The Proclaimer

I've not long finished reading this excellent book. It's a collection of sermons (twenty five of them), together with some short explanatory introductions preached on a variety of occasions. Most are funerals (death of a child, miscarriage, sudden death, murder) etc, situations that one hopes never to have to deal with and when one does, is almost always underprepared. These funeral sermons make up the bulk of the chapters. Then there are some extras like national tragedy, celebrity death and so on. It's a moving book because each sermon (even though the names are sometimes changed) are all grounded in real situations, many of which are individual tragedies. It's also a hard book to read - imagine downloading 25 funeral sermons and sitting through them all. 

But it's ultimately worth it for the thinking process behind individual sermons and the way that the pastors choose texts and expound them. I think it's a book worth having, even if you only turn it to once or twice in a pastoral lifetime. But it does have flaws. Few of the sermons are truly expository. I think that's a shame. I can understand how funeral sermons, in particular, call for a very special kind of preaching; but I cannot see why we are so loathe to drop a method we believe in so fervently for every other kind of preaching. Preach on a text by all means, but do the same work, even if you use different language. My best funeral sermons, humanly speaking, have been those where I have stuck to the text.

My second problem with the book is that it seems to take for granted, for the most part, the salvation of those who die in childbirth or those with learning difficulties. I realise that this is a relatively orthodox position within evangelicalism, but not everyone holds it (including me). It makes funeral preaching in some circumstances very difficult; but I'm uncomfortable with the implied inclusivism that the position necessitates. Perhaps a book like this is not the place to address the issue, but I would have liked to see some of the chapters represent a different position.

Still, all said and done, it's worth the cover price. 

This year's Spring Younger Ministers Conference takes place from Tuesday 8th May to Friday 11th May. We've got David Cook and Evangelist/Historian John Dickson coming (both from Australia). It's almost full, so if you're planning on coming (or know someone who is) please do book soon to avoid disappointment. There are about 8 or 9 places left. See you there. Book here. If you've not been before, the conferences are a great way to meet with others and keep fresh in the task of Christian ministry. And the sun normally shines....

People often ask us whether PT Cornhill serves as an adequate training for pastor/teachers. The simple answer we've always given is "no" - here's a little bit more flesh on the bones as to why that is. Each year we host an afternoon with four college principals to explore the value of further theological education. You can hear their talks here with an introduction by Christopher Ash. There are of course plenty of other ways to further training than formal theological college, but it's a good place to start the thinking.

However, we also ought to say that we still believe that Cornhill offers something unique that theological colleges do not offer - focused speaking practice and skills. Because of the focus, we are able to give lots of time and care to nurturing and working on already existing speaking gifts. Ask any former Cornhiller, even ones who have gone onto college, and they will almost to a man (or woman) say the same - the course is superb, unique and does something that college simply cannot do. So, we don't think in terms of either/or but both/and. 

I've been wondering about the power of a film/movie. Carolyn and I went with our daughter to see "The Iron Lady" just after it came out (you can't say we're not on the cutting edge of culture…). It is a very very moving experience, expertly directed and acted with great skill. We came out feeling we had been deeply touched and moved by it. But somehow the feeling didn't last long. I've noticed this with other films (and, to a lesser extent, TV programmes, because the screen is so much smaller – at any rate, ours is). We come out of the cinema and back into the real world, and the impressions fade.

It got me to wondering about why God communicates to us by spoken words. Even when he gave a vivid audio-visual experience (at Sinai, at the Transfiguration, Christ's resurrected body for example), we only get it through the words that speak of it. Is it partly because words get inside our imaginations and our thoughts more deeply than visual images? Is there something here to encourage preachers in a so-called visual age? We may be doing something the world despises; but the potential impact on our hearers is life-changingly deep.

Having quoted a bit from Lloyd-Jones' Preaching and Preachers a couple of weeks ago I noticed that Zondervan have reissued it in the US, packaged as a 40th anniversary edition (honestly, I had no idea). This one comes with some introductory essays from the likes of Bryan Chappell, Mark Dever, Kevin DeYoung, Lig Duncan, Tim Keller and John Piper. Don't know how/when it will be available this side of the water, but Amazon normally ship in US books if enough people ask. 

It is rather dated in places, as books like this tend to be. Perhaps that is why Hodder have not reprinted it in the UK? Nevertheless, there are still treasures to be mined and I hope it is widely available over here one way or another. Along with Langham's edit/repackaging of Stott's I believe in preaching, that means that these two important texts are both available again and useful for a whole new generation of preachers. 

Typical Monday morning conversation in the PT office:

Me: So, Crystal, what did you do this weekend?
Crystal: (our office administrator and my PA): Went to Cannes
Me: Cannes, France?
Crystal: Backing singer at a Emily Sande gig
Me:  :O

This is a not untypical conversation as our Crystal does all sorts of gigs (Jamelia, Take That etc). We love it - we hip lot! And not surprisingly, the bug is catching. Christopher has just turned down a role as second percussionist on the reformed Beach Boys tour and Robin fights hard to fit in the Flying Pickets reunion curry.  

More seriously, we are all busy at weekends. Some of us preach. Some of us take on other roles in local churches. But it is key to our being and service that we are all members of local churches (helpfully, very different ones), all serving and delighting to serve in the various ways we are able. And so we fight hard against being a para-church organisation and what that has traditionally meant. We try to be, as far as it is possible, an in-church organisation: members of and serving local churches by encouraging and euipping BIble preachers. 

There are many excellent reasons to be a proud card-carrying library user in the UK (free). I can go my local library, sip espresso and read The Economist, for example. Oh, and I can also borrow books. But one of my favourites is that most UK libraries (free to belong, did I mention that already?) also offer online access to a wealth of resources useful for the preacher. Here are some I use:

• Oxford Art Online: all kinds of things arty and info about paintings etc
• OED: yep, all 20 volumes
• Oxford Dictionaries: everything else, medical, names, politics, theatre, language - anything you could ever think of
• Oxford Writer's Helps: gets me through sticky grammar moments
• Biographical dictionaries including the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Who's Who

In fact, click here to see exactly what I can access. So, the picture is of me proudly holding my library card. You have one too, right? Oh, and in case I forgot to mention - it's free.

For those who were at the South East Gospel Partnership day on Saturday and received a flyer about training, you may have spotted that it's got the wrong date on it. The ILPG London preachers day is not Sat 17th March, but

Saturday 3rd March.

Please pass it on!

Only managed a bit of the SEGP day with Phillip Jensen on Saturday, looking forward to catching up with some of the audio. But session 1 was a passionate defence of the language of slavery as being entirely appropriate (if we understand it correctly) to translate the Greek doulos. Interestingly, one English translation does bravely take this step. e.g. 2 Cor 4.5 (which was Phillip's main text for the talk).

• For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. (NIV)
• For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. (ESV but with footnote)
• For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves because of Jesus.(HCSB)

It's one of the reasons I like the Holman Christian Standard Bible. And whilst it's too quirky to use as a church translation (shame!) it's not afraid to translate in such a way! Good on them!

Phillip has been doing the rounds and you can listen to the same talks online from the South Central day here. 

Together with our friends at 10ofthose.com I've got a HCSB Study Bible in leather free (RRP £52) to give away to the first person who emails in: pt@proctrust.org.uk. More details of the study Bible here but suffice it to say that it's edited by Andreas Kostenberger, Walt Kaiser and Craig Blomberg. Only for UK readers, I'm afraid. 

Christians don't always agree about everything and even within orthodox evangelical Christianity there are differing opinions on some things which must surely come within the realm of disputable matters. What interests me today is the way that Christians disagree about such issues. We need to be able to discuss them, debate them, talk about them and come to a biblical conclusion if we can. But we often do not help ourselves in the way we talk about one another and the doctrines we believe in, denominations to which we belong or approaches we hold dear. In fact, more often than not, we set up rather gross caricatures that are all too easy to knock down and pull apart when, in truth, the caricature rarely fits. 

Let me try to explain what I mean taking a very 18th-19th century Baptist disagreement - particular atonement (and it has since rumbled on, see here). For those who don't know (!) this is doctrine answers the question: who did Christ died for, the world or the elect? It is perhaps pertinent to use this example as, within evangelical Christianity there is still a range of views. (I should nail my colours to the mast at this point and say I believe in it, but I'm not using this post to defend it, that is not the point). The caricatures in this case worked something like this:

• those who believed in limited atonement said that those who didn't would end up as universalists, for that is the only trajectory if one believes that Christ died for all
• those who dismissed limited atonement said that those who didn't would end up as introspective, non evangelising Christians

Now, of course, there were (sadly) some from both camps for whom this was true. The General Baptists became a large bulk of what we now know as Unitarians. The hyper-Calvinists arose from those who believed in the doctrine. In one sense, both camps were right to point out the dangers. But the gross caricatures were only true for some at the extremes and assessing a doctrine by the effect it has on some at the limits is never wise pastorally. It creates unnecessary bad feeling; it makes debate difficult; it offends; it hardly gracious.

There are lots of issues for which the same kind of gross caricature applies today. It's true denominationally: "all independents think nothing of other churches" or "all Anglicans would rather have fellowship with Anglo-Catholics". It's true doctrinally, the same arguments above still apply, but it also applies to other doctrines. It's true culturally: "if you have drums you'll just be whipping up the crowds" or "hymn singing will never attract young people" and so on and so on.

Let's be wary of setting up straw men that do little service to robust discussion about the things over which we, as evangelicals, disagree.

I reckon that one of the endemic weaknesses in much of my preaching is that I am so keen to squeeze all the good material into my allocated time, that I cram them full of cognitive content and fail to give my hearers any kind of chance for their affections, their emotions, their desires or their aversions, to catch up with all the stuff I am putting in to their minds. I hope and trust that the stuff I am trying to put into their minds is true, edifying, worthwhile and important. I work hard to get it across with as much clarity as I can.    But I notice when listening to sermons, that I myself need the preacher to help me not only to know what I ought to know, but also to feel what I ought to feel. I ought to have my love for God warmed afresh, my hatred of evil rekindled, my longing for God's promised future deepened, my affection for my brothers and sisters in Christ refocused, and so on.   I don't mean that preachers should use emotional manipulation. I mean simple things like (a) pausing from time to time to reflect on how wonderful/challenging/fearful (or whatever) this is, (b) helping me grasp that the preacher actually feels it himself, (c) giving me an example of someone expressing how they have responded to this word by having their affections stirred or shaped. It's a little hard to tie down just what I am saying, but I think (and feel!) it is important. It may be that this is a weakness in the preaching of others of us and not just me.

Here's a little more from Lloyd-Jones on finding and keeping the main message (we would say, theme) of a passage:

The thing I am concerned about is that you make certain that you really are getting the main message, the main thrust and import of this particular text or statement. It is quite astonishing to note how good men can avoid doing this...nothing is more important than we should be sure that we have got at the main thrust of the text amd let that come out....let it lead you, let it teach you. Listen to is and then question it as to its meaning, and let that be the burden of your sermon. 

It was 1991 when Dick Lucas and around a dozen or so pastors sat down in a room at Tyndale House Publishers in Carol Stream (a suburb just north of Chicago). They studied 1 Corinthians 13 together. Eyes were opened. God spoke through His Word. And what was born in many of those men—including Kent Hughes and David Helm—was a life-long commitment to Biblical exposition as THE way to preach and do ministry for the glory of God. Ten years and several ‘preaching conferences’ later, the Charles Simeon Trust was founded by Kent and Dave and a few others. It was founded out of a conviction to spread God’s Word through training others in expository preaching and Bible teaching—a conviction we have always shared with the Proclamation Trust.

The Charles Simeon Trust’s function, when it was founded, was primarily to manage the growth and spread of the conferences beyond Wheaton. And in the almost 11 years since its founding, we have grown from conference per year to 20 in our present year. Most of them are focused in North America: 13 in the United States, including one for women Bible teachers, and two in Canada. Kenya and India also each host two. These conferences focus on practical instructional teaching, modeling good Biblical exposition, and working in small groups on sharpening our skills in handling God’s Word. And through the years, we have enjoyed the ongoing partnership of the Proclamation Trust by welcoming numerous dear friends to lead our conferences: Dick Lucas, David Jackman, William Taylor, and later this year we will welcome a new friend in Vaughan Roberts.

In addition to the conferences, over the last 10 years, we have also been equipping young men and women in an in-person, year-round, training scheme based in Chicago. More recently, we have brought the best of our training scheme and the best of the conferences together in an online format (available anywhere in the world that there is an Internet connection) called the Simeon Course on Biblical Exposition. Like all that we do, it is practical, hand-on training for those who want to improve in their handling of God’s Word.

For more information about the work of the Charles Simeon Trust in the United States, visit us at www.simeontrust.org.

For various reasons which are too complex to explain I've been flicking through Lloyd-Jones Preaching and preachers again (now, sadly, out of print). There are some real nuggets here and perhaps I will blog on one or two. Some are surprising too. My great mentor used to listen to classical music at the beginning of his sermon work which I always found slightly puzzling until I read this:

Music does not help everyone, but it greatly helps some people.

He then cites the example of Karl Barth who used to listen to Mozart every morning.

I can tell you why Karl Barth went to Mozart. He did not go to him for thoughts or ideas, he went to Mozart because Mozart did something to him in a general sense. Mozart put him into a good mood, and made him feel happy in his spirit. He released him, and set him free to do his own thinking, A general stimulus in that way is often more helpful than a particular intellectual one....anything that does you good, puts you into a good mood or condition, anything that pleases you or releases tensions and relaxes you is of inestimable value. Music does that to some in a wonderful way. So put on your gramaphone record, or whatever it is - anything you know that will help you.

I guess there are lots of pieces of advice one could download from the 'doctor.' This is probably one of the more obscure...!  (For the very young reader, this picture is 'His master's voice' - what we would now call a logo. It was a music label sold to EMI. However the name lives on....in the abbreviation HMV).

If the Old Testament is part of the unfolding story of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor 8.9), then it must follow that every Old Testament book can be couched in those terms. Dane Ortlund (Bible publishing director at Crossway and, I assume, related to the other Ortlunds?) posted an interesting list of titles (or we would call them theme sentences) for each Old Testament book. Seeing as I'm writing about Numbers, I looked up that one first. 

Numbers shows God’s grace in patiently sustaining his grumbling people in the wilderness and bringing them to the border of the promised land not because of them but in spite of them.

I like it. Couching everything in terms of one word which reflects one particular (although major) component of the gospel is always going to be limited of course. It will not refect the individual nuances of different books. But the exercise is useful in that it makes the reader (or in our case, preacher) think how the book relates to the gospel of Jesus. 

This is an old post, but was tagged by Justin Taylor so it's back on my radar screen. Interesting. You can read the whole list here. 

I am about to start teaching 1st Corinthians to the second year students. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the mass of commentaries that have been written on this letter. And it is equally easy to feel confused by the chronology of events. It seems that over a seven year period, the apostle Paul made 3 visits and wrote 4 letters to Corinth:

Visit 1 (Acts 18) Paul founds the church in Corinth c 50 AD Letter 1 (‘previous’ 1 Cor 5:9) – now lost Letter 2: 1st Corinthians Visit 2 (‘painful’ 2 Cor 2:1)  Letter 3 (‘tearful’ 2 Cor 2:3-4; 7:8,12; 10:8-11) Letter 4: 2nd Corinthians Visit 3 (Acts 20:2-3) c 56 AD   One of the most helpful books I have read on Paul’s relationship with ‘the church of God that is in Corinth’ is Paul Barnett’s The Corinthian Question: Why did the Church in Corinth oppose Paul? (IVP: Apollos 2011). He traces in a linear way Paul’s seven years of anguish over the church he had planted. It is a wonderfully lucid work which brings out many treasures and clarifies a number of issue. Here’s what he says on page 213 Paul was trying to do by writing 1st Corinthians:   “Paul was determined to establish at least four changes of attitude among the Corinthians: 1. their appropriate respect for Paul’s authority as an apostle, notwithstanding his determination to continue to support himself as one who ‘worked with his own hands’; 2. their need to disengage from involvement in the cults of Corinth, including related sexual activities, and to discipline wayward members; 3. their recognition of the centrality of the cross of Christ as the means of their redemption, but no less as the template for truly loving others, others-centred relationships, especially towards the non-elite members; 4. their correct understanding of eschatology to challenge the elites, on the one hand, and aspirational non-elites, on the other.”    Whilst not strictly speaking a commentary, I would heartily recommend this book for anyone preaching or teaching 1st or 2nd Corinthians.

 

This year, my boys and I are trying to memorise a catechism each. My sons are six and five, and I’ve started using with them Carine Mackenzie’s excellent little book My First Book of Questions. It is very simple – 117 questions and answers that teach the Christian faith. We’re having a go at doing 2 questions and answers each week, thereby covering it in one year. We’re helped by Ann Benton’s excellent little book called Ferdinand which is all about a train that goes off the rails which is based around the catechism questions. I simply take five to ten minutes on a Sunday morning before church with each of my sons. First we read Ferdinand, and then I read the question and they learn the answers. My oldest son writes out the 2 questions and answers with the Bible references and we pin it up in the kitchen to help us remember them. At the end we pray and I give them some sweets!   Carine Mackenzie’s book is largely based on The Westminster Shorter Catechism, available for only 0.77p on kindle. So I am having a go at learning that this year. It has 107 questions and answers, so again, I am trying to learn 2 a week. Cycling to work this morning I learnt question 4: “Q. What is God? A. God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.” Reformed Christianity is the hope for the world. These catechisms are a great way of getting it into the blood stream of young and old alike.

 

Just every now and then there is one, you know (a good letter, that is). It was last Thursday, but it's taken me until now to post it. 

Sir, Delighted as I was to hear of Professor Turner’s warning on biblical exposition (Canon Stagg, letter Jan 10, responding to Edward Solomon, letter, Jan 7), we candidates for the Congregationalist ministry at the former New College, Hampstead, London, were even more solemnly warned by Principal John Huxtable during our 1960s sermon classes: “Gentlemen, I wish you would read the Bible more: it sheds such light on the Commentaries.”

The Rev Dr Peter C. Jupp 
Department of Divinity, University of Edinburgh

I heartily concur. Commentaries are friends and helps. But please, not first, not second even. Read, read, read and use a little brain first, second and even third. And, in fact, the second letter of this correspondence will sound familiar to any well trained preacher:

Sir, The way Edward Solomons quoted Deuteronomy xxx, 19 (letter, Jan 7) in connection with issues relating to terminal illness reminded me of the warning Professor H. E. W. Turner used to give to Durham theological students in the 1950s and early 1960s: “a text out of context is a pretext”.

Canon Michael Stagg, Norwich

One of the best new things on the internet is Credo magazine, OK, as a baptist, I may be biased, but this serious publication is not in-your-face baptistic. In fact, in this particular issue, you might not even know. The main topic for the issue is inclusivism, which itself is a varied thing. At its least extreme, it is that people will be saved without responding to the gospel which many, many evangelicals believe (for example, in the universal salvation of infants - although I am a dissenter when it comes to this doctrine). More overtly, inclusivism means being saved without hearing about Christ or even, in extremis, being saved outside of Christ. There are some thought provoking articles, not least that by UK all round hero Mike Reeves! He's live at this year's EMA by the way! Download the full and free edition here. 

I was teaching John 9 at Cornhill earlier in the week and we were puzzling over Jesus' words when he says "We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." Here's our puzzle: presumably Jesus is speaking of the time when he is arrested, tried, crucified and buried, as the time of "night". But given that he will be raised, will ascend, and will pour out his Spirit to continue his ministry through the apostles (Acts 1:1-5), what does he mean by speaking of his ministry before the Cross with such a sense of urgency? After all, there was never a sense of panic about Jesus' ministry; he wasn't rushing around in a hurry trying to give sight to everyone, and so on. To put it bluntly, we wanted to ask, "What exactly is the urgency?"

Our conclusion is that the urgency of which Jesus speaks is the ongoing gospel urgency that, so long as it is a day of grace, it is "today" that we must respond (as in Hebrews 3 & 4, and 2 Corinthians 6:1,2). If so, it is not a once-only urgency of Jesus' earthly ministry, but an ongoing urgency of all gospel ministry. While it is "day", the day of grace and gospel, we too must join with Jesus in the gospel work of bringing sight to the blind. That's a healthy corrective to all apathy or casualness in ministry.