Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Calvinist Crossing

  • Some Thoughts on Pulpit Methodology. Helpfully provocative reminders for all preaching, and especially those committed to consecutive expositional preaching: 1) Each message must stand on its own and 2) Each message must exalt Christ and His Gospel. Lord, save expositors from the rambling commentary!
    For one thing, unless it is done well, consecutive exposition can dull the appetite of God's people for the Word by continuing next Lord's Day simply from where we left off last week. ...it is possible that by being determined to preach through a whole book we actually end up not preaching at all, but giving an extended commentary on Bible passages. If all Scripture is inspired - including the very word choices and grammatical constructions - are we doing it justice by preaching on successive blocks of material, rather than concentrating on texts-in-context?
  • A Matter of Emphasis Amen and amen! The curse of Microsoft Word has been the increasingly gratuitous use of bold and italics in writing. May the tribe of "old-fashioned cranks" increase:
    Call me an old-fashioned crank, but I hope writers and publishers will not give in to the pressure to make all their prose a bouncing ball of bold print and italics. Emphases are like exclamations: save them for when you really need them. And for the 99% of our sentences that don’t, let’s rely on good writing and clear thinking to keep the reader’s attention and make our main points obvious.
  • There's No Escaping Doctrine, but Handle it with Care Always pertinent counsel from the Doctor:
    For myself, as long as I am charged by certain people with being nothing but a Pentecostalist and on the other hand charged by others with being an intellectual, a man who is always preaching doctrine, as long as the two criticisms come, I am very happy. But if one or the other of the two criticisms should ever cease, then, I say, is the time to be careful and to begin to examine the very foundations.

No comments:

Post a Comment