Skip to main content

What is Wrong With Preaching Today?

I recently stumbled on a booklet by Al Martin, What is wrong with preaching today? at the Evangelical Library (London). It is 24 pages filled with excellency. You can get the electronic version for free at Grace Gems.  Here are a few quotes that struck me from it:

"All failures in preaching today are basically the failure either of the man who preaches or of the message he brings"

"The soil out of which powerful preaching grows is the preacher’s own life"

"The more you and I are known by our people, our influence will increase or diminish according to the tenor of our lives"

"The Word of God must be to us first of all be that Book which we relish because here we see the face of the God whom we love, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ"

"The problem with our preaching is the shoddiness of our lives in the realm of practical piety as expressed in domestic life and in our speech"

"You are never free to be an instrument of blessing to your people unless you are free from the effects of their smiles and their frowns"

"What hinders us from being faithful to men is really a form of self love. We love our own feelings so much that we are not willing to run the risk of offending people and getting them mad at us. Oh, they may perish in hell, but that is all right just so long as they perish loving us"
"
"All who listen to us preach for any measure of time should come to the conclusion after sitting under our ministries, that unless they repent and bring forth the fruits of repentance, they will perish even though their heads may be packed full of objective and correct orthodoxy"

"Doubts which are produced by honest self-examination in the light of the objective standard of the Word of God, may be the best thing that ever happened to some people....doubts will never damn a man, but sinful presumption will".

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Humility of Newton

Thou hast honoured me. Thou hast given me a tongue and a pen, many friends; (Thou] hast made me extensively known among thy people and I have reason to hope, useful to many by my preaching and writings... It is of thine own that I can serve thee. And if others speak well of me, I have no cause to speak or think well of myself. They see only my outward walk; to thee I appear as I am. In thy sight I am a poor, unworthy, unfaithful inconsistent creature. And I may well wonder that Thou hast not long ago taken thy word utterly out of my mouth and forbidden me to make mention of thy Name any more! JOHN NEWTON ( Source : Wise Counsel) Newton wrote these words addressed to God in his diary in 1789. In that year, Newton’s fame had grown significantly because of his publishing ‘ Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade’ and his appearance before Her Majesty’s Privy Council appointed to investigate the slave trade.  I find Newton’s words quite challenging. The words reveal a heart truly shaped by t

Pride vs Humility

Spiritual pride tends to speak of other persons’ sins with bitterness or with laughter and an air of contempt. But pure Christian humility rather tends either to be silent about these problems or to speak of them with grief and pity. Spiritual pride is very apt to suspect others, but a humble Christian is most guarded about himself. He is as suspicious of nothing in the world as he is of his own heart. The proud person is apt to find fault with other believers, that they are low in grace, and to be quick to note their deficiencies. But the humble Christian has so much to do at home and sees so much evil in his own heart and is so concerned about it that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts. He is apt to esteem others better than himself. JONATHAN EDWARDS  (Source: The Works of Jonathan Edward’s, Volume 1)

Inconsistency of Moral Progress

If morality, if our ideas of right and wrong, are purely subjective, we should have to abandon any idea of moral progress (or regress), not only in the history of nations, but in the lifetime of each individual. The very concept of moral progress implies an external moral standard by which not only to measure that a present moral state is different from an earlier one but also to pronounce that it is "better" than the earlier one.  Without such a standard, how could one say that the moral state of a culture in which cannibalism is regarded as an abhorrent crime is any "better" than a society in which it is an acceptable culinary practice? Naturalism denies this. For instance, Yuval Harari asserts: "Hammurabi and the American Founding Fathers alike imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in th