In James 3:6, we are told how destructive the tongue is. It is called a fire, and then a whole cosmos of unrighteousness. Listed among our body’s members, the tongue has the effect of staining the whole body, and setting time on fire. The body (soma) is stained, and the whole “course of life” is …
Hope That Purifies
INTRODUCTION:Everything God does in our world is aimed at glorifying His name through the salvation of sinners like us. He declared his saving intentions right after the Fall, in the first pages of Scripture. He unfolded more and more details as the era of the patriarchs and prophets went on, and then, when it was …
Not Available in Stores
“The more stodgy sort of ecclesiastical politicians may not be able to inspire their congregations, but they do, on the other hand, have a way of keeping things in their control. Paul obviously had charisma, and great preaching needs charisma even if the less gifted have a way of feeling threatened by it. Charisma by …
Rare, and More Rare Than We Think
“The Church needs its exciting young charismatics and the Church needs solid elders and learned scholars. The amazing thing about Paul is that he was all of these together” (Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, Vol. I, p. 208).
Simple Gifts
“Preaching is a charisma . . . it is a spiritual gift. SUrely there is much in preaching which is human skill or literary art, but none of it is nearly as central as the fact that preaching is a charisma . . . [Paul] realized that what made his ministry real was not his …
Some of Them Really Strange
“If the legitimate ministry is unfaithful, God will still be heard . . . The ordinary channels of hearing the Word of God have been clogged up by every kind of infidelity, but God’s Word has been heard in some of the strangest ways and some of the strangest places” (Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading …
Knowledge of Good and Evil
INTRODUCTION: The Lord Jesus was born in this world in order to reestablish mankind. The first mankind in Adam had failed at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and so Jesus was born into this world in order to rebuild the ruin we had created here. Our celebrations at this time of …
Even to the Academic
“For Paul it is the work of the Holy Spirit in the preacher and in the congregation which gives preaching its power. This is not some stuffy arcane wisdom, not some legalistic tradition, but rather a living, enlightening power that imparts life even to the old, the jaded, and the academic” (Hughes Oliphant Old, The …
Plain Speaking
“What Paul means is plainly that Christ sent him to change human hearts through the preaching of the gospel, not to impress them with his literary eloquence” (Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, p. 191).
Not Sent to Dazzle
“The cultivated rhetoric of Hellenistic society was notorious for grabbing center stage, as it were, and losing sight of the primary concern of the message. That this should not happen in Christian preaching was Paul’s main concern in the opening chapters of the first epistle to the Corinthians. In fact, the greatest of Christian preachers, …