INTRODUCTION:We are going to be spending this week and the next two on the subject of the spiritual disciplines. I am putting them together as three imperatives—breathe, eat, work. When God put Adam into this world, He gave him the breath of life, He gave him food to eat, and He gave him work to …
Which Drives Some People Crazy
“The language of Scripture is, as a general thing, not philosophical but popular, not scientific but poetic, not so much an analytic language, fond of sharp discriminations and exact statements, as a synthetical language, abounding in concrete terms, the representatives not of abstractions, but of facts of actual existence and experience, and which in their …
Wisdom From Above #5
INTRODUCTION:The fact that this prophetic warning is located just on the threshold of God’s judgment of Israel in 70 A.D. does not prevent it from providing us with a number of useful warnings. They were told to look back at similar times of affliction in the Old Testament, and so we have two sets of …
Because Heralds Shouldn’t Tinker With the Message
“Such a man is verily guilty before God if he does not honestly strive to understand that which he interprets, and give forth its real meaning and no other” (Broadus, Preparation and Delivery, p. 52).
Judas Went and Hanged Himself . . . Go Thou and Do Likewise
“If we take the passage in a sense entirely foreign to what the sacred writer designed, as indicated by his connection, then, as we use it, the phrase is no longer a passage of Scripture at all. It is merely words of Scripture, used without authority to convey a different meaning” (Broadus, Preparation and Delivery, …
A Book, Not a Screen
“To interpret and apply his text in accordance with its real meaning, is one of the preacher’s most sacred duties” (Broadus, Preparation and Delivery, p. 51).
Context Matters
“The sayings of uninspired men, recorded in Scripture, ought not to be used as texts unless we know from other teachings of Scripture that they are true, or unless we propose to find instruction in the fact that those men made the statements given. Many such sayings found in the Bible are in themselves utterly …
Go Everywhere
[On text selection] “Do not habitually neglect any portion of Scripture” (Broadus, Preparation and Delivery, p. 47).
Wisdom From Above #4
INTRODUCTION:The devil is a moralist. The devil is self-righteous. The devil is an angel of light. The name Lucifer means light-bearer. Who could be against that? The devil is censorious. The devil disapproves of us, and likes it when we disapprove of one another. The devil is a Pharisee. The devil is the accuser of …
New From Old
“Do not avoid a text because it is familiar . . . He who will turn away from the tradition of the pulpit as to the meaning and application of such passages, and make personal and earnest study of them, will often find much that is new to him and his hearers” (Broadus, Preparation and …