reFocus 08 Q & A: Expositional Preaching

Senior Pastor John Neufeld introduced three of our guest speakers: David Short, rector of St John's (Shaughnessy) Anglican Church in Vancouver, BC; R. Kent Hughes, Senior Pastor Emeritus at College Church in Wheaton, IL; and Bruce Ware, Associate Dean and Professor of Christian Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Serminary. They along with Pastor Neufeld are answering questions about expositional preaching. Our questioner is Stephen Kroeker, the pastor of Manitou Mennonite Brethren Church in Manitou, Manitoba.

1. How would you define expositional preaching? What is and what isn’t?

Hughes: It's not simply a running commentary where pastor goes through verse by verse and connects the thoughts together, which is characterized as very boring. It's also not an exegetical discourse where the pastor indulges in mere wordplay. It's also not coming with presuppositions and imposing them on the text: imposition, as opposed to exposition. It's also not a place where the preacher looks at the text, approaches it existentially, and relates whatever thoughts bubble into his mind.

Expositional preaching is when the preacher reads the text within the context of the book he is reading, and knows it well enough that he knows what the theme of that passage is; and then uses the structure of that text as a hint for the symmetry and structure of the sermon. Also, relating that passage into its place in the whole history of salvation and its relationship to Jesus Christ. Then applying the text to his own life. And finally standing in the power of the Holy Spirit and delivering the Word of God.

Pastor Neufeld then asked R. Kent Hughes, many pastors know how to exegete a text, but they don't know how to apply. Hughes' reply is that the text is an application in its original context, to its original audience. So if the pastor understands what the original context was, then the application will emerge. Expositional preaching is a dynamic and passionate process and should ideally come from within the heart.

2. Why the big emphasis on expositional preaching? (Especially if we allow that a doctrinal message can also be faithful to scripture and profoundly deep/meaty)

Hughes: There are places for topical, textual sermons. But Scripture was given by the Holy Spirit. The text is sovereign. The text rules. He wants to stand behind the text, not in front of it, as so many do today. The Word of God is totally sufficient.

Neufeld: Expositional preaching takes twice as long to prepare, but he never wonders, "What am I going to preach this week?" The Holy Spirit determines what to preach by what has been ordained in Scripture (my paraphrase). He does not preach the things that occur to him, but the things that occur in the text.

Short: Expositional preaching delivers our congregations from our own hobby horses. If we preach Luke 20, we need to have first preached Luke 19. What is more relevant to us than Scripture? If we work on any particular passage and determine what God means in this passage, application will emerge.

Hughes: The Word of God is radical. Example: Dr. Ware's explorations of Daniel 4 and Isaiah 40 earlier in the morning (see notes here). By treating those texts in their context, the audience was electrified.

Ware: Expositional preaching determines that we preach the whole counsel of God—even the unfashionable things like hell and judgement. ...Unless you're a very clever expositional preacher who can dance around things like that. No methodology is a guarantee of anything. You have to have the heart, the desire, the make the emphases that God makes, and the applications that He wants people to receive.

It's possible to do topical exegetical sermons, e.g., on atonement, Christology, or exclusivity of the Gospel. On these topics, one can approach Scripture almost as if were the testimony of the witnesses. What are Ezekiel, Isaiah, or Paul saying about God on the witness stand? You'd better be faithful to the text, though.

3. Why has God chosen preaching? What’s the unique feature that sets it apart from other forms of communication? Certainly preaching is not the only form of communication used in the New Testament, we see God using conversation to radically transform lives as well.

Short: Scripture doesn't distinguish between preaching to one and preaching to many. The relationship of God to the world is through His Word. God made us from dust and breath. As human beings we are constituted both externally and internally to respond to the Word of God. When Satan comes along, he assails the reliability of the Word of God.

Rev. Short referred us to 2 Peter 1. We have apostolic witnesses. Peter cites the Transfiguration to back up his testimony. This is ambiguous, however: we know from Luke that Peter didn't really understand the Transfiguration at the time it happened. But it was through the Word of God that we was made to understand it.

4. What elements of preaching must always be there, and what elements can and need to change as the audience/context changes? (If we are committed to expositional preaching, but our preaching seems ineffective, what might we look to change about our preaching?)

Hughes: We have to understand that the Holy Spirit, when He authored the text, had a future audience (as well as a present audience) in mind. He begins with the Word of God and what it says, with confidence that its principles will communicate today.

Short: If you read Augustine's or Chrysostom's or Bernard of Clairvaux's or Calvin's sermons today, you could preach and apply them to a contemporary congregation with very few changes.

Ware: Cultural diversity is huge, but what is bigger is common humanity that spans time and cultures. Far too much emphasis is put on cultural relativity, and not nearly enough emphasis is put on common humanity. We all struggle with the same things. Consider Jeremiah 9:23—that is just as relevant to us today as it was in Jeremiah's time.

Neufeld: Congregants should be able to go home, read the passage one has just preached on, and be able to say, "Yes, that's what he just said."

Hughes cited Twain (a non-believer) who said, "It's not what I don't understand about the Bible that bothers me; it's what I do understand." Scripture is comprehensible.

Short: There's some idea that we can gain some kind of special insight by understanding how to make Scripture relevant to contemporary culture, but Scripture doesn't need that. (My paraphrase.)

5. As Canadian pastors, we are greatly influenced by American pastors, theologians and authors. What is unique about the Canadian situation? And, should that affect our ministry, or is the need in both countries the same?

Neufeld: Evangelical pastors are not invited into the national discussion forums. Our voice is not invited, sought, or to the most part even heard, in the nation as a whole. We live in a time very much like the New Testament era, in a pagan culture with no coherent centre. Nevertheless, this culture still claims the authority

Are all the great authors and writers in the US? We claim D.A. Carson as our own, being born in Canada. There are and have been many great Canadian pastors and theologians.

Ware: Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has three up-and-coming Canadian theologians on its staff, one of whom has written a book on belivers' baptism (it was a gentle jab at the evangelical Anglican on our panel).

Short: Some observations on local cultural differences. E.g., he lives in Shaughnessy, where many residents are caught up in keeping up with the Joneses (to paraphrase). Canadians generally have an over-rosy view of human nature, overly positive, self-righteous about our peacekeeping role in the world, etc. As a consequence, the "clarity passages" in the Bible are very difficult to deal with.

6. How do you preach/lead in such a way that the church remains focused on Jesus and is not you as pastor? (or How do you preach in a compelling way that makes people say, "Wow. Isn’t Jesus amazing!" and not, "Wow. That pastor is really something else!")

Short: Lazy preachers are the ones who congregations think well of. If you study Scripture, the text always points to Jesus Christ. If we're lazy in our study or preparation, we'll throw a couple of ideas together with some heartrending stories, and then that's when people walk away thinking, "Isn't that pastor amazing?"

As pastors, we have to be humble, and show evidence to our congregations of progressing of growing in our walk with God (to paraphrase).

Hughes: You've got to stand behind the Bible, and everything you do (in preaching) has to serve the Word. When Hughes started out as a pastor, he loaded the text with a lot of illustrations. Over the years, he has moved away from this practice, since illustration can detract from or overpower the text. Because the text is sovereign, he wants the illustrations he uses (sparingly) to serve the text. They are only to be used judiciously when the time is right.

7. How do you preach to a multicultural audience? Sometimes it seems hard enough to communicate an ancient story to a contemporary mono-cultural audience...

Neufeld: Our sermons are simultaneously translated into seven different languages. The translators get a sermon manuscript ahead of time, so they have time to prepare. Other-language believers and

Many congregants are first-generation Canadians, many of them or Chinese or Korean origin, and are highly receptive to the Gospel. Those who have grown up in this culture are often more resistent to the Gospel—it takes eight or nine times to hear the Gospel before one repents and is saved (to paraphrase).

Amazingly, the Holy Spirit anticipated issues that we might not even have expecte. For example, he preached a sermon series on 1 Corinthians regarding meat sacrifices to idols, and got a lot of emails afterwards from Chinese Canadian believers who are struggling with this very issue in their families today.

8. How do you preach to both believers and unbelievers at the same time? In your ministry, do you focus on one over the other?

Neufeld: You can be encouraging the faith of both the believer and the non-believer. So many say you have to be "seeker-sensitive" to reach the lost, but genuine, bona fide non-believers out there want the truth straight up. Tell it the way it's written, and the Holy Spirit will regenerate those whom God calls.

Of course people will be offended. We have many non-believers coming here each weekend. There are some who are offended and leave, but there has never been a weekend when someone hasn't come to Christ.

9. What do you do to ensure that you are not preaching on talent alone, but are relying on the Holy Spirit? (Both in the process of studying and in preaching.)

Hughes: Martyn Lloyd-Jones said that a pastor can be pleased with the sermon he's prepared, without any dependence on the Holy Spirit, and effects a false passion, which is a very seductive thing. It's a matter of constant repentance and dependence upon God and submission to His Word.

Neufeld: He was preaching from Philemon on reconciliation. He thought he had it all worked out, but something happened the day before to convict him of the truths in that letter. He trusts that the Holy Spirit will awaken him on whatever he's preaching on.

Ware: The self-suffiency of God. When he first encountered this doctrine, he was transformed. Everything we have is a gift of God, and anything we have to contribute is His doing and by His grace. Do we struggle? Yes, we are still sinners. But Ware is grateful to God for His mercy in revealing His self-sufficiency to him early in his life.

Short: This is delicate, but if we rely on our gifts and not on the Spirit, we have a ministry that is shallow, and God will deal with us. He will not allow that to continue.

Hughes: The gift of gab and a great presence in front of people can be a great disability. God's strength is perfected in weakness.

10. How does biblical theology fit in, if we are only to “say what the text says”? How do you preach a single passage within the context of the meta-narrative of Scripture?

Short: The sermons one hears in evangelical churches tend to take a text and use it as a springboard to talk about other things. E.g., preaching on God's call of and promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, and interpreting

Exodus is about the death and resurrection of Jesus. Every time you preach on Exodus, you need to preach on the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus said that all Scriptures bear witness to Him. When we preach on Zechariah, Hebrews, or Leviticus, people need to go away with a greater understanding of who Jesus is.

Finally, to wrap up, Pastor Kroeker asked Rector Short if he could recommend any books on this subject (apart from the Bible itself, if I may expand upon what he said!). Reverent Short recommended Vaughan Roberts' book God's Big Picture: Tracing the Story-Line of the Bible (Intervarsity Press, September 2006), which is a short, readable book built upon Graeme Goldsworthy's work.

Spirit-Led Preaching

I came across this quote today in Greg Heisler's Spirit-Led Preaching:

When I tell a student his preaching is flat, the first question he asks is, 'how do I fix it so I am not flat next time?' To begin, the way the question is asked is problematic, for it implies the pragmatism that carries the day: Just 'tell me how to quick-fix this problem and I will fix it.' What students eventually learn is that there is no quick fix for the dynamic element of preaching.

I tell my students: 'I cannot stand over you and hold you down and make you pray. I cannot cause you to pause and pray when you see the holiness and majesty of God in the text you are studying. I cannot make your heart leap for joy at amazing grace. I cannot hold you still long enough so you can deeply and intimately come to know God (Ps 46:10). I cannot open your eyes so that you can see the wonderful things in God's Word (Ps 119:18). I cannot put fire in your bones, or cause you to weep over your Jerusalem the way Jesus wept because of his burden for the lost and weary. Only God can do those things in you.'

Preaching with conviction, passion and urgency cannot be taught and made into a sermon step. Only when we linger long in God's presence and soak in his Word and allow his Spirit to saturate our lives can we preach under the divine imperative with conviction and power. Preach fresh from the presence of God, and you will preach with fire, and people will leave saying, 'Surely the presence of the Lord was in this place today!'

Logic on Fire

I was hit by the following excerpt from Josh Moody's excellent book, The God-Centered Life: Insights from Jonathan Edwards for Today (the following is from pp. 49-50).

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones memorably described preaching as ‘logic on fire,’ and Edwards’ sermons came close to that ideal. There was an emotional or convicting thrust to the sermon. There was also a logical or exegetical foundation. This kind of preaching was central to Edwards’ practice of revival. If we want revival, we need to learn to preach. We need to revive preaching to have revival.

The failure of the Enlightenment project has influenced the church in numerous ways, but nowhere more acutely than in its preaching. Because we are suspicious of rationalism or objectivity or claims to ultimate truth, the form of preaching (which implies truth to be delivered) is suspect. Preaching therefore becomes more sentimental. Preachers tell stories because—as we all know—Jesus told stories, forgetting that Jesus’ stories were all retellings of the great story of God’s redemption plan. Preachers should not tell stories; they should tell the story. But it is this big story, or metanarrative, that is subverted by our cultural taste, and consequently rarely delivered from our pulpits.

Preaching becomes more suggestive, more dialogical, aping the interactive style of modern lecturing sophists, the self-help gurus or the stand-up comedians.

Reviving preaching today would be a sign that God is reviving his church. A greater commitment to careful explanation of the text would be married with a relevant and emotionally engaged application. There would be no overreaction against the sentimentalism of our culture to the anachronistic escapism of dusty rationalism. There would be logic indeed; there would also be fire. It would not be preaching in the eighteenth-century terminology, nor preaching the ‘old way.’ Instead it would be preaching the old message in a new way appropriately tailored to suit the ancient message.

Planning for 2008

Over at the new Mars Hill blog, Mark Driscoll shares some good advice about planning your preaching schedule for the new year. One of the keys is to carefully plan your preaching schedule around the busy and non-busy times. Those weeks which traditionally draw fewer numbers are a great time to pass the preaching duties, while those seasons which draw the most new visitors are the best times to start a new preaching series. Read the full article.

Learning to Preach

How does one learn how to preach? I imagine most of us have read textbooks on how to preach a sermon and taken some sort of Homiletics course in seminary. But is the classroom the place to learn how to preach? Is it a simple skill that can be taught in the same way as long division or welding?

As usual, The Doctor has some good wisdom:

What about preaching as such, the act of preaching of which I have spoken? There is only one thing to say about this; it cannot be taught. That is impossible. Preachers are born, not made. This is an absolute. You will never teach a man to be a preacher if he is not already one. All your books such as The A.B.C. of Preaching, or Preaching Made Easy, should be thrown in to the fire as soon as possible. But if a man is a born preacher you can help him a little—but not much. He can perhaps be improved a little here and there.

How can that be done? Here I am probably going to be somewhat controversial. I would say: Not in a sermon class, not by having a student to preach a sermon to other students who then proceed to criticise matter and manner. I would prohibit that. Why? Because the sermon in such circumstances is being preached with a wrong object in view; and the people who are listening to it are listening in a wrong way. The message of the Bible should never be listened to in that way. It is always the Word of God, and no one should ever listen to it except in a spirit of reverence and godly expectation of receiving a message.

What then is a young preacher to do? Let him listen to other preachers, the best and most experienced. He will learn a lot from them, negatively and positively. He will learn what not to do, and learn a great deal of what he should do. Listen to preachers!
(D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching & Preachers, p. 119-20)

I'm sure the Doctor would have rejoiced at God's great gift to preachers: the iPod. Here are some preachers I have benefited from listening to:
John Piper
Mark Driscoll
Matt Chandler
Tim Keller
Mark Dever
D.A. Carson
John Neufeld
Darrin Patrick
Norm Funk

Any recommendations?

Fire in the Bones

A friend pointed me to Jeremiah chapter 20 as an encouragement, and so I wanted to share it with you as well.

Jeremiah has just given this cheery, wonderful, festive, prophetic message from God, about God’s impending destruction of Jerusalem (19:15). He doesn’t exactly get a standing ovation. Pashhur, the high priest, gives Jeremiah a royal beating and then puts him in the stocks so everyone can taunt him (and probably throw food at him). The next day, he gets released and Jeremiah gives Pashhur more bad news from the Lord (20:3-6). Turns out that God now refers to him as “Terror On Every Side.” You won’t see that one as a suggestion for a baby name.

This encounter with Pashhur leads Jeremiah to reflect on his situation (20:7-10):

O Lord, you have deceived me,
and I was deceived;
you are stronger than I,
and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all the day;
everyone mocks me.
For whenever I speak, I cry out,
I shout, “Violence and destruction!”
For the word of the Lord has become for me
a reproach and derision all day long.
If I say, “I will not mention him,
or speak any more in his name,”
there is in my heart as it were a burning fire
shut up in my bones,
and I am weary with holding it in,
and I cannot.
For I hear many whispering.
Terror is on every side!
“Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”
say all my close friends,
watching for my fall.
“Perhaps he will be deceived;
then we can overcome him
and take our revenge on him.”

Wow. Talk about tough times in ministry. Jeremiah is a laughingstock. His “close friends” are hoping he will fall. He even wishes that he had never been born (20:14-18). Though he wishes to renounce his calling, renounce his friends and renounce his birth, he is compelled to continue on his ministry. I imagine that Jeremiah would love nothing more than for God to ask him to proclaim something more cheerful and optimistic, perhaps a prophetic holiday greeting, or birthday wishes from the Lord. I’m sure he desired to proclaim something more fun and easier to swallow. It seems as though he would love to never even speak of YHWH again; maybe take an early retirement and move to Crete and take up bocce ball.

But God has placed a burning fire in his bones. As much as it kills him to preach, it kills him even more to not preach. When God says speak, he can do no other. The truth must be proclaimed, even when it is unpopular, difficult to swallow and likely going to bring persecution.

May God place a fire in each of our hearts, so that we can do nothing but speak of his name, come what may.

More Wisdom from the Doctor

At reFocus blog we have been dealing a bit with authority and preaching. In some circles, preaching is depicted as one person standing and giving an authoritative monologue to a large group of seated listeners. “Who gives him the right to tell us what to do?” I’ve been of the opinion that these critics are correct when they assert that a preacher has no right to tell everyone what he thinks. But, a preacher has authority to preach, in so far as he preaches from the authoritative Word, which testifies to the one who has been given all authority (Matt 28:18). Therefore, a preacher must either open the Bible and preach with authority, or sit down and share his feelings over tea with Mrs. Bluehair.

The Good Doc shares some wisdom on this point:

So you must be expository; and in any case my whole argument is that it should be clear to people that what we are saying is something that comes out of the Bible. We are presenting the Bible and its message. That is why I am one of those who like to have a pulpit Bible. It should always be there and it should always be open, to emphasize the fact that the preacher is preaching out of it. I have known men who have just opened the Bible to read the text. They then shut the Bible and put it on one side and go on talking. I think that is wrong from the standpoint of true preaching. We are always to give the impression, and it may be more important than anything we say, that what we are saying comes out of the Bible, and always comes out of it. That is the origin of our message, this is where we have received it.
(D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, p. 75)

It seems to me that a contemporary equivalent would be projecting seemingly random proof texts from arbitrarily chosen translations onto the screen. It appears Biblical, after all those are Bible verses up there. And yet, very often it is far from Biblical.

We are far better off to open our Bibles and teach what it teaches. Now, of course, this type of preaching takes work. It takes zero preparation for someone to share their opinions and feelings, but to study the Bible and to teach what it teaches takes time and energy. This is not a task for the weak and lazy. As the Doc says,

“The preparation of sermons involves sweat and labour. It can be at times most difficult, most exhausting, most trying. But at the same time I can assure you that when you have finally succeeded you will experience one of the most glorious feelings that ever comes to a man on the face of this earth.”(p.80)

Alright, now get back to work.

Conversation is the new Sermon

Preaching is not popular these days, at least not in certain circles. The way some tell it, it sounds as though preaching has become as popular as 5-pin bowling. Apparently preaching is an ineffective and outdated way of communicating. The answer proposed is that we replace the authoritative monologue with some good old indecisive conversation. “It doesn’t seem right” they argue, “that one guy gets to do all the talking. We all have opinions, why does his matter so much?”

Others point out that not all pastors are gifted teachers, or that sermons are ineffective, or that congregations are just passive listeners and don’t interact with the text or apply it.

There are answers for all of these objections. The first one is T-ball easy: if a pastor is not “able to teach” (I Tim 3:2; 2 Tim 2:24; Titus 1:9) he should not be an overseer. It’s that simple. It’s not that he can’t serve Jesus, it’s just that he is not qualified to serve in the capacity of overseer.

Second, just because some sermons are ineffective, does not make the whole medium ineffective. We’ve all heard bad sermons, but that does not mean that good sermons are not possible. If the only movies you had ever seen where Gigli, Glitter and Speed 2, you would probably through out that medium as useless as well, thus missing out on Schindler’s List and Lord of the Rings. A bad sermon doesn't mean good preaching is impossible, it just means it takes work.

Third, bad sermons will result in passive listeners who don’t interact with the text. Engaging sermons (by the work of the Holy Spirit) will result in an entire church being shaped by the text and submitting to it. Many churches publish a preaching schedule and the congregation reads the text and meditates on it all week before it is preached. As well, many churches have small groups that meet during the week that discuss and apply the text further. These are simple ways to keep us all meditating on God’s word, interacting with it and applying it.

These objections are all easily answered, but I believe that these objections are merely a smokescreen to hide a much larger objection. Many today are declaring the sermon DOA because it reeks too much of authority. Again we might hear someone say “who is that guy and why is he the only one who gets to share his view?”

In some situations, this may be a fair objection. I’m not convinced the preacher has the authority to share his opinions, or to state his personal views. However, the New Testament is very adamant that the preacher has the authority to preach in accordance with Scripture and good doctrine. The preacher has authority in so far as what he says is biblical. His opinions carry little or no weight, but his biblical teaching carries tremendous weight.

Consider the words of Jesus:

“all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

We are sent not on our own authority, but on the authority of Jesus, who holds all authority. Paul tells the young pastor Timothy,

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” (2 Tim 4:1-2)

Pastors love to quote that “preach the word” bit, but thanks to an unfortunate verse number placement, they often miss the authority behind it. Paul orders Timothy, in the presence of Jesus, who holds all authority, to preach the word. Reprove, rebuke, exhort? This doesn’t sound like a friendly conversation over tea and crumpets, either. Paul expects no less of Titus:

“Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.” (Titus 2:15)

He needs to exhort and rebuke and he needs to do it with all authority.

What’s wrong with preaching? Maybe the problem isn’t preaching, but timid preachers who don’t say what Scripture says with the authority of Jesus. And what’s worse than a timid preacher? Four timid preachers having a roundtable conversation.

Palliating Symptoms

I just started reading D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ classic work Preaching & Preachers. It is remarkable how in nearly 40 years not a whole lot has changed. Lloyd-Jones speaks to our situation almost as well as he spoke to his own. This portion of chapter two stood out to me, as he deals with the primacy of preaching, and the inadequacy of all the proposed substitutes:

The ultimate justification for asserting the primacy of preaching is theological. In other words, I argue that the whole message of the Bible asserts this and drives us to this conclusion. What do I mean by that? Essentially I mean that the moment you consider man’s real need, and also the nature of the salvation announced and proclaimed in the Scriptures, you are driven to the conclusion that the primary task of the Church is to preach and proclaim this, to show man’s real need, and to show the only remedy, the only cure for it.

So I would lay it down as a basic proposition that the primary task of the Church is not to educate man, is not to heal him physically or psychologically, it is not to make him happy. I will go further; it is not even to make him good. These are things that accompany salvation; and when the Church performs her true task she does incidentally educate men and give them knowledge and information, she does bring them happiness, she does make them good and better than they were. But my point is that those are not her primary objectives. Her primary purpose is not any of these; it is rather to put man into the right relationship with God, to reconcile man to God. This really does need to be emphasized at the present time, because this, it seems to me, is the essence of the modern fallacy. It has come into the Church and it is influencing the thinking of many in the Church—this notion that the business of the Church is to make people happy, or to integrate their lives, or to relieve their circumstances and improve their conditions. My whole case is that to do that is just to palliate the symptoms, to give temporary ease, and that it does not get beyond that.

Let me use a medical illustration. Take a man who is lying on a bed and writhing in agony with abdominal pain. Now a doctor may come along who happens to be a very nice and very sympathetic man. He does not like to see people suffering, he does not like to see people in pain; so he feels that the one thing to do is to relieve this man of his pain. He is able to do so. He can give him an injection of morphine or various other drugs which would give the man almost immediate relief. ‘Well,’ you say, ‘surely there is nothing wrong in doing that; it is a kind action, it is a good action, the patient is made more comfortable, he is made happier and is no longer suffering.’

The answer to that is that it is well-nigh a criminal act on the part of this doctor. It is criminal because merely to remove a symptom without discovering the cause of the symptom is to do a disservice to the patient. A symptom after all is a manifestation of a disease, and symptoms are very valuable. It is through tracking the symptoms and following the lead that they give that you should arrive at the disease which had given rise to the symptoms. So if you just remove the symptoms before you have discovered the cause of the symptoms you are actually doing your patient are real harm because you are giving him this temporary ease which makes him think that all is well. But all is not well, it is only temporary relief, and the disease is there, is still continuing. If this happened to have been an acute appendix, or something like that, the sooner it is taken out the better; and if you have merely given the patient ease and relief without dealing with it you are asking for an abscess or something even worse.

That, surely, gives us a picture of a great deal that is happening at the present time. This is one of the problems confronting the Christian Church today. This ‘affluent society’ in which we are living is drugging people and making them feel that all is well with them. They have better wages, better houses, better cars, every gadget desirable in the home; life is satisfactory and all seems to be well; and because of that people have ceased to think and to face the real problems. They are content with this superficial ease and satisfaction, and that militates against a true and a radical understanding of their actual condition.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching & Preachers, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1971. pp. 26, 30-32.

Encouragement for Pastors

The Desiring God 2007 National Conference was held in Minneapolis from September 28th to 30th, on the theme of "Stand: A Call for the Endurance of the Saints." Speakers included John Piper, John MacArthur, Jerry Bridges, Randy Alcorn, and Helen Roseveare.

Two of the more remarkable sessions were those given by John MacArthur. In "Certainties that Drive Enduring Ministry" (divided into two parts), Dr. MacArthur drew on the experiences and lessons of Paul—especially as the latter related them in 2 Corinthians 4—and applied them, through a combination of encouragement and reassurance, to the lives and callings of pastors who strive in this day and age to stick to the principles of biblical preaching. Written summaries of the two sessions—together with audio and video links—are available on the following pages: Part 1 and Part 2.

Readers may also be interested in Justin Taylor's hour-long question-and-answer session: A Conversation with John Piper and John MacArthur. Both men are very candid in their replies, discussing various aspects of their upbringings and pastoral callings.

Audios and videos for all sessions are available at this page.

Discover the Champion in You!

By now, I’m sure many of you heard about or saw Joel Osteen on 60 minutes a couple weeks ago. As usual, there was plenty of cannon fodder, but I want to point out just one irresistible item.

60 minutes reporter Byron Pitts summarizes Osteen’s new book Become a Better You:

"To become a better you, you must be positive towards yourself, develop better relationships, embrace the place where you are. Not one mention of God in that. Not one mention of Jesus Christ in that."

Osteen responded,

"That's just my message. There is scripture in there that backs it all up. But I feel like, Byron, I'm called to help people…how do we walk out the Christian life? How do we live it? And these are principles that can help you. I mean, there’s a lot better people qualified to say, 'Here’s a book that going to explain the scriptures to you.' I don’t think that’s my gifting."

The pastor of the largest church in North America feels unqualified to explain the scriptures and that it simply is not his gifting. 42,000 people come to hear his message on a weekly basis, but is he even fit to be a pastor?

Paul summarizes the requirements in Titus 1:7-9

For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

In I Timothy 3:2 he adds that an overseer must be “able to teach.” The requirement of every overseer in even the smallest of churches is to be able to explain the scriptures to others. If a man cannot even explain the scriptures he has no place as a church elder. If Osteen spent as much time studying the Bible as he does whitening his teeth he too, someday, might qualify to be a church elder (assuming, of course, that he is not a lover of money).

Brothers, let us stop searching for the champion within and be certain we are occupied with the word.