For the Church

God’s Incomprehensibility and Eternal Joy

During my childhood, it was commonplace to lose sleep over an irrational fear of heaven.

Yes, heaven. As a child, I feared heaven more than I feared Hell. Of course, this was an irrational fear, but I had not yet been taught the Bible or discipled in areas of theology. Perhaps you wonder what would cause a child to fear Heaven over Hell?

There was an episode of The Twilight Zone that depicted a bank robber and his descent to Hell. However, he didn’t initially realize that he was in Hell. When he gets there, he realizes gleefully that every venture he undertook succeeded. Every bet in the casino pays off, and his every desire is fulfilled. Eventually, he tells his guide that he wants to go to “the other place,” meaning Hell. However, with a sinister laugh the guide tells the robber that he is in Hell.

That was my childhood conception of heaven. You see, while there were things that I enjoyed doing, and places I enjoyed visiting, my little heart was astute enough to know that all things that brought joy eventually lost their luster. The gleam of a new possession soon wore off, and every trip to Disneyland devolved to a hot, sticky mess. Try as I might to bottle joy, it always escaped, often times sooner than expected. The horror of the same old thing was abated for a while, but I could only evade it for a few hours, even with the best roller coasters.

I thought that heaven was going to be an eternal dinner party where the guests stayed too long. After all, where else would they go? I, too, suppose I prefer eternal boredom over eternal torture.

When I was around 12, in the midst of wrestling with my fear of heaven, I had a well-meaning Sunday school teacher ask other students and me to draw their idea of heaven for an assignment. Being a native Californian and a lover of golf, I drew the 18th hole at Pebble Beach. I remember watching Tiger Woods dominate the field at Pebble Beach, and the picturesque 18th hole situated at the edge of the Pacific married by love for golf with my love for the beach. However, an eternity playing the 18th at Pebble would not satisfy if, like The Twilight Zone suggested, it would grow to be a mundane exercise over millions of years.

As I grew in knowledge of my faith, I learned that the saints pine for heaven not out of desiring earthly joy, but due to a longing of the presence of God. Even the beauty of creation is calling to something beyond. Creation does not declare its own glory, but it testifies to the glory of God. However, even this revelation was no comfort. After all, I am capable of growing tired of people as I spend more time with them. How would this be any different? Would the first 10,000 years of enjoying God grow into an apathetic torpor? May it never be!

Lamentations 3:22-23

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

23 they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

I can still hear my grandmother singing this verse in her soft falsetto while she did chores around the house. One day, the repetition of, “new every morning…new every morning” finally penetrated my consciousness and confronted my fear of heaven. New every morning? Even when thousands of years have “passed” in the eternal state?

What does God’s incomprehensibility have anything do with my irrational fear of heaven? Recently, I came across this arresting statement by Augustine, “We are speaking of God. Is it any wonder if you do not comprehend? For if you comprehend, it is not God you comprehend.” Like my grandmother’s singing of Lamentations so many years ago, the truth of God’s incomprehensibility burrowed and lodged itself into my thoughts as a remedy for my fear. God is incomprehensible and dwells in unapproachable light. Nobody has seen him, but his light still beckons us.

God’s incomprehensibility is ignored, relegated to sections of various systematic theologies but rarely a cornerstone of our theological contemplation. Incomprehensibility means that we will dwell with Him endlessly and never grow weary of His perfections. The grandest peak or enthralling ocean view will seem like a pauper next to a prince in comparison to the smallest sin-free glimpse of God. What’s more, due to His incomprehensibility, that beatific vision is merely the smallest morsel of endless delight. It is almost too much to consider. All of the books that men have written about the nature of God do not even begin to capture the immensity of His beauty. Indeed, the greatest theologian and the child in the faith will stand on level ground with never-ending pleasure further up and further in.

May it never be that our consideration of dwelling in God’s presence fill us with dread. God is the same, yesterday, today and forever, which means that Christians will dwell in a world of incomprehensible pleasure. Indeed, His mercies will be new every morning.

Ronni Kurtz on How Reading Fiction Can Help You Read Your Bible

By Mike Brooks / Aug 5

FTC.co asks Ronni Kurtz, managing editor at FTC.co, “How can reading fiction help you read your Bible?”

The Innovation Dilemma in the Church

By / Aug 4

A problem we face as leaders is that the original mission is almost always overtaken by the way that mission is delivered. In 2005, the late Clayton Christensen wrote the book The Innovator’s Dilemma. He observed what happened inside businesses when they successfully developed a service or product and brought it to market. The dynamics hold true for ministries as well.

As a business has success with a new product, increased demand requires more organization. The delivery process is refined. There may be investment in the system that produces the service or product. People within the organization become convinced that their service or product – what they see as “The Best Way” – is the best or right solution to getting the mission done. Bureaucracy grows around its delivery and a self-perpetuating loop reinforces the value of The Best Way. New people join the team. Some are specialized and only participate in one aspect of the system that has developed. They do not have the perspectives of the whole, but they are very good at doing what they know how to do.

In the business world, the innovator’s dilemma reaches its peak when a new competitor enters the market. There is often an innovative improvement, and the incumbent organization, focused on delivering The Best Way, cannot adapt. They are experts at doing what they do best, not this new and novel solution. Their success has doomed them because they have become so good at what they do. The organizational culture affords no other means of delivery.

Do ministries suffer from the innovator’s dilemma? Yes, they do. It is hard for us in leadership to see it, though, because often we are living inside the system that is suffering from it. Another reason it is difficult to identify is that our competitors are different. We are competing against worldview and cultural change. We may have developed culturally relevant ministries, but rapid change has now made our Best Way, whatever it might be, irrelevant because the people it was designed to serve are growing old, the next generation is always different from the former generation, and culture has changed.

The classic example from business is Seagate, a company that once dominated the hard disk industry. As customers moved from larger drives to smaller ones, they squeezed more and more profit from the factories creating hard drives. They got really good at creating 5.25-inch hard drives. Then the industry shifted to smaller drives using different materials. Seagate could not innovate fast enough. Smaller players, not invested in the same production facilities, took over and Seagate faded.

Local churches also face the innovator’s dilemma. When you visit different churches, you begin to realize the extent to which our church models are copied from one another. Smiling door greeters, a couple songs, a warm greeting in which there is great effort to be sincere, announcements (or something like announcements that really are just announcements), a sermon with a specific application challenge, and a final song. The similarities between churches leads me to believe that this system, developed and used primarily by boomer church planters, is not keeping up with generational changes. It is a Best Way in need of a complete overhaul. COVID-19 presented the church with a huge opportunity to innovate the worship service for a twenty-first-century audience. From my perspective, very few churches took advantage of these opportunities. Going online with the same format is not innovative.

Henry Cloud wrote a whole book on why some things need to end called Necessary Endings. Sometimes our ministries need to end. A few years ago, the organization I worked for took over a failing ministry that had been in its prime two decades earlier. Its approach felt old, its champions had retired, and the time had come for a necessary ending. We counseled some staff to move on, asked a few others onto our team, and shut it down. We held a final goodbye celebration, inviting past stakeholders, staff, donors, and those who had been served by the ministry. We remembered the former days and gave thanks. People cried, mourning the lost past as it formally ended. It was a healthy goodbye and freed up all involved to move on to new and more relevant ministries. Necessary endings can thoughtfully bless those involved.

One more example might be helpful. I was invited into a discussion about missionary deployment that was led by a significant leader in global missions. He had started a major missions organization. The topic of our discussion was the length of time that missionaries serve on the field. In the past few years, that number has dropped. When this leader started out, missionaries would go out for years. Today, this is rare. The question on the table was, “What can missionary agencies and churches do to send people for longer periods of time?” This question is also one which countless mission pastors have asked me.

I value long-serving missionaries. But I also know that nobody in our culture today takes a job that they plan to have for their entire life. Most people change careers multiple times, let alone stick with one job for a lifetime. Imagine an interviewer at a major company asking a potential recruit, “So, you are twenty-five years old. Are you ready to work for us the rest of your life?” It is not how we look at employment.

I suggested that this is the new reality of work, not just missionary work. After being scolded, kindly, I was lectured about the nature of missionary work. One must relocate to a new geographic area. There might be years of language and culture study before the work can begin. Finally, evangelism, disciple-making, and church-planting take many years. The work requires long-serving missionaries, I was told.

That is probably true in some places and cultures. The question on the table, though, should be, “What is the mission?” Is the mission to send missionaries for lifelong careers, or is the mission to see the church planted in all cultures? What if these leaders asked, “How can we re-envision the missionary’s job in order to take advantage of shorter deployment windows?” When I suggested this, the group reacted with deep groans. Did I not understand the missionary task? I reminded them that Paul did not linger long anywhere he went. After much discussion, I realized that the innovator’s dilemma was in full force. Nothing I said could dissuade them from a model in which the missionary would live on the field for decades before being fruitful. The largest potential missionary force lays outside the US and Canada; it is ripe for partnership and in need of funding. Yet, these leaders remain convinced that the solution that worked in 1970 is the best solution for today. It is a solution for some, of course. But it will not meet the need we face. Yes, there will be some pioneering missionaries that will go for a lifetime. We should encourage that. We should also see the potential for midterm missionaries who can bless thousands through indigenous partners. The goal remains the same; the means need innovation.

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Peter, Put Away Your Sword

By / Aug 4

I can’t say I blame Peter. His Master was under attack, the one he left everything to follow. His best friend was being betrayed and falsely accused right before him. If you’re going to carry a sword, you must be prepared to use it. And what better time than then? It was his duty to protect Jesus, an honor even.

So Peter decided to fight. And it was over as quickly as it started.

The sword unsheathed. The flash of metal in the torchlight. The servant clutching his ear, or what was left of it, in pain. Then the stern rebuke.

“Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Matthew 26:52-54).

As Peter chose the sword, Jesus chose the cross.

That night in the garden and the days that followed were a rollercoaster ride of failure and redemption for Peter. His transformation became evident in the stories that followed in the Acts of the Apostles.

But with the completed scriptures today, we can see the radical difference in post-Pentecost Peter in his New Testament letters. Rather than spilling ink on all the incredible events he witnessed like walking on water, the Transfiguration, the empty tomb, he chose to write as a humble leader to humble exiles.

He clearly grew a lot. The lessons he learned fill the space between his words. And this is especially evident when he instructs the early believers on how to deal with hostile authorities. Like that night in the garden, powerful people in the first century sought to destroy Christ and his disciples. The Roman Empire led by Nero was beginning to grow tired of these Christians. The antagonism from the culture around them was pressing in.

No doubt, some of these early Christians were ready to reach for their swords. Like Pre-Pentecost Peter, they may have begun to justify their own self-defense.

With that in mind, Peter shares what he had learned from Jesus thirty years earlier: “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people” (1 Peter 2:13-15).

Peter’s instruction provides a window to his changed heart. He had retired his sword and taken up his cross. And his words call us to do the same.

Like Peter and these early believers, we face hostility from without. The governing authorities that rule over us may even oppose our faith. We are tempted to strike back, to lash out, to cut them. We justify the need for retaliation. “If Christians don’t stand up and fight back, who will?”

So we take up arms in a perceived culture war, and we fight for our rights, freedoms, values, etc. And the voice of our Savior echoes in our minds: “For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Or, all who take up social media anger will perish by social media anger. Or, all who take up political power will perish by political power. In other words, the very weapons we wield become the means of our own self-destruction. If God wanted us to fight for him, don’t you think he could at once send more than twelve legions of angels?

Rather than a sword, what we need is a cross. Subjection and submission may seem foolish, almost as silly as offering your other cheek when you’ve been slapped. But therein lies the power of God.

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

When we choose the cross over the sword, we have a power much greater than our fiercest strike. Rather than screaming louder than the world, we can actually “put to silence the ignorance of foolish people” (1 Peter 2:15). And through our Christlike submission, those who oppose us “may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12).

But is this the kind of “winning” we truly desire?

If the other disciples had been prepared for battle that night, maybe they could have staved off the arrest of Jesus. Maybe they could have even escaped and fled the country. But as Jesus made clear, then the scriptures would have not been fulfilled. The life of Jesus could have been spared, but the souls of men would have been lost.

The way of the cross is not the easy way or the natural way. But it’s the Jesus way. So put your sword back in its place and pick up your cross. Either way we perish, but one leads to true victory.

Episode 129: Managing Expectations in the Church

By / Aug 4

On this episode of the FTC Podcast, Jared Wilson and Ronni Kurtz talk about those times in ministry when things don’t go as planned.

Sam Bierig on Why Wise Speech is Vital in Today’s Culture

By Mike Brooks / Aug 3

FTC.co asks Sam Bierig, dean and assistant professor of Christian theology at Spurgeon College, “Why is wise speech vital in today’s culture?”

The Purpose of Sunday is the Re-evangelization of the People of God

By Jared Wilson / Aug 2

I have a friend who argues that there should not be an element in the Lord’s Day worship gathering called “preaching.” He says that in the New Testament, the concept of preaching is almost exclusively bound up with evangelism — preaching the gospel — and thus what happens during the sermon time should be simply called teaching and conducted more along the lines of instruction than proclamation. Preaching, then, is what takes place outside the four walls of the church in our sharing of the good news with the lost.

I agree with his premise but not his conclusion. Yes, the concept of preaching in the New Testament is almost exclusively bound up with the proclamation of the gospel. But I believe my friend’s error is in believing that the gospel is only for the lost.

Christians need the gospel as much as lost people do. Not in the same way, of course. But just as much.

The New Testament tells us that our present status and ongoing sanctification is empowered by the gospel of grace (1 Cor. 15:1-2), that our training in godliness is conducted by the gospel of grace (Titus 2:11-12), that our transformation into Christlikeness is enabled by the beholding of the gospel of grace (2 Cor. 3:18). Therefore, we cannot and must not reserve the gospel only for the lost.

The sinner’s need for the gospel doesn’t end when he is converted. While the fullness of eternal life is bestowed upon the vilest sinner at that point, he still needs the good news to grow him, mature him, sanctify him. And when we stand before Christ our Judge at the last day, we will be standing on nothing more than the gospel for our acceptance even then.

What we do in our church services, then, ought to be seen as orchestrating another needed encounter with the glory of Jesus in his gospel. We sing gospely songs, pray gospely prayers, and — yes — preach gospely sermons, not just that anyone in the room who doesn’t know Jesus may have the opportunity to be saved, but so that all the saints gathered have the best opportunity to be built up in Christ.

The Lord’s Day gathering exists primarily, in fact, for the regular re-evangelization of the people of God.

The Impossible Weight Of Earning

By / Aug 2

If you have tasted bile as it burns acidic in the soft tissue at the back of your throat, you don’t need me to describe it. I wonder how many of those young boys were tasting it for the first time as the boats neared the beach close enough to hear the whine of projectiles overhead. I wonder how many bit their tongue in terror, the taste of blood diluting the bitter bile. I wonder how many wished in haunted dreams that that bitter taste was the only bitterness they had to endure that fateful day.

76 years have passed since the turning of the tide of war swept onto those bloody beaches in Normandy. Every year since, the waves on that sand have not been able to fully erase the stain of horror that unfolded on the distant shores of France. Surrounded by thousands, lonely boys still died alone, thinking of home and loved ones. Victory extracted a heavy price. The eventual celebration still carried with it an almost unbearable weight.

Like many others this year, I turned again to a movie to help embed the tragedy of this great victory. Arguably the greatest of its genre, ‘Saving Private Ryan’ is one of the few war films that puts forward a story that truly engages with the viewer by portraying the nobility of characters, yet without glorifying war. It is not for the feint of heart. Yet even as I still feel my pulse quicken and my breathing irregular, it pales into insignificance compared to the terror those young boys faced down for the sake of my freedom. They should be remembered. It is right to honour them, even while lamenting the tragedy of war.

The film is confronting, but not gratuitously, violent. Yet it isn’t the visual intensity that often brings me to tears, instead, it is the gentle moments of humanity wrapped in the abrasive machination of warfare that cuts deep into my emotions. Scene after scene unfolds with the masterful touch of the director, building a story that eventually climaxes on a lonely bridge and spills over amid all the confusion of battle into a conversation that always leaves me in tears.

I don’t cry because of the tragedy of war, nor do my tears flow for the tragic death of a much loved and revered character. My tears fall in that moment because it is there that I see the hollow hope of this world. ‘Saving Private Ryan’ is a film that in almost every way echoes grander themes of redemption and sacrifice, of sin and a saviour. As a minister of the gospel, my heart is drawn to the premise of the few who would traverse hell itself in search for the one who must be brought home at all cost. The canvas is set, the paint is laid down layer upon layer, and when at the end my heart is souring in expectation for the final triumphant stroke, it does not come. Instead, the image is marred by the empty anthem of this world, “Earn this.”

Days later, I still feel the aching throb of a narrative which is greater than the film. The closing scenes still haunt me. A grey-haired man standing before a memorial stone with tears streaming down his face, desperately seeking the affirmation of his family that he has somehow earned the gift of life he’d been given, a gift bought with the blood of those who’d sacrificed their life for his. “Have I been a good man? Have I been a good husband? A good father? Have I earned this?”

We are rightfully inspired by stories like these, yet they carry an awful weight. Devoid of the gospel, stories like these impart the impossible weight of earning. Ryan was given a gift, yet the very gift he was given became the weight of despair that would shackle him for the rest of his life. How good would be good enough? Were all my efforts enough? Has my life been sufficient to balance the sacrifice made on my behalf?

The tragedy of this story is that it is played out in countless pastoral conversations across our country. I sit and hear the same desperation echoing from hollow hope even of those who call themselves Christians—“Have I earned it?” Men and women who hold back from the remembrance table because they don’t feel worthy. Men who silently fade away from fear that their past failures have forever tainted their position before Christ. Women who settle for far less, their vision so consumed by shame that they have no room for the embrace of Christ.

And I want to scream. I want to scream to those men and women who wonder in desperation. I want to scream to them the very same words I want to scream to Ryan in the closing scenes of this great movie. I want to embrace them in firm arms, I want to press my hands against the side of their dropping heads and lift their eyes to mine. There, gazing past all the fear and despair, I want to shout, “He is worthy! Jesus is worthy! That’s the whole point of the gospel. His worth in the face of my failure, his sacrifice for my freedom, his death for my life, his sorrow for my joy, his stripes for my healing—all of it points to the fact that I will never earn this, everything is about Jesus. It’s all about grace!” That’s what I want to yell.

Instead, I quietly pray for a miracle of the Spirit, and I open my Bible with them and read.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. – Ephesians 2:1-10

Don Whitney On Praying The Bible

By / Jul 30

We asked Don Whitney, “What does it mean to pray the Bible, and why is it important?”

Preaching is Indispensable

By / Jul 30

Preaching is not optional to the life and health of the church. A church that does not emphasize and value preaching is not simply a different style church, it is an unfaithful church. J.I. Packer warns,

History tells of no significant church growth and expansion that has taken place without preaching (significant, implying virility and staying power, is the key word there). What history points to, rather, is that all movements of revival, reformation, and missionary outreach seem to have had preaching (vigorous, though on occasion very informal) at their center, instructing, energizing, sometimes purging and redirecting, and often spearheading the whole movement. It would seem, then, that preaching is always necessary for a proper sense of mission to be evoked and sustained anywhere in the church. ¹

Preaching is uniquely the God-ordained means for the proclamation of His gospel message and the nourishment of His people. Edmund Clowney critiqued the contemporary fascination with drama over preaching. He wrote, “Preaching the Lord as present in the Gospel narratives has more power than do the best films that seek to portray the ministry of the Lord. . . . The effort to give reality beyond the preached word fails as fiction. The actor is not Jesus.” ² Haddon Robinson noted that “To the New Testament writers preaching stands as the event through which God works”³ There have always been those who have considered straightforward preaching to be outdated, irrelevant, and foolish, but God calls it His wisdom and declares that He “was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe” (1 Cor 1:21).

According to Paul, preaching is an expression of the sovereign purposes of God. As Leon Morris notes regarding Paul’s statement about preaching in 1 Cor 1:21, “Pleased fixes attention on God’s free and sovereign choice.”⁴ In Speaking God’s Words: A Practical Theology of Expository Preaching, Peter Adam describes the great theological foundations for preaching with the following simple phrases; God has spoken, it is written, preach the Word.⁵ The Scripture begins with a sermon, Adam carefully explains,

God’s revelation begins with a sermon; God preaches and the world is made. ‘God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light.’ Six sermons are preached in a wonderful sequence; the Word of God is proclaimed in heaven’s pulpit and all comes to pass; the preaching forms the universe . . . the Word preached is no empty word; it accomplishes what it pleases and never returns void to him who speaks.

God’s proclamation of His own Word and the creative, effective power of His Word is immediately evident in the created order.⁶ Carl F.H. Henry points out the awe-inspiring wonder of God’s decision to speak when he writes, “Revelation is a divinely initiated activity, God’s free communication by which he alone turns his personal privacy into a deliberate disclosure of his reality.”⁷. According to His design God’s spoken Word soon became God’s written Word. Adam reminds that “What we have in Scripture is the revealed and preserved words of God.”⁸ Jay Adams avers,

These written and preserved words of God possess no less authority than the spoken words of God. Commenting on 2 Timothy 3:16, Jay Adams contends, “What Paul is affirming about the Bible is that it is as much the very word of God as if it had been spoken audibly by God by means of breath. It is His Word. If God were to speak audibly what He wants us to know, He would say nothing more, nothing less and nothing different that what He has written in it. It is identical with anything He might have spoken by breath.⁹

The reality of God’s revelation, preservation and inscripturation of His words led J.I. Packer to assert that Scripture itself “may truly be described as God preaching.”¹⁰ Everything God has revealed about Himself is to be proclaimed and the preacher who is faithful to the written Word of God is functioning as God’s mouthpiece to deliver God’s message to the people.¹¹ According to Roger Wagner,

Many preachers are tempted to identify themselves with the congregation in preaching, rather than with God. This may be the most significant reason for their feeling ill at ease in speaking to their congregation in the second person. Such preachers do not want their people to get the impression that the preacher is holier than them—for preachers know that they are not. Conscious as they are of their sin, it is natural for them to identify themselves with their people as being in need of the grace of God, ready and willing to hear what God has to say from His Word. The genuine piety behind such an attitude is indeed commendable. Nevertheless, this point of view can come to expression in the wrong way, and create problems for the preacher. If a man, even for the most noble of motives, identifies himself primarily with the congregation in preaching, rather than with God, the best he will be able to do is speak from God to them. He will not function as God’s mouthpiece, bringing God’s life-giving message to the people—correcting, rebuking, and encouraging them in God’s name (i.e., on His behalf).

Thus, the God who has spoken and caused His Word to be written commands those who lead His churches to “Preach the Word” (2 Tim 4:2). Preaching is dangerous—an indispensable act of spiritual war. Martin Luther explained the cosmic combat of preaching in this way: “Indeed, to preach the word of God is nothing less than to bring upon oneself all the furies of hell and of Satan, and therefore also of . . . every power of the world. It is the most dangerous kind of life to throw oneself in the way of Satan’s many teeth.”¹² I fear Luther’s words sound melodramatic to many contemporary evangelicals. It is hollow to defend the authority of the Bible while domesticating it by our lack of confidence in the indispensable power of preaching.

Editor’s Note: This originally published at Prince on Preaching.

James I. Packer, “Why Preach?,” in The Preacher and Preaching, ed. Samuel T. Logan (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1986), 21.
Edmund Clowney, Preaching Christ in All of Scripture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), 49.
Haddon W. Robinson, Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 17.
Leon Morris, 1 Corinthians, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, vol. 7 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 44.
Peter Adam, Speaking God’s Words: A Practical Theology of Expository Preaching (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996), 15-56.
Ibid., 15.
Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority: God Who Speaks and Shows, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1999), 17.
Adam, Speaking God’s Words, 27.
Jay Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Commentary: 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus (Hackettstown, NJ: Timeless Texts, 1994), 77.
James I. Packer, Truth and Power: The Place of Scripture in the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1996), 163.
Roger Wagner, Tongues Aflame: Learning to Preach from the Apostles (Geanies House, UK: Christian Focus, 2004), 74.
Martin Luther, “On the Councils and the Church,” in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, Weimarer Ausgabe, 25: 253.