“If we become exclusively preoccupied with answering the questions people are asking, we may overlook the fact that they often ask the wrong questions and need to be helped to ask the right ones. If we acquiesnce uncritically in the world’s own self-understanding, we may find ourselves the servants rather of fashion than of God” …
The Preacher As Road Engineer
[Speaking of orthotomeo in 2 Tim. 2:15] “Modern versions prefer something like ‘rightly handling’ the Word (RSV), or handling it ‘correctly’ (NIV), but these are too vauge. For the word has a more precise meaning, namely to ‘cut straight’, and the image conveyed is either that of the ploughman or of the road maker” (Stott, …
Standing With the Text
“If we are expounding God’s Word with integrity and honesty, we can be very bold” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 132).
Forgetfulness and Disloyalty
“Since the resolve of the expositor is to be faithful to his text, the two main pitfalls may be termed forgetfulness and disloyalty. The forgetful expositor loses sight of his text by going off on a tangent and following his own fancy. The disloyal expositor appears to remain with the text, but strains and stretches …
Turns Out the Shulamite’s Belly Is Not the Great Sanhedrin
“The sixteenth century Reformers are rightly given the credit for having recovered this [grammatico-historical] method by rescuing biblical interpretation from the fanciful allegorizations of medieval writers. When they spoke of the ‘literal’ meaning, they were contrasting it with the ‘allegorical’; they were not denying that some passages of Scripture are deliberately poetical in style and …
Study?
“Instead, tragic to relate, many [preachers] are essentially administrators, whose symbols of ministry are the office rather than the study, and the telephone rather than the Bible” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 124).
Not Just Instruction
“A good shepherd’s care of his sheep is four-fold — feeding, guiding (because sheep go easily astray), guarding (against predatory wolves) and healing (binding up the wounds of the injured). And all four of these activities are aspects of the ministry of the Word” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 120).
Priests and Preachers
“Those with knowledge of the etymology of English words are aware that ‘priest’ is simply a contraction of ‘presbyter’, meaning ‘elder’. But it is also used to translate the Greek word hiereus, a sacrificing priest, which is never used of Christian ministers in the New Testament” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 117).
Seldom If Ever
“More often than we like to admit, the pew is a reflection of the pulpit. Seldom if ever can the pew rise higher than the pulpit” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 115).
Deaf Church Dead Church
“A deaf church is a dead church: that is an unalterable principle. God quickens, feeds, inspires and guides his people by his Word” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 113).