“The point of these stories had been pressed home to him to him by the kind of preachers who rolled up their shirtsleeves, threw their necktie over the right shoulder, and hopped around while they preached. Many Americans have complained of too many hellfire and damnation sermons in their past, but Bradford was one of the 112 individuals in our generation who had actually heard one. He was thirteen at the time and was a pretty good boy for five days afterward. So Bradford was thoroughly conversant on the Achan thing.”
Two Sides
“If we are to be true to what the Bible says about itself, we must recognize both the human and the divine authorship. Yet we must not allow either the divine or the human factor to take away from the other. Divine inspiration did not override the human authorship. Human authorship did not override the divine inspiration. The Bible is equally God’s words and human words.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 16
A Big Part, Actually
“’MPD, Bradford,’ came an authoritative voice. It was the voice of God’s minister of wrath, the avenging angel, coming to strike down all the firstborn. Johnny was firstborn, which was part of his problem, but pursuit of those issues would take us too far afield.”
We Preach Not Ourselves
“Our responsibility as preachers is not primarily to give our twenty-first-century testimony to Jesus, but rather to relay to our listeners God’s own authoritative witness to Christ through the eyewitness accounts of the apostles.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 15
Which is Not to Call Youth Ministry a Ditch
“And when the blind lead the blind, they both fall into a youth ministry.”
The Headwaters of Every Sermon
“This is the foundation on which all Christian preaching rests. How would we dare to speak if God had not spoken? By ourselves we have nothing to say.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 14
Those Darn Back Rubs
“Every month or so the stress of youth ministry—dealing with the kids and all their issues—would get to Johnny and so he would head on over to Brandy’s apartment to have her give him a neck rub, followed by her specialty back rub. But somehow her giving him a back rub always turned into him giving her a front rub, and then they would fall again. That was actually how their relationship started, which is to say, through those darn back rubs. It was her senior year in high school, and she was in Johnny’s youth group, which was a combination Bible study and daisy-chain back-rub circle. At the end of that year, they all had a good working knowledge of the gospel of Mark and significantly improved blood flow in the delts.”
Evangelism as Hide & Seek
“God is not secretive. He delights to make himself known. Just as it is the nature of light to shine, so it is the nature of God to reveal himself. The chief reason why people do not know God is not because he hides from them but because they hide from him. Every preacher needs to take encouragement from the fact that God is light and longs to shine his light into the listener’s darkness (2 Cor. 4:4-6).”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 13
So Many Hidden Premises
“But Johnny still agonized over such things—what size earring would the apostle Paul have worn if his mission had been to the skateboarding and pants-droopy youth of today? Not an easy question to answer.”
Which Should be Obvious
“The kind of God we believe in determines the kind of sermons we preach.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 13