Some Thoughts on Mark 1, The Church, and Preaching

Part 2 of 3: What the Church Needs to be Preaching. Now. In part one of this short series of posts, I talked about what I think the church needs to be doing now, namely, preparing the way for the coming of Jesus. By preparing the way, I mean: calling people to repentance. It may…

Learning to Talk, Lenten Reflections #3

In a little book I have called Answering God, author Eugene Peterson writes, "But the first requirement of language is not to make us nice but accurate. Prayer is not particularly 'nice.' There is a recognition in prayer of the fiercer aspects of God…Psalm language is not careful about offending our sensibilities; its genius is…

I’m Glad Mark Driscoll Quit, but I Hope He Gets to Start Again

I am a Christian. I am a preacher–I just don't actually have a pulpit right now or a church or a Word from the Lord. It's not always easy–being a Christian, that is. I'm not always honest–which means that sometimes I am a hypocrite. I am not a strong-always-faithful-kind of guy. I am a weak-my-grace-is-sufficient-for-you-kind…

Book Review: Giving Blood

Title: Giving Blood Author: Leonard Sweet Publisher: Zondervan Year: 2014 Pages: 368 (I read an e-book version on my Nook reader. My page numbers may be a bit different. I apologize in advance for any troubles this may cause.) [Disclaimer: I was provided with a reader's copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for…

Daily Office: July 2, 2010

Some Thoughts In the church we are fond of a lot of things that, let’s be honest, have little or nothing to do with Jesus. I’m looking for something in the church I haven’t yet found. After spending the better part of fifteen years preaching in the church and being spiritually beaten to death by…

Study Notes: Gospel Lesson, Luke 24:36-49

Friends, A new feature I will try to practice for a while. I have decided that I will follow the Lectionary readings for a while in 2009 for my preaching schedule. As I study and prepare each week, I will post my notes here at the blog for anyone to partake of. It will vary…

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…

90 Days with Scripture: Jesus, pt 3: Mark 15

Friends, This is part 10 of my current series of sermons 90 Days with Scripture. In this sermon from Mark 15, I begin by doing a short survey of the previous 9 sermons before offering a few thoughts on Mark 15. The sermon takes about 25 minutes and ends by wondering how it is that…

Jesus and Sex

Friends, This is a podcast of a sermon I preached this past Tuesday evening at a community Thanksgiving Worship event in my hometown. The sermon is 18:14 long and is based on Luke 1-2. A good, thorough reading of those two chapters will aid you much as you listen. You can also access the manuscript…

Sermon Manuscripts: The Dangerous God

Friends, I finally managed to find my CD copies of my manuscripts from The Dangerous God sermon series of which I have posted a couple of the mp3’s here. I will be posting more of the mp3’s, but for now I would like to provide you with the sermon manuscripts. These sermons are filled with…

90 Days with Scripture: The King

Friends, This sermon manuscript is from this past Sunday (Oct 26) at the church. This is sermon 5 in my short series exploring the narrative high-points of the Scripture from Genesis through Revelation. This sermon focuses on the promised king who was exemplified by the man David. My original intent was to make a few…

90 Days with Scripture: Exodus 7-12, Freedom for God’s People (2)

Friends, This is part two of my sermon on the Exodus narratives. In this sermon I focus on Pharaoh and the Passover. This is reverse side of the sermon for last week that focused on Prophets (Moses & Aaron) and the Plagues. The exodus, while a real even in history, also becomes a type of…

SkyCast: Plundering God, Isaiah 3:1-4:1

Friends, I printed the manuscript below for this sermon on Isaiah 3:1-4:1. The audio takes about 22 minutes or so-I am becoming much more efficient in my preaching. In this sermon, I follow on the heals of last week’s sermon which dealt primarily with trusting God. In this sermon, what I did was take that…

John Stott on the Sacrifices We Bring to Christ

Friends, This continues my series on The Crucifixion Driven Life. This quote is from John RW Stott a scholar admired and respected across denominational lines as a sound expositor of Scripture and a welcome ambassador for the Kingdom of God: The uniqueness of Christ’s sacrifice does not mean, then, that we have no sacrifices to…

Audio from DA Carson

Friends, It is a DA Carson bonanza! Oooh! You know I am big fan of his and I happen to believe, with the exception of his strident Calvinism, that he is a brilliant expositor of Scripture. Anyhow, a friend provided a link, after he did some down-the-rabbit-hole searching and came up with the Nashville Conference on…