We must not talk to our congregations as if we were half asleep. Our preaching must not be articulate snoring.
C.H. Spurgeon
So right! If we are not interested and engaged in what we are saying, how can we expect our congregations to be? (And why is that so rarely taught?)
The task of every generation is to discover in which direction the Sovereign Redeemer is moving, then move in that direction.
Jonathan Edwards
Edwards sounding remarkably charismatic there...
Both from his wonderful little book Jonah.
If the Holy Spirit were completely withdrawn from the church today, the church would go right on as if nothing had happened. This is why men outside see the church as being no different from the world.
We just say 'Isn't it awful what the young people are doing today?' We don't realise that the young people have been asking questions and we are not giving the answers.
7. Where possible, there should be follow-up after prayer ministry to encourage the working through of decisions made into the wider life of the individual.
8. “False” experience should be discouraged, since we do not want people's faith to rest on something that is not truly of God.
9. “True” experience should not be hyped, as this encourages false experience and also runs the risk of making such experience a badge of spirituality. While there is a slight tension here with my point 3, it is mostly resolved when it is realised that much of the effect of the Holy Spirit on the emotions does not result in strongly visible or audible signs.
10. Preaching should focus on the proclamation of Christ, not the proclamation either of the speaker or of experiences. While the style of the preaching should be appropriate to the content and therefore affective, the persuasiveness should come from the Holy Spirit and from the content of the message, not the style of the preaching. This is superbly exemplified by George Whitfield.
Interestingly enough, were these guidelines to be embraced, a large proportion of the criticisms both by the “conservatives” of the charismatic movement and of the “conservatives” by “charismatics” would vanish.
Some people say that there is a God; others say that there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere in between.
W.B. Yeats
The Bible tells us to love our neighbours, and also to love our enemies - probably because they are generally the same people.
G.K. Chesterton
Both are from "If My Preaching's Bad, Try My Jokes" by David Pytches.
And here are points 4-6...
4. Similarly, people within any given meetings should be equally open to the possibility that God will not overwhelm anyone at the meeting in this way. God is not a mechanistic process.
5. Discernment of the type outlined by both Jonathan Edwards and 1 John 4, should be regularly taught and strongly encouraged, especially in churches where such experiences are common and there is the danger of experience becoming theologically primary. It should especially be a core part of the training of prayer ministry teams, where such exist. The Scriptures must retain theological priority.
6. Leaders and those responsible for prayer ministry should be aware of and careful of physiological and other factors that might cause “false” experience, and should be careful concerning them, as well as praying against them, particularly ones created by deceits of Satan. There are occasions where it may be wiser to continue with prayer ministry when people are exhausted, but there are many others where it is wiser not to.
I recently finished writing an essay on true and false charismatic experience, which finished with 10 recommendations. Here are the first three.
Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.
1 Thessalonians 5:19-21, ESV
1. The structure of meetings should be such that when it is clear that God, through his Holy Spirit, is bringing conviction of sin, righteousness and judgement, then there should be a good opportunity to respond and to spend time allowing him to do his work rather than being distracted by the next thing happening. This might be via a structured and pre-prepared time of “prayer ministry” (for example); it might be via having the flexibility in the structure of the service to allow such a time to be introduced at short notice.
2. Since God gives gifts for the building up of the church, and there is no convincing argument that gifts of prophecy and tongues (for example – see 1 Cor 14:39 and 1 Thes 5:20) have ceased, there should be opportunity to use them within church gatherings, but when this is done it should be done in accordance with 1 Cor 14:26-33. [The precise nature of those gifts is a different matter...]
3. Likewise, both meetings structurally and individuals within the meetings should be open to the possibility of being overwhelmed by God in such a way that there are strong physical and emotional effects. Our praising of God and hearing about God should be of such a type to stir the affections. Indeed, if there is a long period without any perceived effect of the Holy Spirit on the emotions of an individual Christian, especially when they are focusing their attention on God, this should be cause for concern. The expectation of the possibility of emotional overwhelming includes the leaders of such meetings. Whitfield was overwhelmed in this way while preaching at least once, and situations where a distinction exists in expectations of experience between the leader and Christians in the congregation are, from my point of view at least, deeply suspicious.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3To expound a Scripture is to bring out of a text what is there and expose it to view... The opposite of exposition is imposition, which is to impose on the text what is not there.
Stott, I Believe in Preaching.
My endeavour is to bring out of Scripture what is there and not to thrust in what I think might be there. I have a great jealousy on this head: never to speak more or less than I believe to be the mind of the Spirit in the passage I am expounding.
Charles Simeon.
Jesus taught profound truths in very simple ways, sadly today we do the exact opposite. We teach simple truths in profound ways, and a lot of the time we think we are being deep but we are just being muddy. Spurgeon wrote, 'A sermon is like a well. If there is anything in it, it appears bright and reflecting and luminous. But if there is nothing in it, it's deep and dark and mysterious...
J. John, Preach the Word
Preaching is not the proclamation of a theory, or the discussion of a doubt. A man has a perfect right to proclaim a theory of any sort, or to discuss his doubts. But that is not preaching. “Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any” said Goethe. We are never preaching when we are hazarding speculations. Of course we do so. We are bound to speculate sometimes. (but) ... Preaching is the proclamation of the Word, the truth and the truth has been revealed.
Campbell Morgan
How lightly expressions like "God-forsaken" are used! They are part of the terminology of casual blasphemy in cultures where religious formalism prevails or where the mass of the population is in a post-religious phase.
Alec Motyer, The Message of Amos
This is a surprisingly good film (when it came out, I heard that it was rubbish) about the Crusades, specifically the fall of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Typically, they've messed around with history a bit... Orlando Bloom plays Balian the blacksmith-turned-knight who realises the futility of it all.
Here's one of the best dialogues in the film (from about 1 hour 40 mins in):
[Bishop] How are we to defend Jerusalem without knights? We have no knights.
[Balian] Truly
(Balian looks around, and finds a teenage lad.)
[Balian] What is your condition?
[lad] I am servant to the Patriarch.
[Bishop] He's one of my servants
[Balian] Is he?
[Balian] You were born a servant. Kneel.
[Balian] Every man at arms or capable of bearing them, kneel! On your knees!
[Balian] Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright, that God may love thee. Speak the truth, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless. That is your oath.... Rise a knight. Rise a knight.
[Bishop] Who do you think you are? Will you alter the world? Does making a man a knight make him a better fighter?
[Balian] Yes.
That dialogue has great potential for talking about what the priesthood of all believers (for example) means...
There's lots of other interesting stuff in the film, like questions about who is a Christian and who isn't, and what it means for an earthly place to be called the "Kingdom of Heaven", as well as the importance or otherwise of the earthly Jerusalem. Can't say I agree with them on everything of course, though there are some good points made and it's interesting nevertheless...
In terms of the politics, people generally seem to agree that it's fair to everyone. There are good and bad people on the "Christian" side, there are wise and stupid Muslims (though I can't think of any Muslim characters who were bad in the way that some of the "Christian" nobles were, but on the other hand there are only a few Muslim characters who really get developed...).
I asked this last time too...
With the US being over so many time zones, and with the exit polls and results from the East Coast having the potential to affect stuff on the West Coast and in Hawaii, why don't they just do the obvious thing, and have all polling stations open for the same 24 hours, so that in Maine it might be 5am Tuesday to 5am Wednesday, but in California it might be midnight Tuesday to midnight Wednesday or whatever. That way, all the polls would close at the same time, and results from one coast wouldn't influence those from the other.
