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I'm enjoying a wonderful book that will add a special flavor to my new year. The Christian Almanac (Cumberland House) by George Grant and Gregory Wilbur is a fascinating resource for study and devotional use. This "book of days" offers, for each day of the year, a list of events in world and Christian history that took place on that day, a brief essay about a person or event relating to that day, and scripture readings which facilitate reading through the Bible over a one-year period. For example, you probably didn't know that on January 10 in 1645, William Laud (archbishop of Canterbury and persecutor of the English Puritans) was beheaded on Tower Hill; the same day in 1984, the U.S. first established full diplomatic relations with the Vatican. The essay for January 11 is about John Bunyan, preacher and author of Pilgrim's Progress. (Did you know Charles Spurgeon read that volume more than a hundred times?) One of the things that adds insight and richness to preaching is a knowledge of and appreciation for history. It helps to remember that God didn't create the world just in time for our generation to come along. The Christian Almanac is a reminder all through the year that God has been at work -- in many ways and through many lives -- to accomplish His good purpose. (Click here to learn more about The Christian Almanac) Michael
Duduit, Editor Click here to visit "I Was Just Thinking" (Michael's blog) for insights and observations about faith and culture issues. Recent topics: Peering into 2007 Note to Preaching Subscribers: Several new sermons for January have been posted on Preaching On-Line. Just go to www.preaching.com and click on the picture of the current issue; you'll find your user id and password on the table of contents page of your current issue. (The new one, found in the Jan-Feb issue, is effective Jan. 10.) If you're not a Preaching subscriber, click here to begin your subscription and gain access to all the resources of Preaching On-Line!
Exposition begins with scripture In his booklet Preaching for God's Glory (Crossway), Alistair Begg reminds us that "Expository preaching always begins with the text of Scripture." Begg notes, "That does not mean every sermon will begin with the phrase, 'Please turn in your Bible to . . .' But it does mean that even when we begin by referring to some current event or the lyric of a contemporary song, it is the text of Scripture that establishes the agenda for the sermon. The Bible expositor does not start with an idea or a great illustration and then search for an appropriate passage. Instead he begins with the Scripture itself and allows the verses under consideration to establish and frame the content of the sermon. This is why, as John Stott says, 'It is our conviction that all true Christian preaching is expository preaching' (Between Two Worlds). We are on the wrong track if we think of expository preaching merely as a preaching style chosen from a list (topical, devotional, evangelistic, textual, apologetic, prophetic, expository)." (Click here to learn more about Preaching for God's Glory)
250 million Christians face persecution in 2007 Some 250 million Christians around the world now face persecution because of their faith, according to persecution watchdog Release International in a story in the Jan. 2 edition of The Christian Post. The U.K.-based group says that persecution of Christians is increasing fastest in the Muslim world. According to the article, "Governments in even moderate Muslim countries often fail to safeguard the rights of their Christian minorities. Abuses suffered by Christians include kidnapping, forced conversion, imprisonment, church destruction, torture, rape and execution. One of the world's worst abusers of religious freedom is Saudi Arabia, guardian of Islam's holiest sites -- Mecca and Medina. Saudi Arabia forbids all other religions. A Muslim found "guilty" of converting to Christianity could face the death sentence for apostasy. And anyone who leads a Muslim to Christ faces jail, expulsion or execution. "There's a conspiracy of silence around Saudi," said Release International's CEO Andy Dipper, "probably because the West wants their oil and their money. But this is a government that hands out the death sentence for its own citizens who want nothing more than the freedom to choose their own faith. And while Saudi bans all Christian literature, it spends billions of dollars each year propagating Islam around the world." Persecution is not limited to Muslim nations, however. The Post article points out that, "As China prepares for the Olympic Games, western governments would do well to remember that China detains more Christians than any other country," said (RI CEO Andy) Dipper. "Believers and leaders who want nothing more than to worship freely face imprisonment, torture and even death." "In the Hindu world Christians face persecution in India and Nepal. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), one of India's largest political parties, is associated with militant Hindu nationalist groups. Extremists have been involved in a growing number of attacks against both Christians and Muslims. Several Indian states have introduced laws against forced conversion, but these are wide open to abuse. Christians face most pressure in rural areas, where militants have destroyed churches and threatened, attacked and killed church leaders." (Click here to read the full article.) http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070102/24735.htm
Rewarding innovation In his new book Why Should I Believe You? Rediscovering Clergy Credibility (Abingdon), Thomas Bandy notes that the church is one of the last organizations in our culture that discourages innovation. He writes, "The church must learn the hard lessons that organizations in other public sectors have learned. In a world of mass migration, technological change, rapid communication, and spiritual searching, core values for maintenance, stability and predictability are no longer practical. The church is one of the last holdouts in organizational America that rewards employees and volunteers for their lack of experimentation. "Such behavior is quite contrary to the New Testament, in which Jesus uses the parable of the talents to urge an entrepreneurial spirit in the disciples. It is also contrary to the tradition of first-millennium Christianity, in which leaders of the Christian movement tried everything from funeral societies to house churches to table talk in the agora in order to share the gospel. It is the dominance of the diocesan church of the second millennium, and the need of the diocesan leaders to control, that changed everything. Now we have to change back again." (Click here to learn more about the book Why Should I Believe You?)
ILLUSTRATION: Spiritual Growth Pastor Alan Smith tells the story of a country lad who was hired for a salesman's job at a city department store. It was one of those massive stores that has every department imaginable. In fact it was the biggest store in the world -- you could get anything there. The boss said, "You can start tomorrow, Friday morning, and I'll come and see you when we close up." When the boss saw the young man the next day at closing time, he saw him shaking hands with a beaming customer. After they parted, he walked over and asked, "Well, that looked good! How many sales did you make today?" "That was the only one," said the young salesman. "Only one?" blurted the boss. "Most of my staff make 20 or 30 sales a day. You'll have to do better than that! Well, how much was the sale worth?" "$227,340 and change," said the young man. The boss paused for a moment, blinking a few times. "H . . . H . . . How did you manage that?" "Well, when he came in this morning I sold him a small fish hook. Then, I sold him a medium hook, and then a really large hook. Then I sold him a small fishing line, a medium one, and then a big one. I then sold him a spear gun, a wetsuit, scuba gear, nets, chum, and coolers. I asked him where he was going fishing and he said down the coast. We decided he would probably need a new boat, so I took him down to the boat department and sold him that twenty-foot schooner with the twin engines. Then, he said that his Volkswagen probably wouldn't be able to pull it, so I took him to the car department and sold him the new Deluxe Cruiser, with a winch, storage rack, rust proofing, and a built-in refrigerator. Oh, and floor mats." The boss took two steps back and asked in astonishment, "You sold all that to a guy who came in for a fish hook?" "No," answered the salesman. "He came in to buy a blanket." "A blanket?" "Yeah, an extra blanket for the couch. He just had a fight with his wife. I said to him, 'Well, your weekend's ruined, so you may as well go fishing . . . '" One
thing leads to another. And that's the way it should work in our
spiritual lives. As we grow and mature in Christ, we continue to
add virtue upon virtue. (Visit Alan Smith's Thought for the Day at http://www.tftd-online.com/)
ILLUSTRATION: Promises of God On January 19, 1750, Isaac Watts, the brilliant London pastor who is today remembered as the "Father of the English Hymn," sat down and wrote the foreword to a new edition of Samuel Clarke's book, Precious Bible Promises. In describing biblical promises, Watts called them "the constant food of a living Christian, as well as his highest cordials (medicines) in a fainting hour." Watts wrote, "In such a world as this, where duties perpetually demand our practice, and difficulties and trials are ever surrounding us, what can we do better than to treasure up the promises in our hearts? Here are the true riches of a Christian, and his highest hopes on this side of heaven." David Jeremiah observes, "If depression, discouragement, or disappointment is settling down on you like a cold fog, warm up to the sunbeams of a promise of Scripture. Search through the Bible until you find the very promise God has for you today. Be like Abraham who did not waver at the promise, but was strengthened in faith, fully persuaded that God had the power to do as He had promised." (Turning Point Daily Devotional, 9-22-06)
ILLUSTRATION: Patience of God, Atheism Generations ago Robert Ingersoll drew large audiences for his lectures on atheism. He liked to shock his hearers by taking out a big pocket watch and announcing, "I give God -- if there is one -- five minutes to strike me dead." When someone called this to the attention of the English evangelist Joseph Parker, who was conducting revival meetings in America at the time, Parker responded with typical English aplomb, "And did the gentleman presume to exhaust the patience of the eternal God in five minutes?" (F. Duane Lindsay, Dallas Seminary Daily Devotional, 12/20/06)
ILLUSTRATION: Heaven, Death A father was at the beach with his children when his four-year-old son ran up to him, grabbed his hand,and led him to the shore where a sea gull lay dead in the sand. "Daddy, what happened to him?" the son asked. "He died and went to Heaven" the dad replied. The boy thought a moment and then said, "Did God throw him back down?"
"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what then, is an empty desk?" (Albert Einstein)
From the sponsor of this week's edition: Old
Testament Commentary Survey, 4th ed. For the busy preacher, Old Testament Commentary Survey makes finding the best Old Testament commentaries easy. In this fourth edition, Longman focuses on the best of established commentaries and commentaries published in recent years. He lists a number of works available for each book of the Old Testament, gives a brief indication of their emphases and viewpoints, and evaluates them. Longman also indicates who would most benefit from the commentary under consideration (scholar, minister, layperson). Finally, he summarizes his top recommendations for those trying to build a library that covers the entire Old Testament. www.bakeracademic.com/oldtestamentcommentarysurvey
ILLUSTRATION: Money, Preaching After the church service, a little boy told the pastor, "When I grow up, I'm going to give you some money." "Well, thank you," the pastor replied, "but why?" "Because my daddy says you're one of the poorest preachers we've ever had."
"Promises are God's golden fruit to be plucked by the hand of prayer." (E. M. Bounds)
Plan
to be with us in Cambridge for the You can be part of one of the most exciting preaching events of the decade as you attend the third International Congress on Preaching, April 17-19 in Cambridge, England. This event is only held once every five years, so the next one won't be until 2012! ICOP 2007 will feature an amazing team of preachers and teachers, including N.T. Wright, David Jeremiah, Calvin Miller, Dave Stone, J. Alfred Smith, Michael Quicke, Timothy Warren, Robert Smith, Mike Glenn, Michael Milton, and many, many more. You'll enjoy stimulating addresses on the Congress theme, "For Such a Time as This: Preaching Truth in an Age of Idolatry." You'll hear challenging sermons, and you'll participate in practical workshops on a variety of preaching-related topics. There's still time to register, and airlines are beginning to announce airfare sales for spring. So make your plans now to be with us. To learn more (and register online), go to www.preaching.com/icop or you can call 800-527-5226 (toll free inside U.S.) or 615-386-3011 (outside the U.S.)
Ultimate
Preaching Rules (part 1) 1. According to your congregation, there are bad sermons and short sermons but there are no bad short sermons. 2. A life saver mint will last 22 minutes exactly if left laying between the cheek and gum during the normal course of talking. This is a helpful hint to time your sermon. Just don't make the mistake of putting a button in your mouth instead of a life saver before you get up to preach. 3. It never fails that when an "Awesome Sermon" is preached, members of the congregation cannot remember the scripture citations or what the sermon was about when the service is over. 4. When you reach a weak point in the sermon, raise the pitch and volume of your voice to compensate. 5. Have the congregation stand for the last hymn before the message, to assure everyone starts out awake. 6. The louder the congregation sings the longer the preacher should preach. 7. Contributions to "special" or "dedicated" funds go up and contributions to the "general" fund go down in direct proportion to the pastor's popularity. 8. Almost everyone is capable of being a Pharisee from time to time. 9. The purpose of a great sermon is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. The latter is preferable to the former. 10. No matter how hard you have studied and prayed, some sermons seem to barely get out of your mouth before they drop on the floor in front of the first pew. 11. Whatever scripture you quote and whatever your sermon outline, remember that your verbs HAS to agree with their subjects. 12. If you wear a big shiny watch, when the congregation starts to doze off you can wake them up by catching light from the back window and reflecting it into their eyes. For extra amusement, with some additional practice you can get an extra bounce off of bald heads. (Courtesy
of Sermon Fodder and Joke A Day Ministries. To get a regular dose
of Christian Humor and a modern-day parable drop a note to Sermon_Fodder-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.)
And finally . . . Pluto is finally getting some respect. It may be off the official list of planets in our solar system, but "plutoed" has been named the 2006 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society, according to a Jan. 7 Associated Press story. According to the AP story: "To 'pluto' is 'to demote or devalue someone or something,' much like what happened to the former planet last year when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto didn't meet its definition of a planet." "Plutoed" won in a runoff against "climate canary," defined as "an organism or species whose poor health or declining numbers hint at a larger environmental catastrophe on the horizon." Other words considered include "murse" (man's purse) and "flog" (a fake blog that promotes products). At least now I know what those deacons were doing to my sermons in my first church: they were "plutoing" them. That makes me feel much better.
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