One of the clearest lessons we learn from church history is that strong biblical preaching is absolutely vital to the health and vitality of the church. From the birth of the New Testament until today, every significant phase of authentic revival, reformation, missionary expansion, or robust church growth has also been an era of biblical preaching…
It s remarkable, then, that over the past half century (or longer) evangelicals have devoted vast quantities of energy and resources to the invention of novel church-growth strategies that tend to discount biblical preaching. Such schemes sometimes even deliberately avoid any reference to the Bible altogether–especially when unbelievers are present. They aim instead at attracting people through marketing campaigns, entertainments, social activities, and other similar techniques.
Many of today’s evangelical church leaders have borrowed their management philosophies from the corporate world; they have taken their fashion from the entertainment industry; they have imitated the communications styles of secular mass media (favoring sound-bites over substance); and they have employed various bells and whistles from modern technology designed mainly to amaze and impress rather than to teach and edify. The visible church now mirrors the world to a disturbing degree.
A major portion of Christendom is spiritually starved–and sound, biblical preaching has become an extremely rare commodity.
John MacArthur, Foreword to Al Mohler, He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World (Moody, 2008), 11-12.
Pastors are busy. I know; I was one. They hardly have time to prepare their sermons every week while at the same time visiting, counseling, planning, fixing, etc. Ask most pastors what good theology books they've read recently and you'll be greeted by blank stares....
In the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518 Martin Luther set forward his radical new theology publically for the first time. This prompted two significant responses. First, the Strasbourg reformer Martin Bucer became a follower of Luther, and second, Johann Eck was moved...
Demonizing opponents is (unfortunately) a common practice in churches where the leadership is making sweeping changes that are opposed by some in the congregation. Those who oppose the changes, the pastor tells the congregation, are just like the Pharisees in Jesus'...
0 Comments