Category Archives: Preaching

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3 Encouragements for Pastors

Pastoral Ministry

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.”And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” – Mark 1:35-38

In 2010 The Museum of Modern Art hosted artist Marina Abramovic’s performance entitled “The Artist is Present.” For 736 hours she sat immobile in the museum’s atrium while spectators were invited to sit across the table from her. It really was little more than an artistic staring context. Yet, photographers were present to capture the spectators response(s) while sitting underneath the Serbian’s stare. Many responded with laughter and excitement, while others saw sadness and were thus pictured with tears streaming onto the table. Abramovic’s performance highlighted a fact of life that many know, staring evokes a response.

Mark 1:35-38 is a scene pastors need to stare at and I believe the staring will produce a response. Three insights from the text are of particular value:

First, see the priority of prayer. The start of His ministry had been a resounding success; His authority captivated the crowds in Capernaum. They clamored for His presence and power, and what is His immediate response? He withdrew to a desolate place in order to pray. Let’s briefly consider Jesus’ practice of prayer as presented in the gospels. When He was baptized we are told he was praying (Luke 3:21). When he was transfigured, we are told that His face was transformed as he prayed (Luke 9:29). Before He appointed the twelve disciples, Luke tells us He tells us He continued all night in prayer (Luke 6:12). After feeding the five thousand all the people want to crown Him as king, but He leaves them in order to pray (Mark 9:23). In the moments leading up to His betrayal, arrest, and eventually crucifixion we find Him crying out in prayer (Mark 14:32-42). Prayer was clearly a priority that fueled His mission.

Pastors would be wise here to be challenged by the Savior’s devoted to prayer. In commenting on this passage the great Bishop Ryle said, “Here is the pulse of our Christianity, here is the true test of our state before God.” 1 Pastor, how is the pulse of your ministry? I’d encourage you to consider what your practice of prayer reveals about your soul. The prayers of Christ are expressions of his dependence on God for strength, wisdom, and assurance. If prayer reveals dependence, what then does prayerlessness reveal? In a word, independence. Might our small progress in prayer be the rooted in a heart that finds greater joy in independence from God than dependence on God? Without prayer, pastoral ministry has no power. Charles Bridges famously quipped, “Prayer is one half of our ministry; and it gives to the other half all its power and success.” 2

Second, see the pitfall of preoccupation. The disciples cried out, “Where have you been, Jesus? You do not have time to seclude Yourself in prayer. You have ministry to perform. Your fame is spreading everywhere, and the place is filled with seekers. You need to be there not here.” We observe here, and find similar occasions all over the gospels, that a recurring pitfall for Jesus’ mission on earth was preoccupation with earthly concerns. The people’s – and disciples’ – concern was with health and happiness, not with the King’s demand for repentance and faith. The disciples’ preoccupation with secondary issues not only interrupted Jesus’ communion with God, but also threatened His mission for God. Pastor, what earthly preoccupations might be interrupting your communion with God and threatening your mission for God? We see in Mark 1 that no one makes progress in communion with God or mission for God who is not schooled in self-denial. There were compelling reasons for Jesus to stay and minister in Capernaum, but more compelling was leaving to fulfill the mission for which He was sent.

Third, see the primacy of preaching. This was Christ’s mission, to preach the gospel of the kingdom (Mark 1:38). The people wanted His healing and casting out of demons, but our Lord says He has come to preach.

We see that the spirit of the 1st century is just like the spirit of the 21st century. It’s a spirit that says, “This isn’t the time for preaching, this is the time for power. Signs and wonders will make people believe, but preaching will not.” Yet Jesus is telling us that in His kingdom, preaching is the highway to faith. We live by faith, not by sight. A kingdom built on signs and wonders is a kingdom built on sight, but a kingdom built on the Word is a kingdom built by faith. Preaching was the God-ordained means to extend the kingdom of grace, and preaching remains the God-ordained means to extend the kingdom of grace.

Pastor, God gave you to His church so that you would feed them with His word. This is the sum and substance of your work. Preaching builds, comforts, challenges, motivates, and sends the church.

A new week begins today. Let me encourage you to see the priority of prayer, the pitfall of preoccupation, and the primacy of preaching.

 

  1. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Mark, 18. ↩
  2. Bridges, The Christian Minsitry, 148. ↩
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Book Review: Preaching? by Alec Motyer

9781781911303There is something special about sitting down with an old saint in ministry and hearing reflections on his time as a steward of the gospel. It reminds me of sitting down over dinner with my grandfather and hearing his thoughts on any past historical event I can think of.

In Preaching? Simple Teaching on Simply Preaching, Alec Motyer offers personal reflections on a lifetime of preaching. Motyer is the former principle of Trinity College in Bristol, England. He is, probably, best known for his work on Isaiah and serves as the Old Testament editor for The Bible Speaks Today commentary series.

A driving conviction for Motyer is, “Not everyone can be what people call a ‘good preacher’, but no one need be a ‘bad preacher'” (9). Amen! He believes bad sermons are “muddled sermons” and thus wants to offer “one way to go about” preaching with clarity. Clear preaching comes from a six step process that includes examination, analysis, orientation, harvesting, presentation, and application.

A SIX-STEP SCHEME

Examination is “the basic task of the expositor: to understand each word, sentence, and verse in a passage, each section of a narrative or book” (39). One strength of Motyer’s work is that he packs an astonishing amount of wisdom into each chapter, providing examples, ruminations, and delightful diatribes on every step in his scheme. For example, the chapter on examination contains discussion on the use of various translations and commentaries, alongside encouragement to develop a personal plan for capturing everything one learns in examination of the text. Analysis and orientation represent finding the passage’s main point, or what Motyer calls “the plan” (50).

After settling on the passage’s plan the preacher is to set about harvesting the text and preparing it for presentation. The chapter on presentation is worth the price of the book alone. Here Motyer writes, “The reason for preaching is the will of God: He has commanded it; the content of preaching is the Bible, God’s revealed truth; the objective of preaching is application, to bring the Word of God to bear on the hearers; but the art of preaching is presentation” (89). He rightly advocates careful thinking about how to divide the text into headings for presentation and encourages headings that are memorable and “snappy.” Another strength of Motyer’s work is that he doesn’t impose a wooden or universal structure on the preacher’s preparation and presentation. One instance of this humble balance is when he discusses the use of notes, outlines, and manuscripts. His conclusion is that “we must each learn to do our own thing – whatever leaves us with liberty in our preaching, and makes the congregation fell they are being addressed without obstruction” (97).

The final step is application and here Motyer is typically balanced in the wisdom he provides. Sound preaching makes it “plain to our hearers both what the chosen Scripture means and what we must do about it” (103). An unexpected delight in the book is the sagacious humor Motyer employs throughout. Permit me an extended quote of his view on illustrations to provide an example:

Illustrations in a sermon don’t help me, and I have to keep reminding myself that they do help other people, and must therefore be thoughtfully used. When listening to a sermon, if I sense an illustration coming on, I want to call out to the preacher, ‘Yes, yes, we all know that. Please get on with the job!’ . . . To tell you the truth, I have come to the conclusion that the chief usefulness of illustrations is to give our hearers a little rest!” (115-116)

FOCUSES AND the FOCUS

With his six-step process delineated Motyer provides two chapters impressing upon the pastor the prominence prayer and personal holiness must have for healthy ministry, saying “It seems to me that the key to an effective ministry is our own personal walk with God” (131). Eternal destinies lie in the hands of a preacher, thus the preacher must be active in prayer. “How else can we face our calling to preach except in the spirit and practice of constant, earnest prayer,” he asks (139).

Motyer ends his work by exhorting preachers to always have “enough ‘gospel’ to save some listening sinner” (141). Christ “should be at the center, ever the Focus of all truth and fully illuminated for every eye” (144). Again, amen.

WE NEED MORE OF THIS

Tim Keller’s endorsement is spot on when he says the book puts “decades of wisdom on expository preaching at the reader’s fingertips.” As I read, I often thought to myself, “We need more of this kind of wisdom.” Wisdom that has decades of experience. Wisdom that is balanced and warm. Wisdom that brings light, heat, and laughter. Alec Motyer offers all this and more in Preaching? Simple Teaching on Simply Preaching, making this book a welcome addition to any pastor’s library.

Book Details

  • Author: Alec Motyer
  • Title: Preaching? Simple Teaching on Simply Preaching
  • Publisher: Christian Focus (September 10, 2013)
  • Paperback: 188 pages
  • Score: 7/10
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Preaching with Authority

Preaching Header

And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. – Mark 1:22

Jesus’ first appearance – in Mark’s gospel – at a synagogue left the people “astonished.” The Greek reads more literally, “they were struck out of their minds”; in other words, Jesus’ preaching “blew their minds.” Why? Because “he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.” To understand the fullness of the astonishing contrast you need to understand the 1st century scribes and their teaching. They were the original carriers of a PhD in Scripture who were charged with studying and teaching the Torah. When they stood up to teach, an audience would hear continuous appeals to rabbinic fathers, sounding something like, “Rabbi so-and-so says such-and-such about this passage.”

In stark contrast to the scribes’ appealed authority, Jesus teaches with assumed authority. He teaches, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matt. 5:27-28, emphasis added). Our Lord doesn’t need rabbinic commentary in order to preach with authority, His authority in His identity as the Word incarnate.

Consider the application to modern preaching. If you are a preacher, from whence comes your authority? I remember sitting next to Tony Reinke in the airport after T4G 2010 as he commented on Piper’s preaching at the conference. He said something I’ve yet to forget, “Notice how Piper rarely quotes from commentators, theologians, and books in his preaching. And then think about the authority His preaching carries.” Bam! Authoritative preaching is preaching grounded in the authority of God’s word – the incarnate word and written word.

Let’s ask again, “from whence comes your authority?” Consider how repetitive quotations from theologians or commentators can be appeals to an academic authority. Consider how repetitive illustrations and cultural references can be appeals to worldly authority. Consider how repetitive gesturing and shouting can be appeals to physical authority. By no means should we avoid all quotations, illustrations, and gestures. I would, in fact, argue that all are vital for clear preaching to contemporary congregations. However, there is something to be said for preaching so grounded by, rooted in, and saturated by Scripture that your audience understands the genesis for your authority – God’s word.

Here’s to preaching with authority that blows minds.

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The Thermopylae of Christendom

The pulpit is the Thermopylae of Christendom: there the fight will be lost or won.

To us ministers the maintenance of our power in the pulpit should be our great concern, we must occupy that spiritual watch-tower with our hearts and minds awake and in full vigor. It will not avail us to be laborious pastors if we are not earnest preachers.

We shall be forgiven a great many sins in the matter of pastoral visitation if the people’s souls are really fed on the Sabbath-day; but fed they must be, and nothing else will make up for it.

The failures of most ministers who drift down the stream may be traced to inefficiency in the pulpit. The chief business of a captain is to know how to handle his vessel, nothing can compensate for deficiency there, and so our pulpits must be our main care, or all will go awry. – Spurgeon

From Lectures to My Students, p. 305.