You Are Responsible For How You Hear

Jonathan Herron had the quote I was looking for:

Many hearers lose much blessing through criticizing too much, and meditating too little; and many more incur great sin by calumniating those who live for the good of others. True pastors have enough of care and travail without being burdened by undeserved and useless fault-finding. We have something better to do than to be for ever answering every malignant or frivolous slander which is set afloat to injure us….there are tender, loving spirits who feel the trial very keenly, and are sadly hindered in brave service by cruel assaults. The rougher and stronger among us laugh at those who ridicule us, but upon others the effect is very sorrowful…

As ministers we are very far from being perfect, but many of us are doing our best, and we are grieved that the minds of our people should be more directed to our personal imperfections than to our divine message….

Filled with the same spirit of contrariety, the men of this world still depreciate the ministers whom God sends them and profess that they would gladly listen if different preachers could be found. Nothing can please them, their cavils are dealt out with heedless universality. Cephas is too blunt, Apollos is too flowery, Paul is too argumentative, Timothy is too young, James is too severe, John is too gentle…

Well then, let each servant of God tell his message in his own way. To his own Master he shall stand or fall…

Judge the preacher if you like, but do remember thatthere is something better to be done than that, namely, to get all the good you can out of him, and pray his Master to put more good into him.

- from Eccentric Preachers by C.H. Spurgeon

The Forgotten Discipline

Craig Larsen reminds us:

There are at least nine characteristics that separate sound, biblical preaching from Bible reading, memorization, and meditation:

1. Good preaching rescues us from our self-deceptions and blind spots. Left to ourselves, we tend to ignore the very things in God's Word that we most need to see. Preaching covers texts and topics outside of our control.

2. Preaching brings us before God's Word in the special presence of the Holy Spirit as he indwells the gathered church.

3. Good preaching challenges us to do things we otherwise would not and gives us the will to do them. God has given speakers a remarkable power to spur others to take action.

4. As our church communities listen to good preaching, it brings us into the place of corporate — rather than just individual — obedience.

5. Good preaching causes humility by disciplining us to sit under the teaching, correction, and exhortation of another human. Relying on ourselves alone for food from the Word can lead to a spirit of arrogance and spiritual independence.

6. Good preaching gives a place for a spiritually qualified person to protect believers from dangerous error. The apostles repeatedly warned that untrained and unstable Christians — as well as mature believers — can be easily led astray by false doctrines. Christians are sheep; false teachers are wolves; preachers are guardian shepherds.

7. Preaching and listening are embodied, physical acts. Good preaching is truth incarnated through a person who can translate its meaning from an ancient setting to today. Good preaching is truth we receive sitting shoulder to shoulder.

8. Good preachers do what most Christians are not gifted, trained, or time-endowed to do: interpret a text in context, distill the theological truths, and apply those truths in a particular time and place to particular people in a particular church. This is a challenging task for well-trained preachers who have access to 2,000 years' worth of the church's resources; how much more so for those who are not trained?

9. Listening to preaching has a low threshold of difficulty. While many spiritual disciplines sound like exercises for the spiritually elite, both young and old, educated and uneducated, disciplined and undisciplined can listen to a sermon. It is the equal-opportunity spiritual discipline.

It's often all in how you listen...

Text-Messaging in Church

An intriguing way for folks to interact with the sermon...

What think ye?

What the Conventions Remind Us About Preaching

Eric Raymond has a good point.

But what do you see at the National Conventions? A speaker, a podium, a crowd seated, an appeal to action, and even propositional statements! What’s more, we have panels of talking heads dissecting everything about the speeches with the tenacity of a hyper-calvinist in a Methodist church.

The Kind of Preacher I'd Like to Be

Iain Campbell quotes from Kennedy's The Days of Our Fathers in Ross-shire:

As preachers, they were all remarkable. There are some who preach before their people, like actors on the stage, to display themselves and to please their audience. Not such were the self-denied preachers of Ross-shire.


There are others who preach over their people. Study­ing for the highest, instead of doing so for the lowest, in intelligence, they elaborated learned treatises, which float like mist, when delivered, over the heads of their hearers. Not such were the earnest preachers of Ross­shire.

There are some who preach past their people. Directing their praise or their censure to intangible abstractions, they never take aim at the views and the conduct of the individuals before them. They step carefully aside, lest their hearers should be struck by their shafts, and aim them at phantoms beyond them. Not such were the faithful preachers of Ross-shire. 



There are others who preach at their people, serving out in a sermon the gossip of the week, and seemingly possessed with the idea that the transgressor can be scolded out of the ways of iniquity. Not such were the wise preachers of Ross-shire. 



There are some who preach towards their people. They aim well, but they are weak. Their eye is along the arrow towards the hearts of their hearers, but their arm is too feeble for sending it on to the mark. Superficial in their experi­ence and in their knowledge, they reach not the cases of God's people by their doctrine, and they strike with no vigour at the consciences of the ungodly. Not such were the powerful preachers of Ross-shire. 



There are others still, who preach along their congregation. Instead of standing with their bow in front of the ranks, these archers take them in line, and, reducing their mark to an individual, never change the direction of their aim. Not such were the discriminating preachers of Ross-shire. 


But there are a few who preach to the people directly and seasonably the mind of God in His Word, with authority, unction, wisdom, fervour, and love. Such as these last were the eminent preachers of Ross-shire.



(Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire, 1927, pp23-4)

Bored With Preaching?

John Newton has a poem for you:

A Famine of the Word

Gladness was spread through Israel’s host
When first they Manna viewed;
They labored who should gather most,
And thought it pleasant food.
But when they had it long enjoyed
From day to day, the same;
Their hearts were by the plenty cloyed,
Although from heav’n it came.

Thus gospel bread at first is prized,
And makes a people glad;
But afterwards too much despised,
When easy to be had.
But should the Lord, displeased, withhold
The bread his mercy sends;
To have our houses filled with gold
Would make but poor amends.

How tedious would the week appear,
How dull the Sabbath prove?
Could we no longer meet to bear
The precious truths we love!
How would believing parents bear
To leave their heedless youth,
Exposed to every fatal snare,
Without the light of truth?

The gospel, and a praying few
Our bulwark long have proved;
But Olney sure the day will rue
When these shall be removed.
Then sin, in this once favored town,
Will triumph unrestrained;
And wrath and vengeance hasten down,
No more by prayer detained.

Preserve us from this judgment, Lord
For JESUS’ sake we plead;
A famine of the gospel word
Would be a stroke indeed!

Hymn 49 in Olney Hymns
John Newton

HT: Paul Martin via Tim Challies

Standing in the Stead of God

Read here for a reminder of the importance of preaching.

"A Real Minister"

These challenging words are from Mark Dever's essay in Preaching the Cross.

God has always created his people by his Word. It's never been the other way around...

Consider the promotional mail pastors receive. The advertisements assure us success in ministry if we buy a particular product...Many people have an economic interest in making us feel guilty, inadequate, and unequipped. The way to avoid such a snare is by convincing ourselves of the priority and the sufficiency of the ministry of the Word adn to stake our whole service on that.

Do you see how important this is for the glory of God and the good of his people? Why, in so many of our churches, is it unusual to see someone giving their all to follow Christ, and growing in him? Is it because we allowed people who are in open unrepentant sin to continue on in our congregation, and so have diluted the witness, the fellowship? Why have we so neglected church discipline? Is it because we've not followed biblical instructions on leadership in the congregation, and we've also neglected the Bible's clear teaching on church discipline itself? Why have we neglected discipline? Is it because we don't teach about what church membership entails?

And why would that be? Because we haven't made it clear what it really means to be a Christian in the first place? And why would that be? Because we've misunderstood the gospel? How could that be? Because we've misunderstood the Bible? And why would that be the case? Because we've had pastors who - with the best of motives - have given themselves to everything in the world before giving themselves to the study and preaching of the Word! We've spent more time reading our email than our Bible.

"Pulpit Correctness"

Pastor Erik has something to say about politically correct preaching.

On Preaching

Spurgeon:

"The pulpit has become dishonored; it is esteemed as being of very little worth and of no esteem. Ah! we must always maintain the dignity of the pulpit. I hold that it is the Thermopylae of Christendom; it is here that the battle must be fought between right and wrong; not so much with the pen, valuable as that is as an assistant, as with the living voice of earnest men, 'contending earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints.'"

Thanks to Ray Van Neste and Kairos Journal.

What Is Good Preaching?

Pastor Erik has some thoughts on the matter. He begins with,

"I get the pastor trade journal, Leadership. I don't know why I read it. It usually only causes me angst over state of the evangelical church and the evangelical pastorate. I always mutter to myself that I need to read it to 'keep up' and 'keep current' or some such nonsense. And it is nonsense. Hey Pastors- you want to keep current? Read 2 Timothy 4: 1-5. Now, memorize it. Then, do it. Please. We need more 'hip' and 'current' pastors like we need more infomercials."

Hit the link for the rest of the story.