jesus Christ as Lord” (2 Cor. 4:5). That message was centered on the cross as the definitive criterion of preaching. Paul understood that the cross is simultaneously the most divisive and the most unifying event in human history. The preaching of the cross—the proclamation of the substitutionary atonement wrought by the sinless Son of God—“is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those of us who are being saved, it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18).

Any honest and faithful theology of preaching must acknowledge that charges of foolishness are not incidental to the homiletical task. They are central. Those seeking worldly wisdom or secret signs will be frustrated with what we preach, for the cross is the abolition of both. The Christian preacher dares not speak a message which will appeal to the sign-seekers and wisdom-lovers, “lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (1 Cor. 1:17). As James Denney stated plainly, “No man can give at once the impression that he himself is clever and that Jesus Christ is mighty to save.”

Beyond this, Paul indicated the danger of ideological temptations and the allure of “technique” as threats to the preaching of the gospel. Writing to the church at Corinth, Paul explained: “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Cor. 2:4–5, NIV).

To preach the gospel of the Son who saves is to forfeit all claim or aim to make communication technique or human persuasion the measure of homiletical effectiveness. Preaching is effective when it is faithful. The effect is in the hands of God.

The preacher dares to speak for God, on the basis of what God has spoken concerning Himself and His ways, and that means speaking the word of the cross. That underscores the humility of preaching. As John Piper suggests, the act of preaching is “both a past event of substitution and a present event of execution” (John Piper, The Supremacy of Christ in Preaching. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1990, 35). Only the redeemed, those who know the cross as the power and wisdom of God, understand the glory and the burden of preaching. To the world of unbelief, such words are senseless prattle.

To preach the message of the Son who saves is to spread the world’s most hopeful message. All Christian preaching is resurrection preaching. A theology of preaching includes both a “theology of the cross” and a “theology of glory.” The glory is not the possession of the church, much less the preacher, but of God Himself.

The cross brings the eclipse of all human pretensions and enlightenment, but the empty tomb reveals the radiant sunrise of God’s personal glory. If Christ has not been raised, asserted Paul, “our preaching is useless” (1 Cor. 15:14, NIV). This glimpse of God’s glory does not afford the church or the preacher a sense of triumphalism or self-sufficiency. To the contrary, it points to the sufficiency of God and to the glory only He enjoys—a glory He has shared with us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The reflection of that revelation is the radiance and glory of preaching.

The Spirit Who Illuminates

The preacher stands before the congregation as the external minister of the Word, but the Holy Spirit works as the internal minister of that same Word. A theology of preaching must take the role of the Spirit into full view, for without an understanding of the work of the Spirit, the task of preaching is robbed of its balance and power.

The neglect of the work of the Spirit is one evidence of the decline of biblical trinitarianism in our midst. Charles H. Spurgeon warned, “You might as well expect to raise the dead by whispering in their ears, as hope to save souls by preaching to them, if it were not for the agency of the Holy Spirit” (Charles H. Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit, 5.211). The Spirit performs His work of inspiration, indwelling, regeneration, and sanctification as the inner minister of the Word; it is the Spirit’s ministry of illumination that allows the Word of the Lord to break forth.

Both the preacher and the hearers are dependent upon the illumination granted by the Holy Spirit for any understanding of the text. As Calvin warned, “No one should now hesitate to confess that he is able to understand God’s mysteries only in so far as he is illumined by God’s grace. He who attributes any more understanding to himself is all the more blind because he does not recognize his own blindness” (Calvin, Institutes, II.2.21, 281). This has been the confession of great preachers from the first century to the present, and it will ever remain. Tertullian, for example, called the Spirit his “Vicar” who ministered the Word to himself and his congregation.

The Reformation saw a new acknowledgement of the union of Word and Spirit. This testimonium was understood to be the crucial means by which the Spirit imparted understanding. This trinitarian doctrine produced preaching that was both bold and humble; bold in its content but uttered forth by humble humans who knew their utter dependence upon God.

The same God who called forth human vessels and set them to preach also promised the power of the Spirit. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was aware that preachers often forget this promise:

Seek Him always. But go beyond seeking Him; expect Him. Do you expect anything to happen when you get up to preach in a pulpit? Or do you just say to yourself, “Well, I have prepared my address, I am going to give them this address; some of them will appreciate it and some will not”? Are you expecting it to be the turning point in someone’s life? That is what preaching is meant to do … Seek this power, expect this power, yearn for this power; and when the power comes, yield to Him (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971, 325).

To preach “in the Spirit” is to preach with the acknowledgement that the human instrument has no control over the message—and no control over the Word as it is set loose within the congregation. The Spirit, as John declared, testifies, “because the Spirit is the truth” (1 John 5:6b, NIV).

Conclusion

J. I. Packer defined preaching as “the event of God bringing to an audience a Bible-based, Christ-related, life-impacting message of instruction and direction from Himself through the words of a spokesperson” (J. I. Packer, “Authority in Preaching,” The Gospel in the Modern World, ed. Martyn Eden and David F. Wells. London: InterVarsity Press). That rather comprehensive definition depicts the process of God speaking forth His Word, using human instruments to proclaim His message, and then calling men and women unto Himself. A theological analysis reveals that preaching is deadly business. As Spurgeon confirmed, “Life, death, hell, and worlds unknown may hang on the preaching and hearing of a sermon” (Charles H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 39. London: Alabaster and Passmore, 1862–1917: 170).

The apostle Paul revealed the logic of preaching when he asked, “How, then, can they call upon the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Rom. 10:14, NIV).

The preacher is a commissioned agent whose task is to speak because God has spoken, because the preacher has been entrusted with the telling of the gospel of the Son who saves, and because God has promised the power of the Spirit as the seal and efficacy of the preacher’s calling.

The ground of preaching is none other than the revelation which God has addressed to us in Scripture. The goal of preaching is no more and no less than faithfulness to this calling. The glory of preaching is that God has promised to use preachers and preaching to accomplish His purpose and bring glory unto Himself.

Therefore, a theology of preaching is essentially doxology. The ultimate purpose of the sermon is to glorify God and to reveal a glimpse of His glory to His creation. This is the sum and substance of the preaching task. That God would choose such a means to express His own glory is beyond our understanding; it is rooted in the mystery of the will and wisdom of God.

Yet, God has called out preachers and commanded them to preach. Preaching is not an act the church is called to defend but a ministry preachers are called to perform. Thus, whatever the season, the imperative stands: Preach the Word!

 

About the Author: R. Albert Mohler Jr. (PhD, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) serves as the ninth president of Southern Seminary and as the Joseph Emerson Brown Professor of Christian Theology. Considered a leader among American evangelicals by Time and Christianity Today magazines, Dr. Mohler hosts a daily radio program for the Salem Radio Network and also writes a popular daily commentary on moral, cultural, and theological issues. Both can be accessed at http://www.albertmohler.com.

The Article above was adapted from the Handbook of Contemporary Preaching (Chapter One, pp. 13-20) edited by Michael Duduit. Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman Press, 1992. Dr. Mohler is the author of several excellent books including: He is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World; Culture Shift: The Battle for the Moral Heart of America; Words From the Fire: Hearing the Voice of God in the 10 Commandments; and The Disappearance of God: Dangerous Beliefs in the New Spiritual Openness.