INTRODUCTION:We are accustomed to our Christmas carols, but we have to take care not to get used to them in the wrong way—where we are somehow singing and celebrating on autopilot. The word carol comes from the word carola, which means a circle or ring dance—a folk dance. Christmas carols, rightly understood, are a sacred …
A Rare Thing
“A venerable and eminently useful minister once remarked, as he rose from the couch on which he had been resting, ‘Well, I must get ready to preach tonight. But I can’t preach — I never did preach — O, I never heard anybody preach'” (Broadus, Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, p. 19).
Both as Cause and Effect
“There has been no great religious movement, no restoration of Scripture truth, and reanimation of genuine piety, without new power in preaching, both as cause and as effect” (Broadus, Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, p. 19).
Power in Person
“When a man is apt in teaching . . . there is a power to move men, to influence character, life, destiny, such as no printed page can ever possess” (Broadus, Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, p. 18)
An Essential Balance
“True preaching, then, always involves a balance between the indicative and the imperative” (Carrick, The Imperative of Preaching, p. 145).
Well, Of Course
“A minor point of the text may on occasion legitimately be a major emphasis of the sermon” (Gaffin, as quoted in Carrick, The Imperative of Preaching, p. 127).
The Virgin Birth
Note: This sermon outline is a version of what was published this last week here. INTRODUCTION:Last week we considered the meaning of the Incarnation. This week we will be considering another doctrine with a Christmas theme, and that is the biblical teaching about the virgin birth. You don’t need to be a Bible reader to …
Having Exemplars Is Not Moralism
“The writer to the Hebrews evidently did not see any dichotomy between holding up Christ on the one had as the sole object of, and the supreme example for, faith, and holding up the Old Testament saints on the other hand as supplementary examples of faith” (Carrick, The Imperative of Preaching, p. 124).
Fair Enough
“The Reformed church has, to some extent, been guilty of emphasizing the indicative at the expense of the imperative” (Carrick, The Imperative of Preaching, p. 107).
Grammatical Comfort Zones
“Indeed, whereas there is often something intrinsically comfortable about the simple indicative, there is generally something intrinsically uncomfortable about the searching interrogative” (Carrick, The Imperative of Preaching, p. 79).