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See the Sermon’s Authority

Preaching with Authority

In his inaugural sermon at Bethlehem Baptist Church John Piper said he longed for a particular sound to mark the congregation.

If I could choose a symbolic sound that Bethlehem Baptist Church would come to be known for, you know what it would be? The swish of the pages of 500 Bibles turning simultaneously to the morning and evening texts.

When was the last time you heard such swishing of pages in a church service? I bet it’s been a  l o n g  time. The ubiquitous use of smart phones and tablets has relegated the printed Bible to a minority in corporate worship. And that’s ok. Piper would even agree.

We would do well, however, to remember why he wanted to hear the sound in the first place:

The reason [why I want the sound of swishing pages is this]: the source of my authority in this pulpit is not—as we shall soon see—my wisdom; nor is it a private revelation granted to me beyond the revelation of Scripture. My words have authority only insofar as they are the repetition, unfolding and proper application of the words of Scripture. I have authority only when I stand under authority. And our corporate symbol of that truth is the sound of your Bibles opening to the text.

Yes and amen. It’s all about authority.

But if symphonic rustling of pages belongs to an era gone by is there any contemporary replacement? Is there anything we ought to long for as a sign of where our authority in preaching lies?

HOLY BOBBLE HEADS

I would argue the best congregational sign of preacher rooted in biblical authority is in the sighting of what I like to call “holy bobble heads.” I want to see a congregation look up at the preacher and then look down at the text, look up at the preacher and then look down at the text.

It is a terrible experience to sit in the congregation and listen to the preacher’s rhetoric for twenty minutes before he summons you to look at the particular passage he is supposed to exposit. What he doesn’t realize is that, in all likelihood, he has just implicitly stated his authority lies in his rhetoric more than the theopneustos Scripture.

No, dear preacher, read your text at the beginning and never let long go by before you tell your people, “Look at verse . . .,” “Notice what happens next in . . .,” or, “See how he concludes the argument in verse . . .” Your authority is in that Holy Book, so tell them – frequently – to look down at The Book.

In his recent book Taking God At His Word Kevin DeYoung notes how the sanctified bouncing of heads is Berean movement:

When I speak at different conferences and churches, I’m often surprised how few people bother to look at their Bibles when I’m speaking. Be it laziness, forgetfulness, or something else, it’s not a good habit. I have no authority in myself. I don’t want people to just take my word for it. God’s people should be testing everything against God’s word. Whether we are the ones teaching or listening, we need to have our Bibles open like the Bereans. (75)

Preacher, you can help them be like the Bereans with consistently pointing their eyes back to your passage.

PREACHING IN AND NOT ABOUT

I’ve said before that in the delivery of preaching there is a great difference between preaching at the sheep and preaching among the sheep. Don’t you love distinctions? When done wisely they are like flint for our sermon swords. There is another distinction which lays at the heart of this issue of rooting your preaching in the authority of God’s word: we must preach in the text, not merely about the text.

You likely have experienced the distinction before. One sermon proposes to expound a passage of Scripture and says many true things about the text, but one leaves feeling the preacher invited the congregation on a holy float across the sea of Scripture. There are things surely worse than floating. Many contemporary preachers are content to sit on the sands far removed from the biblical waters. But we can and must do better than a leisurely float. We must summon our congregation through the sermon to a high-pressure, deep dive in the waters of God’s truth.

We herald the matters of life and death; so it is indeed a high-pressure endeavor. And it must also be deep. Jesus washes His church in His word by having His preachers soak their sermons in His word. Descend down to the depths of truth each week. So tell them to look down there with you!

Preach in the text, not merely about the text.

Help your people become holy bobble heads.

Give them the rich portions of His word.

And summon them to see it.

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Recent Reads

I love to read. By God’s grace I am a pretty fast reader; I usually read a couple books each week. I find it helpful to summarize my thoughts on each book and I offer those thoughts in the hope that you will be encouraged to either read or pass over the given title.

BeatyAn-All Surpassing Fellowship: Learning from Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s Communion with God by David Beaty. Of all the figures I’ve learned from in church history none has been more pivotal than the young Scotsman named M’Cheyne. So I’ll grant that I’m unusually predisposed to love this book. But, oh what a book it is! I can’t remember the last time I read a new publication and was this affected; tears of gratitude and repentance came from almost every chapter. Beaty is to be commended for simultaneously giving us a masterful biography of M’Cheyne and an unbelievably accessible portrait of his communion with God. Choice selections from original works, letters, sermon, and poems occupy almost every page and Beaty manages to offer it up with cohesive eloquence; a difficult feat from what I suspect is originally his D. Min. dissertation. This book now occupies an exclusive shelf in my study, the “Read at Least Once a Year” shelf.

TurleyHeart to Heart: Octavius Winslow’s Experimental Preaching by Tanner Turley. Do you know who Spurgeon invited to preach the inaugural sermon at The Metropolitan Tabernacle? Octavius Winslow. He was a giant of 19th century England, but is largely forgotten today. Turley – and Reformation Heritage Books – has done the church a favor in publishing his Ph.D. on the experimental preaching of Winslow. Not only is this work a useful introduction to a spiritual giant of centuries gone by, but a fabulous introduction to a philosophy of preaching neglected today: experimental preaching. Joel Beeke, one of the foremost experimental, or “experiential”, preachers of our time defines this philosophy as preaching that “addresses the vital manner of how a Christian experiences the truth of Christian doctrine in his life.” Turley argues for the following eight characteristics of Winslow’s preaching: doctrine, Christ-centeredness, discrimination, interrogation, illustration, persuasion, and exhortation. Although I found the treatment to be somewhat anachronistic in places,1 I believe any preacher today would profit from its salient points.

HastingsAll Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945 by Max Hastings. Sir Max is, for me at least, somewhat of a maddeningly brilliant historian. Every work of his I’ve read possesses pointed reflection and countless individual stories that give the events of old a movingly personal dimension. Hence, the brilliance. Yet, those same works also seem strikingly slim on cohesion of narrative. And All Hell Let Loose is no different. The whole book seems to operate in the following fashion: historical statement, summary, or insight followed by a personal vignette of said history. Rinse and repeat the process for hundreds of pages. Hence, the maddening part of his brilliance. I have Hasting’s Winston’s War on my shelf and it’s crying for attention. It remains to be seen if the first prong of his “maddening brilliance” will keep me away for a while, of if the latter facet will lead me to open it up next week.

Natchez BurningNatchez Burning by Greg Iles. Before picking up this book I had only read one Greg Iles book and it didn’t go so well. But when Stephen King proclaims a book to be “extraordinarily entertaining and fiendishly suspenseful; I defy you to start it and find a way to put it down,” I feel my literary senses challenged to a duel I cannot refuse. So I bought the book. And Mr. King’s superlative defiance is well founded, this book is marvelous. Natchez Burning is set against the dark racial tensions of Mississippi in the 1960s, tensions that span all the way into 2005 when the protagonist’s father is accused of murder. The murder sets in motion a series of events that the last four decades have managed to suppress; a series of events Iles plans to cover in a projected trilogy (with Natchez Burning being the first volume). I’m still astounded how Iles leaves most of the plot lines open, but resolves just enough of the storyline to not offend the reader’s need for some finality. It took Iles five years to write this book and I can only hope the trilogy’s second offering arrives much, much sooner.

Click here to find other entries in the Recent Reads series.

  1. For example, the employment and citation of Paul Tripp’s language of behavior modification versus heart transformation is out of place. Would Winslow agree with this rubric of sanctification? Most definitely. But such imposition of modern categories on older divines is, in a word, anachronistic. ↩
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May It Be So of Us

mccheyneRobert Murray M’Cheyne’s holy life was legendary in his century. Spurgeon counted him among the “best and holiest men,” and good Bishop Ryle listed him as one of the “holiest men of modern times.”

His holiness had a direct effect on the power of his preaching. John Shearer points this out in his work Old Time Revivals by saying,

M’Cheyne was himself his greatest sermon, and here is the secret of his success. He walked with God in the beauty of holiness. Our Lord’s presence seemed to envelop him, diffusing a holy aroma. His very manner, his bearing as if a man standing in God’s presence, was often the means of awakening indifferent sinners, so that men who could not remember a word he said found themselves with an unforgettable impression that God had drawn very near to them. – Quoted in Beaty, An All-Surpassing Fellowship, 27-28.

Pastor, pray and labor for this kind of holiness. May you shine and burn in the adornment of godliness when you ascend to the sacred desk this weekend.

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And So We Roar

VERSE 1
His be the Victor’s Name
Who fought the fight alone;
Triumphant saints no honor claim;
Their conquest was His own.

VERSE 2
By weakness and defeat
He won the glorious crown;
Trod all His foes beneath His feet
By being trodden down.

CHORUS
What though the vile accuser roar
Of sins that I have done;
I know them well, and thousands more;
My God, He knoweth none

VERSE 3
He hell in hell laid low;
Made sin, He sin o’erthrew;
Bowed to the grave, destroyed it so,
And death, by dying, slew.

VERSE 4
Bless, bless the Conqueror slain,
Slain by divine decree!
Who lived, who died, who lives again,
For thee, my soul, for thee.

Bridge
My sin is cast into the sea
Of God’s forgotten memory
No more to haunt accusingly
For Christ has lived and died for me

Words: Samuel Gandy, 1838 (verses & chorus), alt.; Zac Hicks, 2013 (bridge)
Music: Zac Hicks, 2013 ©2013 Unbudding Fig Music (ASCAP)

HT: D&T

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A Short Sabbatical

In Quest of Rest

Later on today I will leave for a 19th-century era cabin with one goal in mind: rest.

One of my many ministerial flaws is an almost complete inability rest for an extended period of time. But I am trying to grow in this area with the help of a loving wife and caring congregation.

OUT OF THE HARNESS

I have long cherished Spurgeon’s passionate labor and self-conscious desire to exhaust himself in the gospel ministry. He said,

‘If by excessive labour, we die before reaching the average age of man, worn out in the Master’s service, then glory be to God, we shall have so much less of earth and so much more of Heaven!’ 1 ‘It is our duty and our privilege to exhaust our lives for Jesus. We are not to be living specimens of men in fine preservation, but living sacrifices, whose lot is to be consumed.’ 2

Such Christ-fueled energy (cf. Col. 1:28) is a great challenge to much of our contemporary evangelical culture that bristles at the thought sweaty ministry. Yet, like any author, we can read the Prince in a vacuum or in isolation. For he was just as keen to seize sabbath opportunities when it was wise to do so,

It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less. On, on, on for ever, without recreation may suit spirits emancipated from this ‘heavy clay’, but while we are in this tabernacle, we must every now and then cry halt, and serve the Lord by holy inaction and consecrated leisure. Let no tender conscience doubt the lawfulness of going out of harness for a while.3

I count it no small act of God’s providence that the very week I reread the Prince’s passages above4 my wife gave me an anniversary getaway. She saw knows me better than anyone and said, “You need a break.” That 36 hour “out of the harness” endeavor begins this afternoon.

RESTING THROUGH READING

My aim is simple: rest through reading. Few things calm my soul as extended and uninterrupted times of reading. Here are the four books I hope to complete by Friday morning:

It may sound like a lot, but I am already at the finish line of the last two. Thus, I should be able to close out Turley, Hastings, and Iles tonight. Which leaves tomorrow dedicated to Beaty’s promising study of M’Cheyne, further memorization of 1 Timothy,5  and much time on bended knee.

I am excited and eager. Bring on the “holy inaction.”

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  1. Spurgeon, An All Around Ministry, 127. ↩
  2. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 157. ↩
  3. Ibid, 161. ↩
  4. In preparation to preach this sermon. ↩
  5. I’ve memorized the first four chapters and would love two write the last two on my heart this week. ↩
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The Necessity of Dignity

Dignity in the Ministry 2

There is a prominent little word in the pastorals that gets little attention in modern discussion on ministry: dignity. In fact, the great apostle tells us that “dignity” ought to be not only the aim of every church officer, but every Christian as well.

THE UBIQUITY OF DIGNITY

To see the pervasiveness of dignity we need only look to how its commending and commanding in 1 Timothy:

  • Christians everywhere are commanded to pray for governing authorities so they may live a life of dignity that stretches into every sphere (1 Tim. 2:2).
  • Distinguishable dignity must characterize an elder’s life and ministry (1 Tim. 3:4-5).
  • Ditto for deacons; they gotta be dignified too (1 Tim. 3:8).
  • Dignity is as valuable a jewel for women as it is for men (1 Tim. 3:11).

THE GRAVITY OF DIGNITY

So, dignity is necessary, but what is it exactly? I suspect it’s a word most people would be able to spot, but few would be able to define. The Greek word Paul uses is σεμνότης (semnotes) and is synonymous with honor, gravity, or seriousness.1 Here then is my working definition of dignity:

Christian dignity is the moral and spiritual gravity attending reverent godliness.

If we understand the inherent seriousness of dignity we can understand why it’s a characteristic going the way of the dodo. We live in an evangelical climate that all too often completely reflects our broader culture, a culture that heralds youthfulness on an unprecedented scale. Look no further than recent the recent radio smash “We Are Young” where a man in his fourth decade of life celebrates youth that “sets the world on fire.” (If you need convincing of how much the secular youth culture drives contemporary evangelicalism check out Stephen Nichols incisive article on “Youth-Driven Culture.”)

Dignity has never been, nor will ever be, a flag waved on high by youth. Thus, whenever and wherever the church caves into culture’s celebration of youth we can expect dignity to gather dust in the corporate attic. It seems, to me at least, that it’s high time to dust off this glorious jewel and reclaim it as a requirement for pastoral ministry. For if we want our churches to be a dignified witness, and we should, we must begin with pastors dripping in dignity.

THE MINISTRY OF DIGNITY

This reclamation project must begin with a reorientation of our hearts and minds to the biblical reality that pastoral ministry is necessarily a dignified ministry. And a dignified ministry requires dignified men. Christ has entrusted His ministers with His mission and His means of grace. Dignity courses through our calling like blood flows through our veins. His mission is grave – life and death hang in the balance – so there must be a sense of gravity when we storm the mercy seat and ascend to the sacred desk. His meal of grace is one we offer in reverent faith lest we eat and drink God’s judgment.

Each week the pastor lifts up the Kings of Kings whose kingdom is not of this world so we dare not hold Him with common casualness. Charles Bridges is right to say, “The moment we permit ourselves to think lightly of the Christian Ministry, our right arm is withered; nothing but imbecility and relaxation remains.” He later says, “Dignity of character will thus correspond with dignity of station.” What then might a dignified character look like?

Consider this portrait of the late and great Samuel Miller of Princeton,

He seldom entered a house, or engaged in conversation, without dropping a word at least to comment the Savior. His sermons . . . were full of weighty gospel truth, and were delivered with great animation and unction. . . . His fidelity to souls; his watchfulness for opportunities of doing good; his practical wisdom; his prudent management of all his private affairs; his tender dealing with prejudice and passion; his guardedness against giving offense; his remarkable freedom from envy and jealousy; his large, disinterested benevolence; his liberality and unworldliness; the dignity of his manners . . . always commanding respect; his habitual cheerfulness; his whole consistent life and ministry, ‘forever the same’, were constantly conspicuous and most influential for good.2

That sure seems to be a life of moral and spiritual gravity attending reverent godliness. May God help us to cherish and aim for such dignity in the ministry.

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  1. See George Knight, in his “must be reckoned with” commentary on 1 Timothy, p. 161-162. ↩
  2. The Life of Samuel Miller, 84. ↩
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The Church’s Spiritual Thermometer

Spurgeon Prayer

Spurgeon is commonly known today as “The Prince of Preachers,” but he would just as rightly be called “The Prince of Prayer.”

D. L. Moody, the prolific 19th-century American evangelists, was asked after his first visit to England, “Did you hear Spurgeon preach?” He replied, “Yes, but better still I heard him pray.”

Spurgeon taught his students that “the preacher is above all others distinguished as a man of prayer. He prays as an ordinary Christian, else he were a hypocrite. He prays more than ordinary Christians, else he were disqualified for the office which he has undertaken.”1 Spurgeon modeled this counsel with legendary fervor as he spontaneous and reverent prayer punctuated his daily routine.

An American man, Dr. Wayland Hoyt, wrote,

I was once walking with him in the woods . . . and . . . we came upon a log lying [by] the path. ‘Come,’ he said, as naturally as one would say it if he were hungry and bread was put before him, ‘Come, let us pray.’ Kneeling beside the log he lifted his soul to God in the most loving and yet reverent prayer.2

One of his pastoral students would often attend family devotions at the Spurgeon home and he later recalled, “How full of tender pleading, of serene confidence in God, of world-embracing sympathy were his prayers. With what gracious familiarity he could talk with his Divine Master!”3 Another wrote, “His public prayers were an inspiration, but his prayers with the family were to me more wonderful still. Mr. Spurgeon, when bowed before God in family prayer, appeared a grander man even than when holding thousands spellbound by his oratory.”

PASTORING A PRAYING CHURCH

He was a man of prayer who led a praying people. When you spot a pastor in church history mightily used by God you can expect two things: 1) he was a man of prayer who 2) led a praying congregation. Spurgeon was once asked why his ministry was so effective and he replied, “My people pray for me.”

The prayers of his people was cause for deep gratitude as he later said, “I always give all the glory to God, but I do not forget that He gave me the privilege of ministering from the first to a praying people. We had prayer meetings that moved our very souls, each one appeared determined to storm the Celestial City by the might of intercession.” Seven hundred people could be found praying in the Tabernacle’s basement, its “boiler room” as Spurgeon called it, before the Sunday morning service and a few thousand would show up for Monday night prayer meeting. For Spurgeon, the prayer meeting was the best thermometer of the church’s spirituality.

WE WANT PRAYING PASTORS AND CHURCHES!

Spurgeon is a titan of the Christian ministry that is utterly impossible to replicate, but emulation is possible. In our age of fast paced self-confidence the reality of prayer seems to have vanished from pastors and churches. How many churches today have prayer meetings or have large portions of their worship gatherings devoted to prayer? If we are honest, a precious few.

Could this sad shortfall find a direct correlation to a decreasing number of men known as “praying pastors”? Sure, we have numerous pastors known for their preaching and personality – two things that distinguished Spurgeon as well – but what of pastors who are militant and reverent before the throne of grace?

I for one hope the surging popularity of Reformed theology will create a surge in that most basic practice of Reformed spirituality: prayer.

May God give us more praying pastors who lead praying churches.

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  1. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 747. ↩
  2. Dallimore, Spurgeon, 178. ↩
  3. Ibid. ↩
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Recent Reads

I love to read. By God’s grace I am a pretty fast reader; I usually read a couple books each week. I find it helpful to summarize my thoughts on each book and I offer those thoughts in the hope that you will be encouraged to either read or pass over the given title.

0851514510mSpurgeon: A New Biography by Arnold Dallimore. Tomorrow night I hope to preach a biographical sermon on the Prince so I reread Dallimore’s work in preparation. This simply is the finest introduction to the great Spurgeon. The prose flows nicely and while the book consistently celebrates the great preacher, Dallimore manages to steer clear of hagiography. Pithy quotations  and lively stories saturate the work, making almost every page “edifyingly readable.” After reading Dallimore, I’d move on to Lewis Drummond’s The Prince of Preachers, and then feast on Spurgeon’s magisterial two-volume autobiography. Tolle lege!

9781433528170mCovenantal Apologetics: Principles and Practice in Defense of Our Faith by Scott Oliphint. I find Oliphint to be one of the most underrated theologians and apologists of our time. Lord willing, this latest book will broaden his exposure. Covenantal Apologetics is Oliphint’s effort to recast what has been traditionally categorized as presuppositional apologetics into something more easily explained and practiced. And I believe he succeeds. The overwhelming strength of Oliphint’s approach is how he roots persuasion (apologetics) in the Triune God’s self-revelation in Christ. His ten tenets of the covenantal approach are sound and cogent, and the sample dialogues go a long way in helping readers understand how to put their faith into practice. I still think Frame’s Apologetics to the Glory of God is the best introduction to the presuppositional approach, so I’d start there and then move on to Oliphint’s excellent volume.

DissolutionDissolution by CJ Sansom. I love historical fiction and regularly scour Amazon to find the latest and the greatest. So it was a couple weeks ago that I came across CJ Sansom and his Matthew Shardlake series. Set in 16th century Tudor England, specifically 1537, Dissolution vividly portrays a country divided between the Roman Catholic Church and newly established Church of England. The novel is fast-paced as Shardlake, a lawyer in the employ of vicar general Thomas Cromwell, is sent to investigate the murder of a royal commissioner at a monastery on the south coast. Shardlake is a fascinating character, a hunchback whom Sansom paints with a brilliantly human brush, and the lawyer uncovers all sorts of darkness in the religious institutions of the day. Sansom clearly is a gifted historian and writer, two skill sets not often brought together. PD James is right to call Dissolution a “remarkable debut.”

The TargetThe Target by Baldacci. Baldacci is, for me at least, the quintessence of “dessert” reading. You can’t survive on it alone, but it sure tastes good in moderation. The Target is Baldacci’s most recent publication and thankfully it comes in his Will Robie series, arguably my favorite character in his voluminous corpus. Robie teams up with Jessica Reel, they are becoming quite a formidable pair, for a dangerous mission sanctioned by POTUS in North Korea. Baldacci weaves this mission together with another storyline involving an old enemy of Reel, which I found more compelling than the North Korea business. While the two narratives coincide, the book’s pace is rapid. Once Reel’s old enemy disappears the book feels as though it coasts to the end. I’ve consumed much Baldacci dessert this spring and the tastiness of this dessert is become stale. Time to move on for a while.

Click here to find other entries in the Recent Reads series.

People come to me for one thing . . . I preach to them a Calvinist creed and a Puritan morality. That is what they want and that is what they get. If they want anything else they must go elsewhere. – Spurgeon

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How to Encourage Your Pastor

How to Encourage Your Pastor

What is the most powerful, yet least talked about, way every church member can encourage his or her pastor?

Faithful attendance at the church’s gathered worship.

Your consistent commitment to the corporate gathering reveals many different things:

  • Your obedience to Hebrews 10:25
  • An expectation to meet with God through worship with the body of Christ
  • A hunger to hear from God through the preaching of His word
  • A hopeful lifting of your gaze off the world and on to Christ
  • A delight in fellowship with other brothers and sisters in Christ
  • A cherishing of the ordinary means of grace
  • A prioritization of the things of God over the things of men
  • A treasuring of the primary way God shapes His people into Christlikeness

And all of these things encourage your pastor to faithfulness in his ministry of the word and prayer! It gives him excitement when he prepares a sermon, fervor in his prayer, joy in his shepherding, and longevity in the ministry. And the inverse is true, inconsistent attendance at gathered worship tempts pastors to despair and steals joy from shepherding.

In What is a Healthy Church Member? Thabiti Anyabwile makes a similar point,

Few things are more discouraging or dishonoring to [faithful preachers] than a congregation inattentive to the Word of God. Faithful pastors flourish at the fertile reception of the preached word. They’re made all the more bold when their people give ear to the Lord’s voice and give evidence of being shaped by it. As church members, we can care for our pastors and teachers and help prevent unnecessary discouragement and fatigue by cultivating the habit of expositional listening.

How then, dear church member, are you doing in this area? Is your pattern of attendance one that discourages or encourages your pastor? For the health of your soul and your soul, let it be the latter.