Preaching

MP3 Sermons vs. Your Pastor’s Sermons

Tony Reinke Preaching, spurgeon

The repository of MP3 sermon audio on the Internet is vast and varied and easy to tap. Take your choice between living preachers, dead preachers, close preachers, and preachers on the opposite side of the globe. It doesn’t matter. With a click of the mouse a file rushes into your computer where it can be flushed through a cord into your iPod where it streams into your head through earbuds. Enjoy the thrill of a computer filled with hundreds of hours of audio sermons!

Now think of your pastor. He’s not unaware of this availability; he knows you have been downloading sermons all week as he has invested 20+ hours into preparing his sermon for Sunday. And stack his Sunday message against the Sunday sermons of preaching celebrities X, Y, and Z and there is no comparison.

Or is there?

According to the late Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a man who knew a bit about the art and craft of preaching, MP3 sermons are no match for your pastor’s pulpit. He said:

There is a unity between preacher and hearers and there is a transaction backwards and forwards. That, to me, is true preaching. And that is where you see the essential difference between listening to preaching in a church and listening to a sermon on the television or on the radio. You cannot listen to true preaching in detachment and you must never be in a position where you can turn it off. (Banner of Truth Magazine, Feb 1990)

Good thoughts to consider as we prepp for Sunday worship.

Learning Theology…Together

Tony Reinke Preaching, Preaching Legacy, Reading

It’s about 11:00 PM Saturday night. After a productive weekend in Orlando I’m looking forward to being home tomorrow afternoon. But tonight I’m thinking about church. One thing I appreciate about the local church (alongside the coffee, godly friends, and a well-stocked bookstore) is the chance to learn theology together. In the kindness of God’s curriculum for my soul, I can recount a number of times in my life that reading a particular theological work on a particular topic coincided with a sermon. For me many of these “coincidences” were the moments when the theology, once only engrafted in paper, spread wings and lifted off the 17th century page and animated to life like some dusty Aztec cave opening its secret treasure with the push of a hidden button in an Indiana Jones movie.

During these sermons the theology clicked and sticked.

This is true of the most monumental sermons early in my Christian life. I’ll never forget Pastor Phil Green’s sermon on John 10:1-21 (Jesus the Good Shepherd). It was in that message that the sovereignty of God in salvation became clear and I from thence was happy to be identified as a Reformed, Calvinist, Anti-Pelagian, Soteriological Augustinian, Biblical Predestination-ite-er. Whatever label you want, from then on I was formally consenting with a man (Calvin) whose theology is said to drive men insane (according to Chesterton).

But my convictions were forged (and are sustained) not ultimately due to the fact that I was reading Calvin’s Institutes or Boettner’s Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. I saw the truth of scripture laid plain in an expositional sermon at church. There the secondary literature clicked and sticked.

And this was true later on in my Christian life when I heard Rick Gamache preach a sermon on God’s adopting grace or when Joshua Harris preached a message on Christ uniting all things in Himself. The list could go on.

My point is that I think this is the way I think our Savior intends for me to learn theology—together with others. Not (as I often think) as an over-caffeinated bibliophile at a round table in Starbucks and with wires curving from my ears as if I could attempt to manufacture an audiological deserted island (or shack) to learn about God. It’s not that reading alone is wrong, it’s just that I often place an over-exaggerated hope that in secret I will discover the most effective place for the truths of scripture to click and stick.

Should we read and learn and study on our own? Yes, of course. But our anticipation should be awaiting how God will affirm what we’re reading as we gather together as a local church to learn truth and have our souls fed. And this is especially true as we seek to discover the depths of God’s love revealed in the cross. I pray that we “may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18-19).

For this understanding of Christ’s love we need more than our own table in Starbucks. We need God to bless us with corporate strength and unity (Eph. 3:18). We anticipate Sunday because it’s in the church that he has called us to learn theology together.

Preaching OT Narratives

Tony Reinke Old Testament, Preaching

The Simeon Trust is offering a 6-session workshop by John Woodhouse (Principal of Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia) on preaching Old Testament narratives. Woodhouse says in the first session: “I’ll be arguing that we should take the time and trouble to study and appreciate the brilliance of these stories [OT narratives]. They should be part of our sermons. And I’ll be trying to develop some insights into how we should do this. That’s the journey we’ve embarked upon.”

Looks excellent. Click here for more information and full access to the MP3 audio downloads.

HT:JT

The Cross in the Preaching of Jonathan Edwards

Tony Reinke BR > Banner of Truth, Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Jonathan Edwards, Preaching

“The great eighteenth-century New England preacher was no preacher of moralism—he was no peddler of ethics without the gospel. He was a preacher of the gospel of Christ; and it is his powerful and undeniably beautiful Christocentricity that both establishes his evangelical orthodoxy and distinguishes him from the moralists of Rome and (more significantly still) from the moralists of the eighteenth century.

It is, therefore, very important to note that the New England preacher, whose reputation rests so powerfully on the minatory, also excelled in the consolatory. It is, moreover, precisely because of the recalcitrant issue of the general perception of Edwards as a preacher of judgment, and even of terror, that it is so important to note the sweetness and the beauty of his descriptions of Christ. It was clearly a fundamental part of his homiletical philosophy that he should not only provide what might be described as ‘the element of attack’, but that he should also administer the healing ‘balm of Gilead’ to the soul. Indeed, his sermons, considered in toto, reveal what might be described as a kind of homiletical pincer movement. ‘For by the law is the knowledge of sin, insists the Apostle; and Edwards’ great concern in preaching the law of God was that men should ‘flee from the wrath to come’ into the open arms of Christ. Thus, if in his sermons there is often great emphasis upon the terrors of Mount Sinai, there is also great emphasis upon the wonder and the glory of Calvary’s hill. This balance may not always be evident in the same sermon; it is, however, evident in his preaching ministry as a whole. The sweetness of his preaching at this point is, of course, no saccharine sentimentalism about the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. The New England preacher never says, ‘Peace, peace, when there is no peace’; he never ‘heals the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly’.

The encouragement, the consolation, and the peace that Edwards offers in his preaching are always on the basis of the gospel of Christ. It is important to note that he has no encouragement or consolation to offer apart from Christ; he has, therefore, no hope to offer to those who persist in remaining outside of Christ. The encouragement and the consolation that he repeatedly holds forth in his sermons are rooted and grounded in ‘Jesus Christ and him crucified’.

Moreover, it is this rare ability to depict the beauty and the glory of Christ that many have found to be so attractive and so winsome in Edwards’ preaching. In 1825, on the morning of his sudden death, John Williams, the first pastor of the Oliver Street Baptist Church in New York City, made this observation to a friend: ‘I love President Edwards; he always speaks so sweetly of Christ.’”

–John Carrick, The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards (Banner of Truth, 2008) pp. 111-112.

Related: Edwards, Cross-Centeredness, and Application (7/16/08)
Related: Was Jonathan Edwards Cross-Centered? (7/11/08)
Related: A Sense of Christ’s Sufficiency (7/9/08)

Thomas Foxcroft, 1697–1769

Tony Reinke BR > Reformation Heritage Books, Cross of Christ, Cross-centered life, Preaching, spurgeon

Puritan Thomas Foxcroft (1697–1769) was a Harvard graduate and pastored for 50+ years at the First Congregational Church in Boston, Massachusetts. Foxcroft supported the Great Awakening, and became a close friend, ally, and literary agent for Jonathan Edwards. But Foxcroft wrote books himself and one of these gems is being prepared for re-issue in August.

Foxcroft’s ordination sermon delivered in Boston on Wednesday, November 20, 1717 was originally collected and edited under the title A Practical Discourse Related to the Gospel Ministry. A new edition edited by Dr. Don Kistler will be published as The Gospel Ministry by Reformation Heritage Books next month [I’ll let you know here when it’s available].

In this book, Foxcroft exhorts ministers to focus the center of their sermons on Christ. His doctrinal summaries include: “Christ is the grand Subject which the ministers of the gospel should mainly insist upon in their preaching” and “In all their ministerial labors, pastors should make the conversion and edification of men in Christ their governing view and sovereign aim.”

Such Christ/cross-centeredness is not surprising to find in 18th century Boston region often visited by revival. As we have seen, Edwards himself was very carefully cross-centered in his preaching and application. But here Foxcroft is cross-centered in his public exhortation to all preachers. This exhortation to preach Christ and Him crucified shows us that ‘American’ Puritans were careful to preach Christ because they understood the cross was at the heart of the preachers formal public ministry responsibility.

And as we would expect, a robust understanding of the cross will work itself out in the application of the Christian life and pursuit of holiness. Foxcroft writes, “All the arrows of sharp rebuke are to be steeped in the blood of Christ; and this to prevent those desponding fears and frights of guilt which sometimes awfully work to a fatal issue.” Foxcroft’s statement not only shows concern over legalism and the necessity of the full atonement of Christ in light of personal holiness, but also provides an illuminating glimpse into 18th century ‘American’ Puritan homiletics.

I could go on, but this is a gem all readers of Puritans should read and a book all preachers will benefit from. And it will prove to be a book that will ax at the root of the awful misrepresentation that all Puritan preachers (English, Scottish, American or otherwise) were negligent to preach Christ and Him crucified.

I’ll close with an extended cross-centered excerpt from the RHB edition:

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“They who are friends of the Bridegroom, who have so learned Christ as He is taught in the school of the prophets and apostles, and with whom the truth of the gospel continues, are not ashamed to preach the cross, and count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ and Him crucified. “What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord (Jer.23:28). What is the vain philosophy of the Greeks and the exact righteousness of the Pharisees but dung and dross to the riches of the glory of this mystery?

Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life, and nothing but this will suit the nature and inclination of the spiritual appetite; nothing but this will beget and maintain the vital flame of spiritual life. Everything else will prove either a stone or a serpent, unnatural and insubstantial or poison and pernicious.

Ministers then must study to feed their flocks with a continual feast on the glorious fullness there is in Christ; they must gather fruits from the branch of righteousness, from the tree of life for those who hunger, not feeding them with the meat which perishes, but with that which endures to everlasting life. They must open this fountain of living waters, the great mystery of godliness, into which all the doctrines of the gospel that are branched forth into so great a variety do, as so many rivulets or streams making glad the city of God flow and concenter.

They must endeavor to set forth Christ in the dignity of His Person, as the brightness of His Father’s glory, God manifest in the flesh; in the reality, necessity, nature, and exercise of His threefold office of Prophet, Priest, and King, in both His state of humiliation and exaltation; in the glorious benefits of His redemption, the justification of them who believe, the adoption of sons, sanctification, and an inheritance that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for the saints; in the wonderful methods and means in and by which we are called into the fellowship of the Son our Lord, and made partakers of the redemption by Christ; in the nature, and significance, the excellency and worth, of all the ordinances and institutions of Christ, with the obligations on all to attend upon them.

Whatever subject ministers are upon, it must somehow point to Christ.

All sin must be witnessed against and preached down as opposed to the holy nature, the wise and gracious designs, and the just government of Christ.

So all duty must be persuaded to and preached up with due regard unto Christ; to His authority commanding and to His Spirit of grace assisting, as well as to the merit of His blood commending—and this to dash the vain presumption that decoys so many into ruin, who will securely hang the weight of their hopes upon the horns of the altar without paying expected homage to the scepter of Christ.

All the arrows of sharp rebuke are to be steeped in the blood of Christ; and this to prevent those desponding fears and frights of guilt which sometimes awfully work to a fatal issue.

Dark and ignorant sinners are to be directed to Christ as the Sun of righteousness; convinced sinners are to be led to Christ as the Great Atonement and the only City of Refuge.

Christ is to be lifted up on high for the wounded in spirit to look to, as the bitten Israelites looked to the brazen serpent of old. The sick, the lame, and the diseased are to be carried to Christ as the great Physician, the Lord our Healer; the disconsolate and timorous are to be guided to Christ as the Consolation of Israel, and in us the hope of glory.

Every comfort administered is to be sweetened with pure water from this Well of salvation, which only can quench the fiery darts of the evil one. The promises of the gospel are to be applied as being in Christ “yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us” (2 Cor. 1:20).

So the threatenings of the law are to light and flash in the eyes of sinners as the terrors of the Lord and sparks of the holy resentment of an incensed Savior, which hover now over the children of disobedience and will one day unite and fall heavy upon them.

The love of Christ for us is to be held forth as the great constraining motive to religion, and the life of Christ as the bright, engaging pattern of it.

Progress and increase in holiness are to be represented under the notion of abiding in Christ and growing up unto Him who is the Head, even Christ. Perfection in grace is the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, and eternal life is a being forever with the Lord where He is, beholding His glory and dwelling in our Master’s joy.

Thus, in imitation of the apostolic way of preaching, there must be a beautiful texture of references to Christ, a golden thread twisted into every discourse to leaven and perfume it so as to make it express a savor of the knowledge of Christ. Thus every mite cast into the treasury of the temple must bear this inscription upon it, which was once the humble language of a pious martyr in the flames, “None but Christ, none but Christ,” so that everyone, beholding in the Word preached as in a glass the glory of the Lord, may be changed into the same image, from glory to glory.

-Thomas Foxcroft, The Gospel Ministry (RHB: 1717, 2008 ) pp. 7-11.

Engaging Culture with the Supremacy of God (pt 2)

Tony Reinke Culture, John Piper, Preaching

tsslogo.jpgIn the first post in this series we noted the supremacy of God and how a proper theology unlocks our true self-identity. Job learned this lesson. On the other hand, the only way a sinner can preserve a life of unbelief is to suppress the true character of God. The Apostle Paul explains this in the opening chapter of Romans.

How amazed I am that God broke into the life of this Pharisee so I could behold his supremacy, see the depth of my sin, be broken, and embrace the cross as my only eternal hope! In nothing I’m saying in these posts do I want to self-righteously stand over those in unbelief. It’s only by God’s grace that I’m saved. I hope you feel the same.

Let me move on to a broader topic.

As important as it is that we identify with the contours of culture I think we would be mistaken to miss the reality that an honest understanding of God precedes an accurate self-identity. Calvin was right here. And so at some level it seems perplexing that we exert so much time identifying with those who remain yet un-self-identified. We should become all things to all men, yet in loving those in our culture I believe includes helping those in our culture develop a self-identification. And this self-identification is forged by the un-suppressed supremacy of God—a work of grace through Scripture.

Supremacy of God in culture

But let me get into a specific illustration. Today I want to take this principle of self-discovery in light of God’s supremacy into one specific non-Christian cultural context. I don’t think there’s better illustration in Scripture than Paul’s sermon in the Areopagus in Acts 17:16-34.

After having a look around Athens—a city “given over to idols”—Paul was summoned by the city’s intellectual elite (v. 16).

The content of Paul’s address is striking. Here we find no lengthy philosophical defense of monotheism. Paul opens with no apologetic for his source of ultimate truth (Scripture). Amazingly there is no mention of the cross, either (though we can assume Paul got to this point quickly with those who followed him after the sermon). As we listen in to the message we hear a clear, bold, and blunt exhortation of the supremacy and transcendence of God.

We cannot miss the content of Paul’s engagement of this non-Christian culture.

Paul tells them God is not created but the creator of all things (v. 24). God is not domesticated and caged into religious temples (v. 24). Nor is God like some idol produced by human crafting (v. 29). God needs nothing from us. In fact, we receive all from him and it’s only in him that we live and move (vv. 25, 28). God has planted all the races of the earth and marked out the boundary lines of the nations (v. 26). God is over all. And this God is sending his judge (Christ) back into these races and nations to punish all unrighteousness (v. 31).

Paul preaches to the Athenians that God was before them, God planted them, God is free from them, God is the reason for their existence, God now reigns over them, and God is returning to judge them. Wow. Notice how Paul, in expressing the supremacy of God, defines this supremacy in relation to those in the Athenian culture! Paul is helping them to form a true and biblical self-identification in light of God’s supremacy.

I take Paul’s example to mean that into arenas of intelligent non-Christians, God’s spokesmen are commissioned to speak boldly of God’s supremacy. Which is to say our faithfulness (and fruitfulness) does not hinge on the closeness for which our theology conforms to cultural expectations, but rather on the faithfulness of our articulation of the thrice-holy God in his transcendence above culture.

This preaching of God’s supremacy as the hope of culture is challenged (as you would expect). In 2005 a prominent emergent church figure published a book on preaching with the aim of replacing the terminology of one-way communication in the church (like “preaching” and even “speaking”) for the phrase “progressional dialogue.” Obviously, his intent was deeper than clarified semantics.

In Acts 17, Paul had the perfect opportunity for “progressional dialogue” and he chose to “preach” the supremacy of God. His example lives on for us today.

Theology of Theology

In part I want to see my generation of Christians develop a theology of theology. What I mean is that in our day the term “theology” has become a synonym for our articulation of God. This however is not, strictly speaking, an accurate definition. In Revolutions in Worldview (edited by W. Andrew Hoffecker) John Currid writes,

“The term theology—a combination of two Greek words: theos (god) and logos (word)—in the biblical worldview is not a word about God or man’s thoughts about God—what some people call religion—but properly speaking is God’s word to man about himself.” (p. 43)

Our engagement with contemporary culture is theological. As our reference point, the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-glorious, and eternal God ultimately transcends cultural influence and contemporary analogy. It’s helpful to remember that theology is not merely how we can explain God, but how God has chosen to explain himself. As Job discovered, God is not interested in “progressional dialogue.” God is interested in proclaiming his supremacy and he uses preachers and pulpits to this end.

John Piper notes in his excellent book The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Baker, 1990):

“The keynote in the mouth of every prophet-preacher, whether in Isaiah’s day or Jesus’ day or our day, is ‘Your God Reigns!’ God is the King of the universe; he has absolute creator rights over this world and everyone in it. Rebellion and mutiny are on all sides, however, and his authority is scorned by millions. So the Lord sends preachers into the world to cry out that God reigns, that he will not suffer his glory to be scorned indefinitely, that he will vindicate his name in great and terrible wrath. But they are also sent to cry that for now a full and free amnesty is offered to all the rebel subjects who will turn from their rebellion, call on him for mercy, bow before his throne, and swear allegiance and fealty to him forever. The amnesty is signed in the blood of his Son.” (p. 23)

And earlier Piper wrote,

“I don’t mean we shouldn’t preach about nitty-gritty, practical things like parenthood and divorce and AIDS and gluttony and television and sex. What I mean is that every one of those things should be swept up into the holy presence of God and laid bare to the roots of its Godwardness or godlessness.” (p. 12)

Well said.

Conclusion

I’m aware that preachers should think carefully about applying Scripture to their cultural scenarios. But we need to admit the content of the biblical proclamation has probably never fit nicely into any cultural context. In every age and in every culture, God alone is the final reference point for us to discover the nature of sin, the health of our souls, and the source of all our good.

The preacher who proclaims the supremacy of God from the pulpit will be classified as culturally irrelevant. It’s not just the preacher but the theologian, too (as we will see next time), who feels the pressure to relinquish God’s supremacy in cultural engagement.

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Related: Read part one of this series here.