Paradox in Preaching

My current reading project is Willimon’s Conversations with Barth on Preaching. It is a fascinating book for any number of reasons, but it is especially helpful if you happen to be, ahem, a preacher. I was warned as a young college student to be afraid of Barth and his strange version of unorthodox orthodoxy, and…

Discern Your Doctrine with Love

Discern Your Doctrine (Mark Dever) Trevin Wax: What is at stake in this debate over justification? If one were to adopt Piper’s view instead of yours, what would they be missing? NT Wright: What’s missing is an insistence on Scripture itself rather than tradition . . . Kingdom People (NT Wright) or here Unfinished Christianity.)…

Four Sermons on Resurrection

Here are the box.net links to four sermons I preached last summer on the resurrection of Jesus. Each sermon was introduced by watching a clip from a DVD featuring NT Wright. There are four sections to the DVD and I roughly followed their progression. The video is ‘on location’ and it is excellent. The main…

Day 11, Colossians 1:13-14: The Kingdom of the Son He Loves

The Kingdom of the Son He Loves “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Dunn wrote, “The implication, therefore, is not so much that the darkness has been already stripped of its…

Rare Baseball Post: An Indifferent Media?

There is a poll at ESPN.com right now that posed the question: Who do you most blame most for the steroid mess in baseball? The choices are as follows: The Players who cheated The players who knew, but looked the other way Players Union Commissioner’s Office Indifferent Media Did you see the last one? Indifferent…

On Grace and Law

HT: Chris

Sky Cast: The Older Brother, Luke 15

Friends, I published the manuscript version of this Skycast earlier and it is also available at box.net. This sermon is based on Luke 15, but I drew heavily upon ideas that were developed in Tim Keller’s wonderful book The Prodigal God. I highly recommend this book. The sermon itself is based on the idea that…

The Older Brother: Luke 15

The Real Older Brother Luke 15 1Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. 2But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 3Then Jesus told them this parable: 4″Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of…

Bible School Lessons from John’s Gospel

Friends, I started this blog for the primary purpose of writing 90 days worth of meditations from John’s Gospel. Those meditations coincided with a 4 1/2 month sermon series from the same and were posted here under the heading “90 Days with Jesus”. We also coordinated our Bible School classes and all ages were taught…

90 Days with Jesus, Day 10: Colossians 1:11-12

Day 10, Colossians 1:11-12: Strengthened with God’s Strength “…being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.” Well, I haven’t worked…

Marriage, Holiness and Grace

[This is the text of the sermon I preached at the wedding of some dear friends. I trust they will not be angry that I have published the sermon here for others to benefit from. I admit that I took some liberties with my application of Isaiah 6, but not too many. I also confess…

Constructive Words

I found this thought particularly helpful and encouraging: If I ran a seminary, I’d make blogging a requirement. What better way to practice finding something worthwhile to say every day? If this is true, and I’m leaning towards it being so, then blogging should be required of every CHRISTIAN–not just those in seminary. Every Christian…

Negative and Positive Blogging

I was recently reminded of a short but important blog post over at Boar’s Head Tavern.  It’s an older post from January, written by Paul McCain, but it is still worth reading: Satan is a master of a thousand arts when it comes to pulling us away from Christ. I was just working on some…

Intercession for Sodomites and Gomorrahites

Intercession for Sodomites and Gomorrahites Genesis 18, Luke 15 Properly speaking, of course, a Sodomite is someone who lives in Sodom the ancient city that one afternoon Abraham, the father of our faith, stood interceding for. A Gomorrahite is someone who lived Gomorrah. I suspect we have clung to the former because it is much…

Jesus Wants to Save Christians, pt 4

Jesus Wants to Save Christians Chapter 3, David’s Other Son “One thinks of the prophets of Israel, of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, all of them. They were par excellence the putters of words to things, and the words they put are so thunderous with rage and exultation, with terrible denunciations and terrible promises, that if you…