“Jesus was preeminently a preacher of the Word . . . His three-year ministry was above all a preaching ministry. Those who continued his ministry, the apostles, were preeminently preachers as well, as evidenced by the Acts of the Apostles and the New Testament Epistles. Christianity from its earliest beginnings was a preaching religion” (Hughes …
An Angular Grace
“Preaching, especially prophetic preaching, demands a special charisma. It is not always easy to tell when preachers have this special grace. In time, however, we will know them by the fruit of their preaching” (Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of Scripture, Vol. 1, p. 59).
The Whole Thing Entire
“One approaches the hearing of the Word of God not as one approaches the eating of nuts — cracking the shell, eating the meat of the nut, and throwing the shell away. Rather, one approaches the Word of God as one eats grapes — eating the whole thing, skin, pulp, and seeds” (Hughes Oliphant Old, …
Deception and War
INTRODUCTION:Here is yet another psalm from yet another time when David was in trouble. The inscription says that it was the incident in which Saul’s daughter, Michal, helped David to escape when Saul’s men were watching their house. THE TEXT:To the chief Musician, Altaschith, Michtam of David; when Saul sent, and they watched the house …
The Glory of Words
“God has not revealed himself to our sight but rather to our hearing; he has revealed not his form but his will” (Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, Vol. 1, p, 39).
Before the Pot Heats Up
INTRODUCTION:We should note again that God’s hymnbook, the psalter, is just full of enemies. Our modern hymnbooks very rarely encounter anything like that. A central part of the reason is that we have worked out a truce with the devil. We don’t have to deal with him attacking us, for we have agreed not to …
Spiraling Toward Silence
In 1 Cor. 12, Paul mentiones that back in the day when they were pagans, they served mute or dumb idols (v. 2). Their bondage was that they served gods that could not speak. But Paul’s immediate application is quite interesting. Because of this, Paul wants them to understand that it is not possible to …
A Cardinal Function
“All too often one assumes that the taproot of Christian preaching goes back to the ministry of the prophets; preaching is thought of as the religious concern of the prophets, over against the liturgical concerns of the priesthood. There may have been circles in which this was true, but those who gave us the book …
Are We There Yet?
“As any experienced pastor knows, the secret of leading a congregation is interpreting to the people where one is going and what one is doing and why it is necessary and important to do it” (Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, Vol. 1, p. 27).
And So It Is
“There probably has never been an evangelist who had a higher sense of evangelism as worship than Virginia’s Samuel Davies. It was Davies who brought the Great Awakening to the South a generation before the American Revolution. The American pulpit has never known a greater orator. For Davies, evangelism was an invitation to the Lord’s …