“Chad Lester was appalled by this dishonesty, as only a dishonest man can be. For those who have never seen this phenomenon in action, he was the kind of man who was entirely unaccustomed to looking at lies from this end of the barrel. He was now counting the rounds in their chambers. He could see their pointed, silvery tips. He licked his lips.”
So Logging Trucks Can Get Through
“The [next] metaphor presents the preacher as ‘a worker who does not need to be ashamed’ because he ‘handles the word of truth’ skillfully (2 Tim. 2:15). In other contexts, the Greek verb used here means ‘able to cut a straight path through country that is forested or difficult to pass through so that a traveller can go directly to his destination.’ This straight teaching contrasts with the false teaching of those who swerve from the truth (2 Tim. 2:18), ESV). Our exposition must be faithful and simple so that our hearers can understand and follow it easily.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 31
Like a Little Rubber Ball
“His sentence rolled to a stop against the wall and just sat there, abandoned.”
Exposition as a Treasury of Boldness
“Exposition gives us confidence to preach. If we were offering our own views or those of some imperfect fellow human being, we would do so hesitantly. But if we are honestly expounding God’s word, we can be very bold.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 29
Say Again?
“This was not because Cindi did not know how to handle her cousin Cherie, but rather because her husband was better than she was at deciphering code whenever Cherie was hysterical. And Cherie, on the other end, was speaking something like high-volume Navajo under stress.”
Two Traps
“Exposition identifies the traps we must avoid. The two main pitfalls are forgetfulness and disloyalty. The forgetful expositor loses sight of his text when he follows his own ideas and forgets to follow what the text says. The disloyal expositor appears to stick to his text, but strains and stretches it so that it means something quite different from its original and natural meaning”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 29
Inconvenient When That Happens
“John was mildly irritated, not at Cindi, but with that special kind of vaguely aimed irritation that we for ourselves when in the presence of people who are being correct in our direction.”
And Should Be Interpreted as Such
“The biblical authors were honest men, not deceivers, and they intended their writings to be understood”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 27.
Which Is Pretty Indignant
“The rest of them were about as indignant as a room full of wet cats”
Evangellyfish, p.133
Unspoken Blessings
“And the earth would go around the sun ten entire times before he had finally met Cindi, who, as Puritans go, was as hot as it gets. And, John thought smugly to himself, for those who think that means ‘not very,’ he could write a book, although no Christian publisher would ever touch it. She could make him bleed from both his ears, like some very happy kind of parachute accident. John grinned inside his head.”