How to Listen to Sermons
As we approach the Lord’s Day on any given Sunday, let alone one on which many of us will lose an hour of restful preparation due to the resetting of our clocks, how shall we listen to the sermon? Added…
Tag Hermeneutics
Taking Sermon Notes
One of the joys of gathering with my local church on Sundays is sitting under the ministry of the Word. This is especially dear to me after having been un-churched for many years. I was spiritually malnourished by the time…
Preaching Christ: as the essence of God’s Revelation
Every preacher knows – at least in some sense – that we are called to ‘preach Christ’ as we expound the Scriptures. We heard it in our homiletics classes in Seminary and we’ve been challenged about it in the numerous…
Study and Preaching
I am not sure where I first heard this wisdom, but I have heard it several times: a pastor does not need an office, he needs a study. Spot on. The bulk of pastoral work is not management behind a…
Commentary Connoisseur: Using A Commentary
I just finished preaching through Romans. So, what was my favorite commentary? Which one would I take to a desert island? Well, let me throw up a disclaimer or two. First, I never use a commentary that is, shall we…
Commentary Connoisseur: The Welsh & English
I don’t know if I have an absolute favorite commentary on Romans…at least not yet. I remember when serving as a youth pastor I spent about two years working through the book of Romans with all the high school students…
Hell: They Have No Bowels
While rereading Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol I recently read something I had forgotten. When Jacob Marley appeared to Scrooge his body was transparent, so that Scrooge could see not only the front of his long deceased partner’s waistcoat but…
For Instruction, Doctrine, and Morals: The Art of Reading
What does it mean to be a reader? What’s actually happening when someone reads a text? Ever since the rise of post-modernism these kinds of questions have been in vogue. And though many of the popular answers today are new,…
For Instruction, Doctrine, and Morals: Interpretation, Truth and Holiness
To interpret is to identify the meaning or significance that the thing has which we interpret. Humans interpret. We do not choose to interpret; interpretation is unavoidable. But we do choose how we interpret and thereby what our interpretation will…
For Instruction, Doctrine, and Morals: Not the God of the Dead
For a decade the Westminster Assembly of divines (i.e., theologians) met at Westminster Abbey in London (1643-1653) to produce a Scriptural doctrinal standard and church government. During that time the well-known Confession of Faith was drawn up to explicate the…