” . . . an approach that will make the celebration of the rites more important than the preaching. Preaching will be understood as mystagogy. More and more preaching will be thought of as the explanation of the rites; more and more it will be imagined that it is the rites themselves which communicate; and …
KJV 400
INTRODUCTION:As you all no doubt have noticed, I preach from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV). This version is also sometimes referred to as the Authorized Version (AV), being authorized by King James I of England. This edition of the Bible came out in 1611, making the year 2011 its 400th birthday. I …
Rigorism As Temptation, Not as Goal
“Religion has its own temptations, and these temptations are particularly strong for those who area put in positions of church leadership. Serious theological error is a strong temptation for the devout. The irreligious hardly consider such things. The truly chaste are tempted to condemn marriage. Rigorism is a constant temptation to celibate Christians” (Hughes Oliphant …
High Dogma
“All the art of the poet is used to make the cadences of the language appropriate to the high seriousness of the thoughts expressed. That high dogma can be poetry is inconceivable to some, but there are plenty of examples–T.S. Eliot’s introduction to The Wasteland, for one” (Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of …
Solemn Remembrance
“Worship is a memorial or remembrace of the saving acts of God on which the covenant relationship is based” (Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, Vol. II, p. 232).
Something Very Different
“Antiochene exegesis rejected allegory, but it did not reject typology because it recognized that something very different is at work in typology. The Antiochene School was well aware that the New Testament itself used typology and therefore had no problem using it when it clearly was already in the text” (Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reaching …
State of the Church 2011
INTRODUCTION:One of the customs we have in this congregation is that of having a “state of the church” message around the first of the year. Sometimes the message focuses on the local state of the church, and sometimes on the state of the national church. And sometimes, like today, it focuses on both. THE TEXT:“Wherefore …
Forgetting the Point By Decorating It
“When the liturgy becomes so complicated that it demands the sort of highly conventionized sermons . . . the original purpose of preaching begins to fall from sight. Instead of explaining the Scriptures, the sermon explains the liturgy” (Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, Vol. II, p. 165).
And Will Be Again
“Our day and age, still under the shadow of the Enlightenment, naively imagines that the doctrinal sermon is boring and that sermons like these must have been tedious. A less beclouded day will probably recognize this prejudice as a rather peculiar form of pietistic agnosticism. The history of preaching is filled with examples of great …
Defining History
INTRODUCTION:We have all enjoyed the anticipation of another Christmas, and we are still in a celebratory moment—a Lord’s Day celebration the day after Christmas. But we don’t ever want this celebration to drift off point—this is not the armistice day of a long-forgotten war. This war is on-going, and we celebrate this decisive point in …