“Good Preaching”: Four Biblical Non-Negotiables (part 2)

3. Piercing Application is Made

At the end of the day, this is the difference between preaching and a good Biblical lecture. D.A. Carson calls this letting the text “sing and sting,” allowing hearers to feel the “bite and the balm” of the Word. There is some great imagery for this point to be found in the Minor Prophets (Jeremiah 1:9-10; Hosea 6:1-3; Micah 2:6-11, 3:5-8, etc.) One of my favorite quotes about this application portion comes from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

“In other words, (the preacher) is not there merely to talk to them, he is not there to entertain them. He is there– and I want to emphasize this – to do something to those people; he is there to produce results of various kinds, he is there to influence people. . . Preaching should make such a difference to a man who is listening that he is never the same again.” (Preaching and Preachers, 53)

4. God’s Word is Proclaimed with Appropriate Gravity

This is one of the most important elements of truly good preaching, and one which is sadly lacking in much contemporary preaching. A man may take for his text one of the most soul-stirring passages ever written down by a human hand, calling its hearers to repent or catching us up into the very glory of God. But after telling so many cute stories and jokes, there is absolutely no weight at all left in what he is saying. This is not only stomach-turning to witness, but it has completely the opposite effect that real preaching is meant to have. The preacher who handles the Bible in such a way is undoubtedly concerned about making his listeners uncomfortable, so they are eitehr lulled into a sleep of false security or are utterly disgusted by the triviality of it all.

How different this is from the commands to preachers found in Scripture. Peter wrote, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: ¹¹whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 4:10-11) And again Paul told Titus “in your teaching show integrity, dignity, ⁸and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.” (Titus 2:7-8 )

It was Richard Baxter who said, “I preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” The same message is found in this quote by John Piper: “Good preaching gives the impression that something very great is at stake. . . Lack of intensity in preaching can only communicate that the preacher does not believe or has never been seriously gripped by the reality of which he speaks – or that the subject matter is insignificant.” (John Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching, 103)

How true! Let us handle the Word with appropriate gravity.

“Good Preaching:” Four Biblical Non-Negotiables (part 1)

“We like hearing good preaching around here.” That is a fairly common phrase in my setting (the rural south), but the meaning often differs greatly from person to person. “Good preaching” can mean anything from sheer brevity, to a half-hour of entertaining stories, to a relentlessly positive motivational message (I remember well an older man I worked with during college insisting that I ought to model my preaching after Norman Vincent Peale!). But what does the Bible itself consider to be good preaching?

Large books have been written on this subject without exhausting the subject, but I wanted to begin our three-week study of Preaching and the Christian life by attempting to answer it thoroughly enough to provide some “handles” for the subject. Though I am far from a master preacher, as I read my Bible here are what I consider to be four non-negotiables I shared with my own church.

1. God’s Word is proclaimed clearly

The only reason that we speak as preachers is because God has spoken. Apart from what he has revealed about himself, we simply have nothing to say. That is why preaching must never be replaced with simple home-spun wisdom or friendly advice, or the opinions of the preacher. This was the charge Paul pressed Timothy with in 2 Tim 3:1-4:5, but I think it is described most succinctly in Nehemiah 8:8. “They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” Albert Mohler catches the spirit of this well when he summarizes expository preaching as a practice of “Read, explain, repeat.” (He is Not Silent) Whatever else takes place behind that pulpit, if God’s own Word has not been clearly and accurately proclaimed, we have failed as preachers.

2. Christ Crucified is Held High

The Gospel must permeate all that we say and do. I do not merely mean identifying the “types of Christ” throughout the OT, though this is important. I mean remembering that the point of everything is Jesus and what he has accomplished for us at the cross. We must learn what Paul meant when he determined among the Corinthians “to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (see 1 Cor 1:18-2:6) This is a lesson I continue to learn week after week: lift high the cross. We cannot merely exhort our people to “do this” and “don’t do that:” this would be very agreeable to any Muslim, Mormon, or Jew. We will very likely find ourselves shepherding a large group of hell-bound rule-keepers or pushing others to despair if Christ himself is not constantly being magnified above all. Let us be truly Christian preachers. Let us preach Christ.

“New” Hymns at Curve on Sunday Evenings

We are also using our Sunday evenings as a time to learn one “new” hymn each month (they are only new to our church; the hymns are actually quite old). We read through the text, point out why it is a valuable and worthy confession for us to be making together, and sometimes learn a bit of background on the author and any special circumstances surrounding the hymn. We then have the whole month of evenings to ”practice” together before introducing it on a Sunday morning. I consider leading the church in the thoughtful selection and singing of Biblical hymns to be an important element of pastoral ministry, and again, my small setting here allows me to do that.  

This month’s hymn was “Praise to the Lord the Almighty.” I love this hymn because it feels like the congregation of Israel gathering together in Jerusalem to sing their praises to the Lord, calling the nations to join their exultation in Zion. There are a number of rich lines here, but right now my favorite is “Ponder anew, what the Almighty can do, if with his love he befriend thee.” Here are the verses found in our ‘91 Baptist Hymnal, but you should check out the complete version also.

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near;
Praise Him in glad adoration.

Praise to the Lord, who over all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen how thy desires ever have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?

Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.

Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before Him.
Let the Amen sound from His people again,
Gladly for aye we adore Him.

Sunday Evenings Around the Family Bible

We have taken a new turn at my church on Sunday evenings. I preach an expository sermon through a book of the Bible in the mornings, but when we regather that night, it is a less formal, more participatory teaching time. I usually work from an outline I have put together and passed around, teach from a little podium down on the floor, and encourage members to look up and read Scripture, and ask questions. In the future, this hour can be used to learn about church history, basic Bible doctrine, or anything else that would be profitable for our church. Our small setting gives us great flexibility, and has the feel of a family gathering around the Bible at the end of the Lord’s Day together. We have found this already to be a great compliment to our morning service in a number of ways.

Right now, we are focusing on practical matters of the Christian life, what might be called “Biblical Spirituality,” or just basic godliness. I intend for us to look at such topics as how to study your Bible, the importance of Scripture memory, and the role of fasting in the Christian life. I also hope to address several “why” questions that are often assumed in life as a church – why we sing when we come together, why we stand when we read Scripture, etc. Hopefully, we are all learning a great deal about the life of godliness together.

Whereas some of these practices, such as fasting, may not yet be in place for everyone, I decided to begin with something that each person was already doing: listening to preaching. But though all of us were consistently under preaching, few of us probably had given much thought to the vital role it is intended to play in our Christian lives, and how we can make the most out of the sermons that we hear. This afforded me a wonderful opportunity to walk through a brief theology of preaching, and give some practical advice from the Puritans as to how we ought to be listening to sermons.

One of the greatest joys of this three weeks was listening to various members share from their own walk with Christ. In light of John 10, we heard testimonies of when Christ specifically called to them as they sat under the Word. Several explained their own practice of taking notes in their Bible’s margins and how they reviewed them later. Not only was this a great encouragement to me, but it offered a great model for many of our younger members as they listened to our older saints. I am praying the Lord will continue to bless our studies on Sunday nights.

A Sermon Listener’s Guide

We have spent the past three Sunday nights at my church talking about the importance of preaching in the Christian life. Obviously, this is a topic that I think about constantly as a pastor, but I think it has been very beneficial for our church to think through it as well. The three sessions were 1) What does the Bible consider “good preaching?” 2) Why listen to preaching? and 3) How do we listen to preaching?

For the last night, I typed up a A Sermon Listener’s Guide for our members, questions to ask themselves and their families after the weekly sermon. Hopefully, they will also be useful in beginning conversations about spiritual things with one another throughout the week. I printed these on a half sheet of paper that can fit in a Bible, handed them out, and went over them all last night. You are welcome to download the file from the above link, but I have listed them below also. I pray the Lord will use these to further the ministry of his Word among us. 

A Sermon Listener’s Guide

 

What was the biblical text of the sermon?

 

Do I better understand this passage now than I did before?

 

What was the main point or main points of the sermon?

 

How did this message teach me about Christ and the Gospel?

 

What truths do I need to believe because of this sermon?

 

What application points were made in this sermon?

 

What further personal application can I make for myself?

 

What actions am I called to take this week because of this sermon?

 

How did this sermon rebuke me or convict me of sin?

 

How did this sermon bring me joy and hope?

 

What questions do I still have about the biblical text or the sermon?

 

How will this message impact my praying this week?

 

Was I able to receive this word with gladness and a clear conscience, or is there some sin or distraction in my life that robbed me of the joy of hearing God speak to me?

My Family Spared

The angry roaring of the wind finally subsided, and after waiting a few moments more, we cautiously opened the bathroom door to look outside. To my amazement, we did not see the four walls of our apartment, but the vast expanse of the dark night sky. The front wall of our apartment had been ripped off like a pull-and-peel lid on a can of dogfood, revealing an almost unbelievable sight: the men’s complex where I had served for four years as an RA, the home that had become the very symbol of my “growing-up” years, looked like it had been bombed. Buildings I had spent hours inspecting for student move-ins, the sites of so many impromptu guitar concerts, Playstation tournaments, and other carefree college past-times, were in ruins. The second story of our building was simply gone. Hunks of mortar and bricks littered the walkway. We let out a collective gasp, and slowly made our way out into the open as though walking in a dream.

The scene we took in at the doorway was the most chaotic I have ever witnessed. My classmates were emerging from their shelters, carefully at first as they stepped over and around the obstacles in their path, then breaking into a run as soon as they reached a clearing, screaming out names of other residents at the tops of their lungs. Adding to the feeling of disorientation were those terrible sirens still blaring all around us, no longer warning us to take cover. They sounded the awful alarm that the worst fears had been realized, and all was not right. And the wind was still blowing. 

But the most horrifying feeling came when my eyes fell on the commons building just 30 yards to the left of my front door, where my sister and her family lived as the housing directors. She was now expecting her third child, and I had just stopped off to see them before going back to my room not thirty minutes before. The building was totally flattened, covered in heavy debris. For the rest of the night, this collapsed commons building would be the site of rescue efforts, seven students were trapped beneath. It seemed impossible that anyone inside could have survived. Not knowing exactly what to think, Blake and I ran down, arriving just in time to see my sister being helped out of her hiding place by my brother-in-law, joining her two small children who were clinging tightly to the necks of a couple of students. I hugged my sister, who could only say, “God protected us.”

With the knowledge that they were safe, my thoughts immediately went to my fiancee Candace, whose dorm was just a short walk from where I stood. I quickly rounded the corner of the commons building to see the women’s complex, and again, it seemed unthinkable that anyone could survive. I’m still not sure why, but in the moment that I saw this breathtaking devestation, assuming that hundreds of people lay dead, I became intensely aware of my own sin. All I could think in that moment was, “Dear God, how could you allow me to live when so many people far more righteous have surely been killed? My heart is so wicked that I should be the one crushed under those buildings. Why did you allow me to live?” This thought is still one of my most vivid memories from that night.

I kept moving toward Candace’s building, along with a stream of other young men pouring in to help however they could. A large tree lay uprooted in front of her building, blocking the way. I climbed over it and saw that, like my own building, the top story was basically gone and the front of her apartment had also been totally torn away. This exposed the inside of their living room like a child’s doll house, but I saw no one inside and could not hear any voices. I began shouting Candace’s name, trying to suppress the desperation that was rapidly spreading inside me.

And then, from behind the closed bathroom door, I heard her. “Eric I hear you! We’re in here!” She opened the door and came out, along with five very frightened girls. During the storm, a wooden beam had shot through the wall of their bathroom like an arrow, just above therheads. But here they were, visibly shaken by their experience and the ghastly scene outside, but safe. Moments before, I had not been sure if I would ever embrace her again, but by God’s mercy I held my future wife for a few brief seconds in that living room, long enough for a silent prayer of thanks. But I had already heard the report that another tornado was on its way, and there were people out there who still needed help. Once we were over the fallen tree, Candace and I agreed to part ways. She led the girls to the designated holding area in our largest academic building, and I headed back into the complex.

Preparing to Die Together

My fiancee and I parted ways at about 6:15 on February 5, after sharing dinner in the cafeteria together. I had a meeting in the library to attend at 7, and headed back to my room to watch a few minutes of the incoming results of “Super Tuesday” political primaries.  It had already become very windy outside, and soon the tornado sirens were sounding throughout the men’s housing complex where I lived. As a lifelong West Tennessean, this was nothing new. I had been hearing these sirens all my life, and had frankly come to take a totally dismissive attitude toward them. However, this meant that all of the upstairs residents in our two-story complexes had to come downstairs until the sirens stopped sounding. Several other boys joined my roommates and me downstairs that night, trying to tune out the blaring sirens while we pulled for Mike Huckabee to get a big win that night for Southern Baptists at the polls. Close to seven, I received a text message telling me my meeting was cancelled.

I was standing in the doorway of my bedroom when suddenly, I felt an intense pressure building in the room like I had never before experienced, and for a moment, everything went completely still and silent. The electricity immediately failed, and the large glass windows in our apartment exploded all at once, cutting and covering the six or seven guys in my living room. I was knocked to the gound as the whole building felt like it had been rocked by a violent blow. An angry gust of wind blasted its way into our apartment, blowing dirt and debris into my face, and carrying objects of various sizes in from the outside with a crash. The force was so great that it was difficult to stand back up. A few feet behind me, my bed was being sucked out the window.  As the wind relentlessly poured into our room, I remember distinctly recognizing the possibility that a heavy chair or something else from the outside could blow in and kill someone in its path. 

The other young men occupying the room were screaming directions at one another to get to the bathroom for cover, and I was able to crawl my way inside to join them. Though I had not been hurt, almost all of them were bleeding from cuts on their arms and faces caused by the shards of glass that had once been the living room window behind their heads. The sight of blood oozing down the faces of my friends as we huddled there in the darkness had a remarkably sobering effect for me. Their eyes were wide with shock, our bodies were trembling with fear and a rush of adrenaline, but everyone was checking each other for injuries. The ceiling had begun to cave in on us, and water was pouring down from the severed pipes of the bathroom directly overhead. The wind continued to roar, and it felt as if a wrecking ball were outside, demolishing our building and everything else around it. As for hundreds of our fellow students at that moment, it began to register on some of our faces that we could very well be preparing to die together in that little bathroom. With these thoughts racing through our minds more quickly than we could grab hold of them, we asked my roommate Blake to pray.

February 5, 2009

One year ago today, I was heading into work on an unseasonably warm February morning on the campus of Union University. I had graciously been given a job with the facilities management department as I finished my senior year, preparing to graduate and get married in May. As we worked outside on the landscape that day, we remarked to each other how the weather was supposed to turn ugly that night, and how the Madison County schools had already been released to go home at lunch time.

12 hours later, people on the other side of the world would be talking about this West Tennessee windstorm, as they watched on their televisions the devestation left by an ef-4 tornado and waited for reports of college students being pulled from the rubble of the little Christian college.

I could not help but think back on these events in my prayer time this morning, thanking God for preserving my wife, my university, and me on that unforgettable night. I hope to spend the next few days reflecting back on some of those events here. I do this not to glorify myself as a heroic storm survivor, but simply to testify to the grace and the power of my Heavenly Father, and to stir up my own soul to bless the Lord by remembering how kind he has been to me. I pray that you will be moved to praise this mighty God alongside me.

The Two Adams and the Place of the Skull

In his commentary on John 19, Matthew Henry reports a common interpretation of the early church about the reason for the name of Golgotha (the “place of the skull”):

“That Adam was buried here, and that this was the place of his skull, and they observe that where death triumphed over the first Adam there the second Adam triumphed over him. Gerhard quotes for this tradition Origen, Cyprian, Epiphanius, Austin, Jerome, and others.”