“The preacher’s whole life, his whole experience is, in a way, a preparation for the sermon, even though it may be an unconscious one” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 108).
Three Camels and the Needle
In Luke 11, Jesus gives us a truly odd juxtaposition — until we learn to think of generational bloodguilt more biblically than we usually do. Jesus says that one generation killed the prophets, and a subsequent generation builds a tomb for that same prophet (Luke 11:47). According to carnal calculus, building a tomb of honor …
The Second Ebenezer
INTRODUCTION:The reformation we see here in this passage was slow in coming, and did not last very long. But at the same time, it was real. Reformations are messy, and cannot be understood by the tidy-minded. As we live in a time that is desperate for real reformation, there are many things for us to …
Spray Early
We often don’t pay enough attention to how familiar passages are juxtaposed. Take, for example, a short chain of passages in Luke 6. A disciple when fully trained will be like his teacher (Luke 6:40). Don’t try to take a speck out of your brother’s eye when you have a railroad tie in your own …
Because We Are Becoming Someone, Not Cramming for a Test
“So one can get spiritual, mental, and moral help from a good book, although he may not remember anything in the book a short time after he has read it” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 85).
Grazing in Good Metaphor
“Poetry is also good, for it stimulates the imagination, a faculty sadly neglected by the majority of preachers . . . the preacher ought never to part company with the poets. The objective is not to quote poetry in sermons — there is altogether too much of this — but to find worth-while sermon ideas, …
Gathering Comes First
“But this much certainly is true — wide reading in any worth-while field stimulates the mind and gives the reader something of use to him when he comes to prepare his sermon” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 76).
Imagine
“Napoleon said, ‘Men of imagination rule the world.’ The preacher of imagination is the prince of the pulpit” (Macartney, Peaching Without Notes, p. 75)
Witchery of Words
“Some of the greatest preachers have been metaphorical preachers . . . They understood, or had an unconscious instint for, the witchery of words” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 59).
The Ark of the Gentiles
INTRODUCTION:We now can see the shape of an interesting storyline taking place. We see Israelites acting like faithless Gentiles, and Gentiles acting like faithful Israelites. In the pages to come, we are going to see quite a bit of this. THE TEXT:“And the ark of the LORD was in the country of the Philistines seven …