{"id":9361,"date":"2015-08-09T19:04:28","date_gmt":"2015-08-10T00:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/?p=9361"},"modified":"2015-08-09T19:04:28","modified_gmt":"2015-08-10T00:04:28","slug":"book-review-preaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/?p=9361","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Preaching"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"515XatoWK1L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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I should probably start this review by first acknowledging that I am NOT a preacher…nor do I believe that God has called me to be a preacher. \u00a0I am grateful that God has blessed me with the calling to teach His word in a variety of settings. \u00a0My life has been radically changed through the good news of the gospel…brought from death to life in fact! \u00a0My purpose in reading Preaching<\/a><\/em>\u00a0by Timothy Keller\u00a0is to make sure that I am making the most of every opportunity…especially in the midst of the these evil days reminiscent of Ephesians 5:16. \u00a0As I speak and share God’s word publicly and in smaller groups…my prayer is to share out of the overflow of what God is doing in my life and never out of some obligation to come up with something that will be pleasing to the ears of those who listen. \u00a0May I always be faithful in learning from God more than I am teaching about Him! \u00a0Thank you Lord for your faithfulness as I stumble and fail in this area more often that I’d like to admit!<\/p>\n

This book is an excellent read for anyone that has the privilege of teaching the Bible in any setting. \u00a0I can certainly see how it benefits the one that would stand in a pulpit every Sunday. \u00a0I’m grateful to say that my pastor embodies much of what Timothy Keller refers to in his book as he refers to the fact that people can tell if your preaching is an authentic outlet of the Spiritual growth in your own life. \u00a0What a great specific thing to pray for your pastor!<\/p>\n

I highlighted several things while reading and have posted those notes below…<\/p>\n

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  • In the end, preaching has two basic objects in view: the Word and the human listener. \u00a0It is not enough to just harvest the wheat; it must be prepared in some edible form or it can\u2019t nourish and delight. \u00a0Sound preaching arises out of two loves\u2014love of the Word of God and love of people\u2014and from them both a desire to show people God\u2019s glorious grace.<\/li>\n
  • To reach people gospel preachers must challenge the culture\u2019s story at points of confrontation and finally retell the culture\u2019s story, as it were, revealing how its deepest aspirations for good can be fulfilled only in Christ. \u00a0Like Paul, we must invite and attract people through their culture\u2019s aspirations\u2014calling them to come to Christ, the true wisdom and the true righteousness, the true power, the true beauty.<\/li>\n
  • Preaching to the heart and to the culture are linked, because cultural narratives profoundly affect each individual\u2019s sense of identity, conscience, and understanding of reality. \u00a0Cultural engagement in preaching must never be for the sake of appearing \u201crelevant\u201d but rather must be for the purpose of laying bare the listener\u2019s life foundations.<\/li>\n
  • You may want your listeners to take nots on much of the sermon, but when you get to Christ, you want them to experience what they were taking notes about.<\/li>\n
  • We tend to think of the Bible as a book of answers to our questions, and it is that. \u00a0However, if we really let the text speak, we may find that God will show us that we are not even asking the right questions.<\/li>\n
  • A steady diet of expository sermons also teaches your audience how to read their own Bibles, how to think through a passage and figure it out. \u00a0Exposition helps them pay more attention to the specifics of the text and helps them understand why different phrases mean what they do within the story line of the Bible. \u00a0They become savvier and more sensitive readers in their own study.<\/li>\n
  • The richness of Scripture means that there are always new things to see and find.<\/li>\n
  • Every time you expound a Bible text, you are not finished unless you demonstrate how it shows that we cannot save ourselves and that only Jesus can.<\/li>\n
  • A classic formulation of the gospel and its relationship with life is this: that we are saved through Christ alone, by faith alone, but not by a faith which remains alone. \u00a0True salvation always results in good works and a changed life.<\/li>\n
  • Because legalism does not grasp God\u2019s grace, it distorts the law from its proper function as a guide for our lives, a way to become our true selves and to please God\u2014and instead turns it into a burdensome system of salvation through which we obligate God to bless us.<\/li>\n
  • Because antinomianism does not grasp God\u2019s loving grace, it also sees the law as an obstacle to freedom and personal growth rather than as the great means by which God grows us into both.<\/li>\n
  • Only if we preach Christ every time can we show how the whole Bible fits together.<\/li>\n
  • Only if we hammer home the gospel, that we are loved sinners in Christ\u2014so loved that we don\u2019t have to despair when we do wrong, so sinful that we have no right to be puffed up when we do right\u2014can we help our listeners escape the spiritually bipolar world of moralism.<\/li>\n
  • Know the main point of the author and spend time there.<\/li>\n
  • When you see Jesus Christ being poor in spirit for you, that helps you become poor in spirit before God and say, \u201cI need your grace.\u201d \u00a0And once you get it and you are filled, then you are merciful, you become a peacemaker, you find God in prayer and wait someday for the beatific vision, to see God as he is (1 John 3:1-3). \u00a0The beatitudes, like nearly everything else in Scripture, point us to Jesus far more than we think.<\/li>\n
  • We adapt and contextualize in order to speak the truth in love, to both care and confront.<\/li>\n
  • Six practices for preaching to and reaching a culture:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
      \n
    1. Use accessible or well-explained vocabulary<\/li>\n
    2. Employ respected authorities to strengthen your theses<\/li>\n
    3. Demonstrate an understanding of doubts and objections<\/li>\n
    4. Affirm in order to challenge baseline cultural narratives<\/li>\n
    5. Make gospel offers that push on the culture\u2019s pressure points<\/li>\n
    6. Call for gospel motivation<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \n
      • When the preacher solves Christians\u2019 problems with the gospel\u2014not by calling them to try harder but by pointing them to deeper faith in Christ\u2019s salvation\u2014then believers are being edified and nonbelievers are hearing the gospel, all at the same time.<\/li>\n
      • The process of sanctification, of growth into the likeness of Christ, is also, then, the process of becoming the true self God created us to be.<\/li>\n
      • The very theme of the kingdom of God, when preached properly and fully, directly challenges yet fulfills the late-modern desire for freedom.<\/li>\n
      • The gospel is socially and motivationally transformative. \u00a0(Generous Justice<\/em> by Tim Keller)<\/li>\n
      • Christianity is at the same time both far more pessimistic about history and the human race than any other worldview and far more optimistic about the material world\u2019s future than any other worldview. \u00a0Our future is a renewed material universe with resurrected bodies\u2014but of course resurrection always comes after death and destruction. \u00a0There is no reason for Christians to believe that every decade and stage in history will be better than the stage before, but we believe that all is being brought infallibly to a glorious end.<\/li>\n
      • Try to remember that you are at odds with a system of beliefs far more than you are at war with a group of people. \u00a0Contemporary people are the victims of the late-modern mind far more than they are its perpetrators. \u00a0Seen in this light the Christian gospel is more of a prison break than a battle.<\/li>\n
      • For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. \u00a0Matthew 6:21<\/li>\n
      • If you preach to the heart, you need to preach from the heart. \u00a0It\u2019s got to be clear that your own heart has been reached by the truth of the text.<\/li>\n
      • If your heart isn\u2019t regularly engaged in praise and repentance, if you aren\u2019t constantly astonished at God\u2019s grace in your solitude, there\u2019s no way it can happen in public.<\/li>\n
      • You need to vary whom you talk to in order to learn about various trends in thought.<\/li>\n
      • No civilized society has put more emphasis on results, skills, and charisma\u2014or less emphasis on character, reflection, and depth. \u00a0This is a major reason why so many of the most successful ministers have had a moral failure or lapse. \u00a0Their prodigious gifts have masked the lack of grace operations at work in their lives.<\/li>\n
      • The temptation will be to let the pulpit drive you to the Word, but instead you must let the Word drive you to the pulpit. \u00a0Prepare the preacher more than you prepare the sermon.<\/li>\n
      • You must be something like a clear glass through which people can see a broken but gospel-changed soul in such a way that they want it for themselves.<\/li>\n
      • If you proclaim Christ and not yourself and let God\u2019s Word come to people through you, you can also become a voice, like John the Baptist did. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t matter if in yourself you feel weak. \u00a0All the better.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          I should probably start this review by first acknowledging that I am NOT a preacher…nor do I believe that God has called me to be a preacher. \u00a0I am grateful that God has blessed me with the calling to teach His word in a variety of settings. \u00a0My life has been radically changed through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,14,35,25,28,17,18,15,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-study","category-book-review","category-creative","category-education","category-integrity","category-leadership","category-north-cobb-christian","category-seminary","category-truth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}