Tag Archives: Preaching

Evangelistic Preaching and Giving Invitations

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Evangelistic Preaching is a legitimate style of preaching that can and should be used today. Evangelistic preaching is not mere emotionalism. It is not a string of sad stories. It is not what some would call exceptional Christian salesmanship. And, it need not be used exclusively. Preachers must preach the whole counsel of God. There should be no question that the content of preaching should be the Word of God. The Scriptural content of a sermon is that which gives it life, substance and vitality.

Followers of Faithful Men

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Two verses of scripture from Hebrews have been used and perhaps sometimes misused in the context of spiritual followership. Hebrews 13:7 reads, “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.” An understanding of this verse is vital to our appreciation of leadership and followership. We are reminded that a leader has the responsibility of providing direction. He is told that he is to rule.

The Pastor—Scholar

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A New Testament pastor must be a theologian. He must also be a scholar. Both of these ideas suggest to the casual reader, a man of God who is a bookworm and out-of-touch with reality. Quite the opposite is true. The pastor’s mandate is to preach the Word (2 Timothy 4:2). This assumes that he accepts the Word is from God Himself in every detail, and that he must proclaim it exactly as God intended it. Rightly understood, then, theology and scholarship move the preacher in the direction of God and His Word, not away from it.

Biblical Preaching in the Twentieth Century

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Preaching is foremost in the minds of those who teach homiletics classes. They love to preach, and they like to talk about preaching. Such was the case recently as another teacher of homiletics and I met for breakfast to discuss how to be more effective in the classroom. Our conversation was side-tracked from methodology as we began to deal with the dearth of expository preaching today. This weakness is readily observable in many recent books on homiletics. The emphasis is away from exposition to “inductive” or “life experience” preaching.

Shall We Go For Entertainment?

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Among pastors lately I hear a deep concern for the future of Fundamentalism and of the local church as we have known it. The old patterns do not seem to be working. The growth in numbers of churches in the General Association of Regular Baptists appears to have ended about five years ago, and we seem now to be in a period of negative growth. Of the churches, it is hard to know just what is happening among them, when a third of them do not send in annual reports, but nationwide the average local church seems to be numerically small.

What Killed the Idealism?

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And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me (Luke 9:23). There are those among us who remember the state of the churches about the end of World War II. The veterans were coming back, seeking home, jobs and education. Youth movements, notably Youth for Christ, Young Life and Hi B-A, were reaching crowds of high school people. With admitted help from the G.I.

Faith’s Distinctive Goals

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Founders usually form their institutions to express some compelling idea. Ever since it opened, Faith Baptist Theological Seminary has published its goal to train Christian leaders who are Bible expositors. To train such leaders involves several compelling ideas. Since Faith is a seminary, not a church, it includes some activities and excludes others. Now that we are in our third year, we are in a position to assess what we have begun and to reaffirm what we are trying to do.

Marks of a Fundamentalist in the Book of Jude

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Introduction: In the mid-1970s, at Denver Baptist Bible College, I preached a chapel sermon from the Book of Jude. In preparation for that sermon, I discovered ten marks or characteristics of a true Fundamentalist. Recently I gave a series of lectures at Faith Baptist Theological Seminary on the subject of “The Biblical Basis of Separation.” I reviewed my notes from that earlier study in the Book of Jude, restudied the text itself along with the commentaries and expanded the details for each of the ten marks.

Vital Preaching

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We frankly affirm that we are concerned about preaching. As a seminary, we are here to produce expositors, men who can preach the Bible in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are concerned to do this, because we are determined that our products bring the blessing of God on churches. It appears that preaching has fallen on hard times. It is hard to compete with the superstars of religious video. Even moderately good preaching seems great. The fearless sermons of past generations are gone.

Understanding Pastoral Theology

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Many years ago I read some words that came from Clarence E. Macartney which have been indelibly impressed on my mind. These words are, “The pastorate is the front-line trench of the ministry.” His little book entitled, Preaching Without Notes, is an inspiring and practical discussion of preaching. His love for pastoral preaching shows itself repeatedly throughout the book, and on page 175 he writes, “The minister’s occupation is appointed of God, not of man. The current tendency is to secularize the ministry, both its message and its office, as if the work of the minister were just the same as that of a teacher, a physician, a scientist, or an artist, only with a slightly different accent.