Don't Waste Your Life

There's a fantastic little book called Don't Waste Your Life written by John Piper that I would like to recommend to everybody. In the end you don't want your life to be wasted. This book does a good job helping you see the right perspective on living this life so that you don't waste it.

Here's the website by the same name. On the website you can order a paper copy of the book or you can download a .pdf of the book for free, and they've got some great little video podcasts that come out about once per week.

Happy reading. If you've already read this book, what do you think???

Between Two Worlds (ch. 2)

Chapter 2 – Contemporary Objections to Preaching

Stott lists the 3 primary objections to preaching in today’s world…the anti-authority mood, TV, and a contemporary atmosphere of doubt

• The Anti-Authority Mood

• Thesis of this point is that we live in a time with an unprecedented level of questioning the authorities that be. I agree with this. Stott offers a Christian response to the anti authority mood. Here are a few…

• We need to remember the nature of humanity. We have always been in rebellion. That does not mean preaching is useless.

• We need to remember the doctrine of revelation. He writes quoting another author, “A sermon by its very nature is a revelation, not an exhortation.” I could not disagree more. I think the Scriptures are the complete revelation of God, and our sermons are based on the revelation of God but are not themselves revelation. The purpose of a sermon is life change, exhortation.

• We need to remember the locus of authority. Preachers themselves are not the authority…the Word of God is.

• We need to remember the dialogical character of preaching. Preaching should be a silent dialogue between the preacher and congregation. As the sermon raises questions in the mind of the congregation the preacher should know his audience well enough to be aware of those questions ahead of time and attempt to answer them.

• TV’s ill affects on listening to sermons. Two of his main points about TV and its affect on preaching…

• TV tends to make people intellectually uncritical. This is the critical point…the inability to engage by thinking. I think this is so true. TV is too easy to consume. You only need the intelligence of a lump of mashed potatoes. On the other hand, it takes hard work to dive into the Scriptures. Speaking about the preacher’s need to reckon with their audience, Stott writes, “We can no longer assume that people either want to listen to sermons, or are indeed able to listen.” Wow.

• TV tends to make people morally disordered. Stott writes, “…our understanding of what is ‘normal’ begins to be modified. Under the impression that ‘everybody does it’, and that nobody nowadays believes much in God or in absolutes of truth and goodness, our defenses are lowered and our values imperceptibly altered.”

• Contemporary atmosphere of doubt
  

• Stott writes, “The contemporary loss of confidence in the gospel is the most basic of all hindrances to preaching.”

• He compares the current situation to the apostle Paul’s statement about the gospel in Romans 1:14-16 (under obligation, eager, not ashamed) by writing, “At present the church’s attitude to evangelism might be summarized in exactly contrary terms: ‘no enthusiasm, little sense of obligation, and considerable embarrassment.’”

• Stott offers a handful of solutions. His first is that we need to distinguish between the terms assurance, conviction, presumption and bigotry. I think this is critical b/c it is a good and right thing to speak up when you have done your research and are indeed speaking the truth (assurance and conviction). That being opposed to presumption (speaking w/o truly researching or knowing) and bigotry (blind and obstinate opinions).

Between Two Worlds...

Okay folks...I read a lot of books and I'm gonna start writing some small interactions (reviews?) about some of them. The reason I'm writing is to help me think as I read (this is important). I just finished chapter 1 of John Stott's Between Two Worlds. This is a book about preaching.

Between Two Worlds
The Challenge of Preaching Today
written by John Stott

Chapter 1 – The Glory of Preaching: A Historical Sketch

The goal of this chapter was to take a survey of the preaching of the Word of God, its high regard and great importance, throughout church history. As such, there was not much argument to this chapter since it was an introductory survey.

Let me list a few notable quotations from the chapter:

• From Chrysostom (4th-5th c.) bishop of Constantinople speaking about the healing of the body of Christ, “[the] only means and one way of cure has been given us…and that is teaching of the Word…without it nothing else will avail.”

• From Martin Luther speaking about the power of the Word of God in combating against the papacy during his trials, “I simply taught, preached, wrote God’s Word: otherwise I did nothing. And when, while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip and my Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a Prince of Emperor inflicted such damage upon it. I did nothing. The Word did it all.”

• From Stott, “It stands to reason that every recovery of confidence in the Word of God, and so in a living God who spoke and speaks, however this truth may be defined, is bound to result in a recovery of preaching. This must be why so many great preachers have belonged to the reformed tradition.”

• An observation from Stott, “So we come to the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The tide of preaching ebbed, and the ebb is still low today. At least in the western world the decline of preaching is a symptom of the decline of the Church. An era of skepticism is not conducive to the recovery of confident proclamation.”

• This book was written in 1982. I wonder what Stott’s evaluation would be 25 years later? I’m sure he would be very proud of Joel Osteen’s expository sermons.