In John 14:6, Jesus made an eternally important declaration about salvation: “I am the only way to salvation or heaven.” I was talking to my friend Keith Thrasher about this sermon on John 14:6. He told me that the Lord used John 14:6 to lead him to salvation. Keith was more agnostic before salvation. In 2005, He was working at the Illinois Department of Corrections in a maximum-security facility, the same prison that housed the state’s death row.
Read moreFactual Data on Isaiah
One of the main prophets and/or leaders in the Kansas City Prophets movement was Bob Jones (no relation to Bob Jones of Bob Jones University in South Carolina), the movement's visionary. He was said to have been specially anointed with supernatural visions from the Lord and a prophetic gift. However, he was quoted as saying that the general level of prophetic revelation in the movement's "prophets" had an accuracy level of about 65 percent. He said some prophets were as low as 10 percent accurate, with some of the "most mature" prophets having a rating "approaching 85 percent to 95 percent." [1]
Deuteronomy 18:20-23 is the test of a prophet in the OT. A biblical prophet has an accuracy rate of 100 percent.
Read moreWas Charlie Kirk Martyred?
Charlie Kirk was hated! The man that Charlie Kirk called pastor said that Charlie Kirk received death threats every day. That is why he had a security detail. The parents of the man who allegedly shot Charlie Kirk said their son had become more political and obsessed with Charlie Kirk. Hear what Jesus Christ said to his followers: “If the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18).
Read moreReview of Paul Scott Wilson's Law-Gospel View
Paul Scott Wilson presents his view of interpreting and preaching called the Law-Gospel view in Scott M. Gibson’s and Matthew D. Kim’s Homiletics and Hermeneutics (Baker Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2018). Wilson’s one text, one theme, one doctrine, one need, one image, and one mission is just another way of saying what many homileticians describe as one preaching unit or the text (one text), one MPS (one theme), Argumentation (one doctrine), Interest Step in the Introduction (one need), Illustration (one image), and Application (one mission).
Read moreHow to Study Parables! (Part Two)
Craig Blomberg refers to one of his colleagues, Professor Elodie Emig, who “once suggested to me a remarkably concise big idea that incorporates all three lessons of the similarly structured parable of the two sons in Matthew 21:28-32. In this parable in which a son who refuses to work in his father’s vineyard later changes his mind and goes to the vineyard, in which a son who says he will work in fact doesn’t, and in which the father pronounces the former rather that the latter as having done his will, the three prongs of the passage can be neatly summed up with the affirmation, “Performance takes priority over promise.”[1]
Read moreJesus used shock value in his parables
I had a homiletics teacher, Steve Brown, who taught us, that if you have a thought in the study that you think is to bold or shocking to say in the pulpit, say it. I would not go that far. But Jesus, in his parables, did make some shocking statements or at least introduced the element of surprise. Craig Blomberg acknowledged this dimension of parables: “More often than not, there was a surprising reversal between the character a first-century Jewish audience would have expected to be the hero or good example and the one who actually turned out to play that role.”[1]
Read moreReview of Bryan Chapell's Redemptive-Historic View
This post is a review of “Redemptive-Historic View” by Bryan Chapell in Scott M. Gibson’s and Matthew D. Kim’s Homiletics and Hermeneutics: Four Views on Preaching Today.
I agree with Bryan Chapell when he warns that the redemptive-historical view of forcing Christ into every text has “been abused, in ways that are now obvious to us, by ancient allegorism that sought to make Jesus ‘magically’ appear in every Bible passage through exegetical acrobatics that stretched logic, imagination, and credulity.”[1] This is a candid admission.
Read moreHow do you study parables? (Part One)
Craig L. Blomberg in his Preaching the Parables noted: “Preaching a parable is a novice preacher’s dream, but often an experienced preacher’s nightmare .... At first glance, the parables appear familiar and straightforward, but thoughtful students soon realize they have fallen into a quagmire of interpretive debates.”[1]
Read moreIs There Healing in the Atonement?
Some Bible teachers advocate that there is healing in the atonement of Jesus’ on the cross based on 1 Peter 2:24: “By whose strips we are healed.” Can you imagine the audience of Peter who were suffering persecution for thier faith and witness being confused if Peter was teaching because of Jesus’ atonement you should not be suffering. These persecuted believers were not suffering because of a lack of faith or sin. Additionally, they would have been equally confused because some of their loved ones had died. People don’t of good health.[1]
Read moreHow can employees work for difficult bosses
Peter tells Christians to be subject to difficult bosses in 1 Peter 2:18-20. Here is an illustration for this text provided by Steven Cole at preceptaustion.org on this passage. One way to apply this is consciously to recognize that you don’t work primarily for your employer; you work for God. Howard Hendricks tells the story of being on an airliner that was delayed on the ground. Passengers grew increasingly impatient. One obnoxious man kept venting his frustrations on the stewardess. But she responded graciously and courteously in spite of his abuse.
Read moreReview of Abraham Kuruvilla's Christiconic View
This is a review of Abraham Kuruvilla’s “Christiconic View” in Hermeneutics and Homiletics: Four Views of Preaching. Kuruvilla brings some crucial corrections to the Christocentric view, but he also agrees with it on other points. This review will highlight these differences.
Read moreA Review of Kenneth Langley's Theocentric Hermeneutic
I appreciate and agree with Kenneth Langley’s opening statement: “Preaching should be God centered because God is God centered and wants us to be God centered in everything we do. All God does he does for his glory, and all we do—eating, drinking, and certainly preaching—we do for his glory (1 Cor. 10:31).”[1] I also like the way he refuted authors like Christocentric preachers like Tim Keller, C. J. Mahaney, and Edmund Clowney who contended that David is prophetic of his Greater Son. Langley responded, “I disagree that ‘it is impossible not to see Christ in his passage.’”
Read moreJesus the Master Storyteller (of parables)
People love good stories. Children, for sure, love stories and ask for the same story to read over and over again. I don’t know how many times I have read Alice in Wonderland to our boys. I would finish reading a story, and they would say, “Read it again, Daddy.”
Jesus, however, did not tell stories just to entertain; He preached biblical stories, parables, to persuade! Donald Grey Barnhouse was a great sermon illustrator who used illustrations to persuade his congregation to be doers of God’s Word. He said, “All of life is an illustration of Christian doctrine.”
Read moreDo Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? (Part Two)
Muslims Know Who Their God Is
In addition to the Five Pillars of Islam, which are the core practices of Islam, there are the Six Articles of Faith, sometimes referred to as the Six Pillars of Faith. The Six Articles of Faith are: Belief in God, His angels, His books, His messengers, the Last Day, and divine decree. The Six Pillars of Faith are put into practice in the Five Pillars of Islam.
The Muslims, unlike the Samaritans and the Athenians, find their doctrine of Allah explicitly codified in the Quran. The Muslim god, Allah, is not the same as Christianity’s God.
Read moreDo Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? (Part One)
Some call this question the “same God controversy.”[1] Former President George W. Bush said this in an interview: “I believe in an almighty God, and I believe that all the world, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, prays to the same God. That’s what I believe.”[2] I agree with Jared Wilson’s response to Bush’s ecumenical statement:
I think we come at this answer too easily, too thoughtlessly, simply assuming that because these three religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—are all monotheistic and share some historical heritage, they must worship the same God. Because lots of people worshiping one God does not mean they are worshiping the same God.[3]
Read moreThe Five Pillars of Islam
The Qur’an prescribes that righteousness is earned by keeping the Five Pillars of Islam: "Righteousness does not consist in turning your face towards East or West. The truly good are those who believe in God and the Last Day, in the angels, the Scripture, and the prophets; who give away some of their wealth, however much they cherish it, to their relatives, to orphans, the needy, travelers and beggars, and to liberate those in bondage; those who keep up the prayer (salat) and pay the prescribed alms (zakat); who keep pledges whenever they make them; who are steadfast in misfortune, adversity, and times of danger. These are the ones who are true, and it is they who are aware of God." (Qur'an 2:177)
The Five Pillars of Islam are the foundations or pillars on which Islamic belief and practice rest and are necessary to earn righteousness to enter Paradise.
Read moreIs Islam a Religion of Peace or a Religion of War?
I recently had a conversation with a Sunni Muslim from Iraq. He described his experience with Islam, and I shared the gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. That exchange caused me to look into Islam again. The question arose: Is Islam a Religion of Peace or a Religion of War?
Read more“THE FACTUAL DATA” Sheet for Sermon Preparation: (Pauline Epistles Genre)
G. Campbell Morgan taught his disciples to read a book of the Bible fifty times before you ever preach it.[1]
This takes time. A large block of uninterrupted time early in the morning is usually the best. There is an excellent interview between C. J. Mahanay and Mark Dever on this necessary step. Mark Dever says that he first reads and rereads the passage that he will preach and spends about 35 hours a week in sermon preparation.
Read moreCan Evangelism and Politics Mix?
Put bluntly, America is becoming more secular. Albert Mohler identifies the problem: “Recent studies have indicated that the single greatest predictor of voting patterns is the frequency of church attendance. Far fewer Americans now attend church, and a recent study indicated that fully 20% of all Americans identify with no religious preference at all. The secularizing of the electorate will have monumental consequences.” Constitutionally, the church and the state are separate. But practically, the church has an influence on the state, even in the outcome of elections.
Read moreJuly 4th: A Celebration of Independence or Insurrection? Part 3
There is a contrast and comparison between the ethics of the War for Independence, Deitrick Bonhoeffer, and the murder of abortion doctors. Before we seek to correct the justification of the murder of abortion doctors like George Tiller by referencing Deitrick Bonhoeffer's plot to murder Adolf Hitler, we must remember our responsibilities to God-ordained human government.
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