“The lesson here is that when you’ve done the job you went to the pulpit to do, shut up. Don’t keep hammering on the homiletical woodwork till you put half-moons all over it — not to mention your congregation” (Capon, The Foolishness of Preaching, p. 82).
On Getting Your Groove Gone
“Worthy brother, excellent brother, if you could only manage to drive us sometimes over a different road, even if much less smooth, even if you do not know it very well — I am so tired of this!” (John Broadus, as quoted in Murray, How Sermons Work, p. 88).
Flashing the Laymen
The penultimate chapter of Free Will is on politics, and is only a few pages. All it takes is a few pages to snark at conservatives. “Conservatives, however, often make a religious fetish of individualism” (p. 61) “Living in America, one gets the distinct sense that if certain conservatives were asked why they weren’t born …
Not Stacking Bricks
Grace and Peace  “At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) The Basket Case Chronicles #69 “But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace. For what knowest thou, O wife, whether …
How Faith Functions
“Suppose a precocious young boy, after his father has finished saying grace over the evening meal, asked something like this. ‘Dad, how do we know that God gave us this food for blessing? Couldn’t He just be fattening us up for the day of slaughter?’ The father’s answer is simple: ‘We know because the Bible …
Provided the Point is Communication
“Provided you’ve produced a carefully prepared manuscript that’s written in conversational English rather than in sociologese, psycho-babble, or academic jargon — and provided you read it to your people rather than at them — a preachment that’s read can be every bit as happy an experience for them as any other” (Capon, The Foolishness of …
One Burnt Cookie
G.K. Chesterton says somewhere, I think in Orthodoxy, that given materialist assumptions, it makes no sense to say to someone, “Go and sin no more,” because that involves choices, but you can put the malefactor into boiling oil because boiling oil is an environment. In his next chapter on moral responsibiliity, Sam Harris tries to …
Greater Advantage of Lesser Opportunities
Is the biblical command to win souls for Christ inconsistent with awareness of and involvement in politics? Should we abandon our political concerns and just “preach the gospel”? This concern for the primacy of evangelism, although well-intentioned, will ultimately destroy the very thing it considers most important.
Humanity, Part Two
“It is possible to talk about the final judgment and the lordship of Jesus Christ in such a way that makes it clear that He is only lord over those areas that secularists are happy to let Him have — the afterlife, for example. Who cares if Jesus is Lord in ways that never make …
And the Tallest Mountains the Best Mountaineers
“The toughest passages make the best preachers” (Capon, The Foolishness of Preaching, p. 71).