“In the event of God’s ‘connecting Himself’ thus with the preacher, to make his act of speaking the effective Word of the Lord, a relationship is set up between the human act of the preacher and the divine action of grace which we may call a sacramental union . . . when God graciously comes …
Not Resigning Office
“It must be emphasized, however, in this discussion on the preached Word of God, that the word of the preacher can only become the Word of God through a sovereign and free act of the Holy Spirit, by whose power alone preaching can be effective . . . ‘God sometimes connects Himself with His servants …
Where the Rod of Iron Is
“Thus Calvin applies many of the Old Testament prophecies of the rule of the Messiah amongst the nations to the preacher of the Word, for he regards Christ as acting in this world mainly through the instrument of the preached Word” (Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament, p. 87).
A Mark of Presence
“Christ, therefore, uses the preached word as a means of revelation and self-communication in much the same way as He uses the other signs of His presence and grace in His historic acts of revelation. Thus Calvin can refer to preaching as a token of the presence of God, and as a means whereby He …
In the Shadow of Thy Wings
INTRODUCTION: We are in a stretch of the psalms which record David’s trials before coming to the promised throne. This psalm is a cry of faith from a very beleaguered and dark time. Since the reference is simply to “the cave,” this is probably the time when David and his six hundred men hid in …
Christ in the Sermon
“The task of the preacher of the Word is to expound the scripture in the midst of the worshipping Church, preaching in the expectancy that God will do, through his frail human word, what He did through the Word of His prophets of old, that God by His grace will cause the word that goes …
Christ in the Sermon
“The task of the preacher of the Word is to expound the scripture in the midst of the worshipping Church, preaching in the expectancy that God will do, through his frail human word, what He did through the Word of His prophets of old, that God by His grace will cause the word that goes …
Master of the Plain Style
“This does not mean that Calvin was unaware of rhetoric. He was a master of it! He knew Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian well. He had carefully schooled himself in John Chrysostom and Augustine, both accomplished in the art of rhetoric. As is often said of very great artists, he had mastered his art so completely …
An Essential Part of the Offering
“The exposition of Scripture in course became one of the biggest planks in their platform of Christian revival. To them it was an essential component of a Christian worship that was according to Scripture and after the example of the ancient church. To these Reformers the sermon was an act of worship. It was the …
Your Wretched Regulations
“To the pure mind, none of the powers of manhood are common or unclean. Humour can be consecrated, and should be . . . some preachers are so unnatural themselves, that the human nature of their hearers refuses to subject itself to their operations. O ye who are evermore decorously dull, before ye judge a …