DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed

What is it about moral exhortations that we shy aw...

2009-03-22T18:13:00.000-04:00

What is it about moral exhortations that we shy away from them? Isn't moral exhortation just another word for application? Now, when God is actually prompting me to make application A and the preacher mentions application B, I could pursue B in a pseudo-religious effort to avoid what God is telling me to do. However, if the preacher actually has experience in overcoming a particular problem, his testimony and exhortation is exactly what I need to hear...

We are to "encourage each other while it is still day, so that no one will be hardened by sin's deceitfulness."

"The kingdom of God is not a matter of words, but of power."

Instead of trying to stop making moral exhortations, we need to show how Christ is the only source of power to live a godly life -- only by following him can we protest abortion while still offering compassion to the mothers in distress. Only by following him can we get rid of impurity and self-abuse and discontent and evil thoughts and coarse speech (all of which I'm guilty of).

If the preacher doesn't apply the text to his own moral life and the situations in his church and the world, we'll constantly be looking at a map of the holy land without realizing we live there... we'll be looking at a lion through the wrong end of a telescope when it's right in front of us... we'll be looking at a mirror and forgetting what we look like.

Greetings! Saw your post in Google Blogsearch and ...

2009-03-21T13:18:00.000-04:00

Greetings! Saw your post in Google Blogsearch and came to read.

>"Below are a number of areas of Catholic teaching that seem unscriptural to me."

Like how you phrased this as it leaves some hope that the Catholic teachings you cite may be scriptural, but at this time seem unscriptural.

Should you ever decide to investigate further, you'll find an excellent discussion forum for non-Catholic ministers at the Coming Home Network International.

http://www.chnetwork.org/forums/

God bless... +Timothy

BTW, there's a good chart depicting Historically Held Canons of Different Churches at Biblicalia. Its not just Catholics of Rome whose canon is larger than most Reformation congregations.

http://www.bombaxo.com/canonchart.html

Kevin,Worthy material! I re-posted it, with prope...

2009-03-21T12:42:00.000-04:00

Kevin,

Worthy material! I re-posted it, with proper attribution, at my blog: http://tinyurl.com/dem55b

Thanks for doing the work of thinking this thru.Th...

2009-03-20T08:27:00.000-04:00

Thanks for doing the work of thinking this thru.

There's a famous fellow who is an incredible communicator, considered so relevant to today, who I would have loved when I was an unbeliever. I think I would have thought, "ohhhh, so THAT'S Christianity -- in that case, I'm in!" And I think I might still be lost, but think I was OK.
--Gary

Obviously Paul didn't mean to deposit a whole syst...

2009-03-19T17:00:00.000-04:00

Obviously Paul didn't mean to deposit a whole systematic theology in these Epistles, however, he does seem to intend a fairly extensive pastoral theology.

If the watching of these kinds of doctrines good and bad, is given so much prominence, and the practice illustrated in the Pastorals is preaching, teaching refuting etc. I wonder what our balance should be in preaching? How, while being faithful to exposition, we ought to reflect this Pauline emphasis?

Thanks again for the great post. I wish I had found this blog sooner, as a young Canadian Urban pastor I am often isolated from stimulating biblical thinking.

From a pastoral perspective, this is really helpfu...

2009-03-19T16:53:00.000-04:00

From a pastoral perspective, this is really helpful thinking. I am studying the pastorals right now as I review my ministry priorities and this is very timely :)

Rebecca,Yikes, "King of kinks"--that's a bad typo!...

2009-03-18T14:24:00.000-04:00

Rebecca,

Yikes, "King of kinks"--that's a bad typo! Thanks for the heads up. I'm good at finding typos in other people's stuff, but not in my own.

I also hate it that my comment has a typo in it.

2009-03-18T11:24:00.000-04:00

I also hate it that my comment has a typo in it.

In the 1 Timothy 6:15-16 quote it should be "King ...

2009-03-18T11:23:00.000-04:00

In the 1 Timothy 6:15-16 quote it should be "King of kings."

I'm enjoying your blog and hate it that my firt comment is a typo correction. Sorry about that. :)

http://deuceville.blogspot.com/

2009-03-18T00:15:00.000-04:00

http://deuceville.blogspot.com/

Just thought I'd let you know I purchased your "Wh...

2009-03-17T13:10:00.000-04:00

Just thought I'd let you know I purchased your "Why We're Not Emergent" at Mardels yesterday. Can't wait to dive in. I hadn't been to a Christian bookstore for a while (can't afford to buys books right now, but my wife and I agreed to spend $39 each for our 39th anniversary.) I was shocked at finding two complete shelves devoted to "Emergent Church Voices". We used to attend the Christian Booksellers Convention each year (free books and free autographed books galore...a veritable booklover's Heaven!) but, lately haven't been able to - so I have been out of the loop somewhat. I appreciate your ministry! Keep up the God work guys!

And of course you realize now that we can't ever s...

2009-03-17T11:02:00.000-04:00

And of course you realize now that we can't ever sing that him again at URC... :-)

Sure leave us in suspense. I am looking forward t...

2009-03-17T09:00:00.000-04:00

Sure leave us in suspense. I am looking forward to the rest.

I am interested in the part that said preachers ca...

2009-03-16T13:31:00.000-04:00

I am interested in the part that said preachers cannot write which was seen as one of the problems. Perhaps I'm missing what is being said. But Donald Sunukjian has said that too often preachers approach preaching as they would writing a dissertation. They have been taught to write for research and so they preach a research message. He (Sunukjian) would argue that oratoralical communication should be approached differently than written communication. Any thoughts?

I think the one thing that this made me remember i...

2009-03-15T20:30:00.000-04:00

I think the one thing that this made me remember is that while I was taught to preach, and to find the point, and to present the point well (something I sometimes achieve and sometimes don't) in seminary, while they constantly talked about being Theocentric and Christocentric in sermons, they really missed to boat in teaching how to do so. How? By often being focused on the Biblical text and what it taught and exhorted to the point of forgetting that all the scriptures are meant to point us to Christ. Too often I have preached texts and been faithful to them, but neglected to preach Christ as he should be preached. While I was faithful to scripture my sermons like that often descended into mere moral exhortations with very little Christ in them.

It was not until I experienced two things that a change started to happen to moved me to write truly Christ centered sermons. First, the Banner of Truth Minister's Conference did a conference with the theme of Christ centered preaching. Then last year Between Two Worlds posted on a series of lectures by Ed Clowney and Tim Keller posted by RTS on I-tunes U. The focus of the entire series was on Christ centered preaching. Now I strive to, and have some idea how to preach Christ from all the Bible. I don't always achieve it, bad habits are hard to break, but I now strive for it.

To sum up, the very approach many seminaries take to Old Testament and even New Testament exegesis often forgets that these texts are there to point us to Christ. That also needs to be changed lest we continue to have mere moral exhortations.

Mary,If you go to the church website (www.urc-msu....

2009-03-15T14:11:00.000-04:00

Mary,

If you go to the church website (www.urc-msu.org) and follow the links to the staff, you can get me email address there.

Thanks. And thanks to everyone else for the really thoughtful comments.

Hi Kevin -- Forgive me for using the comments fiel...

2009-03-14T23:28:00.000-04:00

Hi Kevin -- Forgive me for using the comments field for something other than a comment on the post. I'm wondering how best to contact you regarding a speaking engagement? My email address is mary@truthxchange.com if you wouldn't mind letting me know. I saw a publicist's contact information for interviews about the book, but this is not book-specific. Thanks so much. In His matchless grace,
Mary on behalf of truthXchange

Let's not forget that our dear brother, T. David, ...

2009-03-14T22:38:00.000-04:00

Let's not forget that our dear brother, T. David, is not your run-of-the-mill pastor. David has himself claimed to be a *academician*, thus distancing himself from being strictly a *pastor*. If you've ever met David or heard his teaching, you'd know that he is not your typical Joe-pastor.

Prof. Gordon’s manners are refreshing, indeed. Thus, it comes as no surprise that this book has the real potential to help light the way toward our getting/keeping Christ central to not only preaching, but the entirety of the Church’s mission. All this other “stuff” (a nice way of putting it!) which distracts pastors, filling their color-coded day planners with “busyness,” has to be run through the apostolic grid of “preaching Christ alone” (1Cor.1.17,23; 9.16; 2Cor.4.2-3; Col.1.28; 3.16).

Part of the problem, as T. David likely points out in this book (which I have yet to read), is pastors and parishioners alike have a tendency to start out with the wrong set of questions. And, into such questions the Gospel is manipulated so that it fits. [SQUARE PEG…ROUND HOLE!] Instead of the Gospel dictating what questions it answers, the order ends up inverted and we end up without the Gospel.

The local pastor is forced to succumb to a great host of concerns that face all the walks of life found in the Church, and even those outside the Church (socio-political issues, etc). It’s no wonder these are the guys that have long been burnt-out as they race about trying to put out fires the Gospel was never meant to extinguish (at least not this side of Glory). Sadly, too many have long parted ways with trying to appropriate the Gospel to the fallen human condition and have resorted to taking up other measures with which to battle (2Cor.6.7; 10.4).

Honestly, as much as I appreciate T. David’s chief concern of keeping Christ central, I am not as comfortable with his remedy being found in men who are highly adept in poetry, literature, grammar, etc. It would be passages like Acts 4.13 that give me pause here. This isn’t to say that elders (not the singular “pastor” model of evangelicalism, etc) ought not strive to continue growing in the knowledge of the Lord (this means theology is important!), for they MUST! However, to assume that sending a young lad off to “wherever” to learn “whatever” will do the trick is naïve at best. (I understand T. David isn’t ignorant on this point.)

Spurgeon, as referred to by someone else here, approached the overall ministry of the Gospel in a somewhat unique manner. In particular, I’m referring to how he committed himself to training others for the Gospel ministry. This included the more localized academy model of preparing men, as opposed to the more university style bible college or seminary.

In this regard, I submit a few comments found elsewhere about the College:

“Spurgeon's College has always distinguished itself by giving opportunities for training to persons with little academic background. In the 19th century different courses were offered depending on ability. Spurgeon said in 1871 that someone who needed help with English should not muddle his head with Hebrew. To this day the College prides itself in offering tailor-made packages to those who are called by God to train for Christian ministry.”

It would be worth considering how might T. David Gordon’s assessment and Spurgeon’s methods pair up.

Matthew

I have needed some time to reflect on the first po...

2009-03-14T21:08:00.000-04:00

I have needed some time to reflect on the first post and perhaps my comments are more pertinent in regards to the earlier item.
I would like to speak from my own personal experience as a preacher. I would say that laziness can be a problem for a preacher in that there is often not enough study of the Bible and theology etc. Men are not fulfilling 2 Tim 2:15. All that to say that can be a problem for some preachers but it wasn't for me. I really struggled as a preacher following my theological training - Bible College and not Seminary. Of course I haven't got it altogether now but I was at the point of thinking I had mistaken my call. My preaching sunk to really low levels by the most generous of standards.
By the grace of God I discovered Spurgeon and it was of untold blessing to me. I know Spurgeon's sermons are not always the most exegetically accurate and some of them wouldn't be acceptable today but he taught me how to exhort, how to structure a message, how to have a main point and to how to preach Christ. Quite literally finding Spurgeon saved my ministry.
I believe I went to a good Bible College and am thankful for my time there in so many ways. However, even though I took classes in homiletics it was all so academic. I tried applying the principles I was taught and I tried turining the thoughts of a well known text book into practice but I found it binding and I had no liberty as a preacher. I think I became overly theoretical and tried to dot all my "i's" and cross my "t's". It was a disaster. Spurgeon liberated me from this, helped me enjoy preaching and helped me to be myself. I think this latter point is important because too often there is a problem with trying to be so technically correct that we fail to realize that God made all preachers of vastly different shapes and sizes - better styles.
Overall I would say the issue is that I learned to preach by example and not by theory. If I had my way I would not give anyone a text book on how to preach until they have been preaching at least five years. My thought is that we can learn to preach well by studying the great preachers. I am not so sure that studying lietrature is as helpful as has been put here. I think many of the great preachers (Spurgeon included)have been men who didn't actually read literature. I am not dismissing it but I just don't give it the weight that seems to be given here.

As a former member of the Coral Ridge session and ...

2009-03-14T18:00:00.000-04:00

As a former member of the Coral Ridge session and a friend of Tullian, I appreciate your call to prayer.

God is at work, so that means that our adversary is also.

Pray that God would be obvious glorified to the on-lookers and participants.

Gordon's assertion that preachers need the time to...

2009-03-14T14:51:00.000-04:00

Gordon's assertion that preachers need the time to craft a sermon that is worthy to be preached is an important point. Too many pastors busy themselves (or find their church expects them to busy themselves) with this or that committee or council, with being part of denominational or (eek) political boards or causes, that they don't have time to either take pastoral care of their flock (like visiting the home-bound, being there to pray for someone before surgery) or give sermon prep the necessary time. Instead they do just as Gordon said and start with a preconceived notion, find it quickly in a text ripped out of context, and dress it up with some tired, lame sermon illustrations from a book. Very little edifying or convicting content will ever come out of that truncated process. The kind of reading and writing Gordon seems to say is necessary is actually what English majors do with all of their time. Perhaps pastors should take more Lit classes in college? :)

Thanks for the post. I'm inspired now to get the b...

2009-03-14T07:35:00.000-04:00

Thanks for the post. I'm inspired now to get the book and check it out. I appreciate your blog post.

http://www.toliveischrist.info/blog/2009/03/import...

2009-03-14T07:10:00.000-04:00

http://www.toliveischrist.info/blog/2009/03/importance-of-being-snobbish.html

Inspired by your first post

Concerning such posts, how about we put our voices...

2009-03-14T06:44:00.000-04:00

Concerning such posts, how about we put our voices/fingers where our mouths are...

Have you considered setting-up or contributing to a new blog that consists of a series of open 'letters' written by preachers/pastors to each other and their flocks... where every word is measured and every thought is considered; where the 'loftiness' of the register is only bettered by the 'highness' of the content; where good literature and good theology and good christian attitude are all being modelled concurrently...?

It's a thought. I for one would be prepared to invest in such a project. It's all very well each one of us having their own blog and writing 'thoughts' but in order for what you describe to happen, it must be a discipline that is activiely pursued, cultivated and practised - not merely mentioned in a couple of blog posts.

(...a couple of blog posts, it must be said, that have fiercely convicted and inspired).

I've long appreciated T. David's critiques of thin...

2009-03-13T23:42:00.000-04:00

I've long appreciated T. David's critiques of things evangelical and reformed. Though I’m not so sure I could appreciate Robert Dabney’s Lectures on Rhetoric or all the points Gordon highlights from this work, I can appreciate the idea that “only 15% of sermons… had a discernible point. And of those 15%, less than 10% had a point based on the text of Scripture.”

Much of what takes place on a given Sunday in the First Church of America is barely connected, if at all, to the person and work of Christ, as it’s revealed in all of Scripture. Like Kim Riddlebarger alluded to recently, most of what’s said and done “at church” on Sunday is not worth our getting out of bed.

Sir, may we see Jesus! From all of Scripture! Not in abstraction or as a mere moral exemplification.