Introduction: We are fast approaching the five hundredth anniversary of the glorious Reformation. In just a few months we will find ourselves marking that momentous year, and our Grace Agenda conference in the spring is dedicated to a celebration of it. Now the history of the Church is always tangled, and we can never approach …
Politics and Princes: Themes in Proverbs IV
Introduction: We are currently very aware of politics because we are in an election season, and because our political discourse is currently inflamed. We are very much under the chastisement of God, and it would be wise for us to consider ancient wisdom from the book of Proverbs as we pray about what we are …
Truth Without Permission
“If a thing be true, why confer with flesh and blood about it?” (Shedd, Homiletic and Pastoral Theology, p. 286).
Don’t Convolute It
“A reader of English can always help himself by looking back a few lines and refreshing his mind. A hearer of English hear once for all, and if he loses the thread of your sermon in a long involved sentence, he very likely never finds it again” (Ryle, Simplicity in Preaching, p. 13).
Preaching Clearly Means Seeing Clearly
“If I do not see my way through a text, I cannot preach on it, because I know I cannot be simple; and if I cannot be simple, I know I had better not preach at all” (Ryle, Simplicity in Preaching, p. 11).
A Rejoinder to Peter Leithart
Introduction: In a recent First Things article, Peter Leithart has continued to develop his recent emphasis on the “end of Protestantism.” He has a book coming out on the subject, and so this is not the first précis he has offered on the topic. The topic is on his mind, and that is why it …
Women: Themes in Proverbs III
Introduction: The image for wisdom in Proverbs is overwhelmingly feminine—but so is folly. The book of Proverbs is dedicated to teaching young men to walk up rightly, and this means taking women into account, women of both kinds. Women must learn from the book of Proverbs also, but need to do it in reverse. Don’t …
The Right Kind of Order
“All I say is, if we would be simple, there must be order in a sermon as there is in an army” (Ryle, Simplicity in Preaching, p. 9).
On Not Baffling the Flock
“But if, on examination, they can neither find the sermon in the text, nor the text in the sermon, their minds are perplexed, and they begin to think the Bible is a deep book which cannot be understood” (Ryle, Simplicity in Preaching, p. 8).
And Some Do It Without An Anesthetic
“I think a preacher should never take a text and extract from it, as a dentist would a tooth from the jaw, something which, however true in itself, is not the plain literal meaning of the inspired words” (Ryle, Simplicity in Preaching, p. 8).