The Authority of the Son of Man, Pt. 2Luke 4:38-44December 22, 2024 I suppose Elizabeth was a couple of months old the first time she got sick. I don’t remember all the particulars, but I do remember it was something respiratory and she was struggling to breathe. One night she was especially uncomfortable and was […]
Read More The Authority of the Son of Man, Pt. 2The Authority of the Son of Man, Pt. 1Luke 4:31-37December 15, 2024 Authority. Authority is a word that can bring comfort when we are under wise and benevolent leaders. And it is a word that can provoke us to be fearful when we are under foolish, ungracious, and harsh authoritarians. Yet we all live […]
Read More The Authority of the Son of Man, Pt. 1The First Reactions to the Son of ManLuke 4:22-30December 8, 2024 First impressions are not always accurate impressions. And first evaluations are not always true. I have experienced those truisms many times in my life, but one of the first times was when I was about seven years old. Mom and Dad were going […]
Read More The First Reactions to the Son of ManThe Father’s Mission for the Son of ManLuke 4:14-21November 17, 2024 On Monday, April 2, 1739, John Wesley began preaching open-air evangelistic sermons at Kingswood Bristol. That decision and event was the start of a revival in England that the country had never seen before (or since). Wesley later wrote this in his diary about […]
Read More The Father’s Mission for the Son of ManRecently a preacher (I refuse to call him a pastor) from Oklahoma received over 600,000 hits on YouTube for a portion of one of his recent sermons — for all the wrong reasons. The title of the video declares that this preacher “throws a hissy fit.” It’s worse than that. He degraded his people and […]
Read More What’s wrong with this preaching tactic?This post is a republication of a post from August 25, 2011; the post that day dealt with Psalm 112, which is one of the psalms in our Scripture reading this morning, and I don’t think I can say anything better about the psalm today than I did a year ago. Every preacher has them: […]
Read More Is the psalmist a prosperity theologian?As the early church began to grow exponentially, it quickly became essential to delineate roles and responsibilities in the church. So in Acts 6, deacons were selected to assist the elders so that the elders could carry out their primary responsibilities of “prayer and the ministry of the Word” (v. 4). Now it might seem […]
Read More The ministry of the WordEvery preacher has them: sermons that they realized after-the-fact that they did the worst thing that can be done in a sermon. They missed the point of the passage. I’ve had at least my fair share of them. But one stands towering over all the others in my mind. I remember studying that week, wondering […]
Read More A sermon do-overHaving just finished the book of Ephesians last Sunday, I am being asked pretty regularly these days, “what are you preaching next?” I have several topical series in mind that I’d like to do soon, along with a couple of book studies (Titus probably later this year followed by Hebrews and/or 1 John). But next […]
Read More New sermon seriesI did not get up earlier than usual on Friday morning to watch the Royal Wedding. I had a full schedule for the day and wanted to prepare myself for it with a full night of sleep. And further, I was uninterested in the whole hoopla in general (though certain female teen-aged members of my […]
Read More Reflections on “the wedding”Items of interest with biblical implications from around the internet in the past week: Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the death of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Justin Taylor has compiled short biographical videos and a number of other resources of interest concerning the great preacher’s life. Paul Tripp talks about the grace of confession — “no […]
Read More Grab bagA few things I’ve spotted around the Internet recently: The end of the year means the inevitable “year in review” lists. Here is a list of “Top 10 Theology and Church Stories” (with many supporting links) from Colin Hansen. Accordance recounts a brief (and recent) history of the study Bible. [Accordance is my Bible study […]
Read More Grab BagCharles Spurgeon has long been called “the prince of preachers.” That is to say, he is recognized as being supreme among all other preachers. The best of the best. In a similar way, Haddon Robinson might be called “the professor of preachers.” Probably no single preacher has influenced and developed more preachers in our generation […]
Read More The preacher’s professorPart of the problem of the technological age in which we live is that some things which should be forgotten and disappear into the vapor of air as soon as they are said, is that they are instead recorded, processed, transcribed, printed and disseminated in a variety of media forms, most notably, the Internet. On […]
Read More Some overlooked Piper quotesThis morning we read Nehemiah 8, which is the passage that was the basis for Steve Lawson’s sermon “Bring the Book!” at the Shepherds’ Conference a few years ago. It is a really outstanding sermon. You may download it here. (It really is worth the hour or so it will take you to listen to […]
Read More Bring the Book!
Words of Grace 