For this week’s one to watch instead of embedding video here I want to link you to a new site, that of the recently formed Gospel Coalition where among other videos there is one of Tim Keller speaking on ‘What does Gospel Centred Ministry look like?’. Click on the Media option and chose from the list.
Here’s my usual Friday round up of treasures unearthed from the web. Enjoy
Unashamed Workman interviews ‘Africa’s Spurgeon’
Pulpit Magazine gives ten reasons why we believe the Bible to be the Word of God
Thanks to the Thirsty Theologian for links to free downloads of ‘The History and Theology of Calvinism in MP3 format or as a large pdf file
John MacArthur asks ‘Why do evangelicals try so desperately to court the world’s favor?’
Peter Mead gives some tips on preaching from the Old Testament
Discerning Reader reviews ‘Pierced for our Transgressions’ a book I have heard described as “up there with John Stott’s The Cross of Christ”
Title of the week must go to David Wells on Satanism, Starbucks and other Gospel challenges
Finally, Camponthis has a good extract from Luther on the authority of God’s Word
For the next few weeks I am considering one of the most important and challenging areas of a preacher’s life and ministry: The Preacher and….himself. I begin with the first of two quotes from Richard Baxter’s classic, The Reformed Pastor. This week’s quote focusses on the negative and next week’s will be more positive in its tone.
“Content not yourselves with being in a state of grace, but be also careful that your graces are kept in vigorous and lively exercise, and that you preach to yourselves the sermons which you study, before you preach them to others. If you did this for your own sakes, it would not be lost labor; but I am speaking to you upon the public account, that you would do it for the sake of the Church. When your minds are in a holy, heavenly frame, your people are likely to partake of the fruits of it. Your prayers, and praises, and doctrine will be sweet and heavenly to them. They will likely feel when you have been much with God: that which is most on your hearts, is like to be most in their ears. I confess I must speak it by lamentable experience, that I publish to my flock the distempers of my own soul. When I let my heart grow cold, my preaching is cold; and when it is confused, my preaching is confused; and so I can oft observe also in the best of my hearers that when I have grown cold in my preaching, they have grown cold too; and the next prayers which I have heard from them have been too like my preaching. We are the nurses of Christ’s little ones. If we forbear taking food ourselves, we shall famish them; it will soon be visible in their leanness, and dull discharge of their several duties. If we let our love decline, we are not like to raise up theirs. If we abate our holy care and fear, it will appear in our preaching: if the matter show it not, the manner will. If we feed on unwholesome food, either errors or fruitless controversies, our hearers are like to fare the worse for it.”
Each week I aim to read a book about a preacher whose ministry God has blessed to see what I can learn about preaching. This last week I read the autobiography of William Still who was the Minister of Gilcomston South Church of Scotland in Aberdeen for 52 years until shortly before his death in 1997.
Someone has written, “While his name may not feature in the official annals of the Church of Scotland, it is doubtful whether any other individual in his Church during the latter half of the twentieth century had such a profound or widespread influence. For over fifty years Mr. Still pioneered a single-minded commitment to expository preaching and congregational prayer which made Gilcomston a beacon of Reformed and evangelical Christianity in Scotland.”
Dr Sinclair Ferguson has publicly stated that no one has had a greater spiritual impact on his life than William Still!
Still took charge of a very rundown congregation in the heart of the city of Aberdeen and almost immediately saw growth and considerable to response to the Gospel as he organised large evangelistic campaigns. Before long the large church building was filled and the place was a hive of activity. But within a very short time he became increasingly convinced this wasn’t the right direction for his ministry. “I was beginning to discover, almost by accident although I know the Lord has another name for it, the value of the systematic teaching of the Word of God……And if it is true, which I fervently believe (and with some experience to back up my opinion) that there is no part of the Word of God which can be left out if fully rounded Christian characters are to be formed, then there is no alternative to ministering the whole Word of God…..The difference between ‘using’ the Bible for evangelistic material and setting out systematically to expound it in its entirety is so great that if I had seen the change from the one to the other in those radical terms when I started, I think I would have been daunted.”
What William Still discovered was that his popularity suddenly waned and his large congregations decreased very quickly. He describes the experience as “humiliating”. For several years as he pressed on with this new strategy he faced opposition and dissent, losing a number of his elders and leaders. In time, however, God richly blessed his ministry, especially among students, and Gilcomston thrived and flourished under the expository ministry of the Word.
Alongside the ministry on a Sunday Still began to write congregational Bible Study notes for his church a practice which he continued for 50 years and during his long ministry, both in preaching and in writing he taught the whole Bible more than once.
Still’s other lasting influence was the establishment of ‘The Crieff Brotherhood’ (or Crieff Fellowship) as it is now known ; bringing together a small number (initially) of like minded men who were committed to the authority of God’s Word to encourage one another in their lonely task. From a handful of men the Fellowship now numbers several hundred who meet several times a year.
Having met the man himself on several occasions and having sat under his ministry more than once, here was a men who certainly practiced what he preached. He wasn’t, at least in his later years, a charismatic and larger than life person, certainly not in the normal sense, but there was a presence about him because of his integrity and passion for God’s Word.
I came away from this autobiography with two strong challenges. Firstly, William Still was committed to God’s Word as the life changing and life building power of God. He had witnessed - and been part of - much Christian work that was somewhat superficial and exciting but was disillusioned by the results. He found in Scripture - in every part of Scripture - a force that not only saved men and women but built them up in their faith. He writes, “One of the things - the most fundamental thing really - which I have discovered in the process of systematically preaching is that there is no part of the Word of God which (although it may incur opposition and offence) when it is handled with care, respect and due attention to context and watered by prayer, does not yield saving as well as sanctifying truth.”
The second challenge was the way Still was prepared to go right against the stream of his day. It’s easy to forget just how uncommon his approach was. Indeed, he wasn’t aware of anyone else adopting this style of ministry; not even of Lloyd-Jones who was ministering in London. Thanks to William Still there are now many faithful expositors in Scotland, but he was then ploughing a very lonely furrow and yet stuck at the task in the face of many discouragements and falling numbers. In a day and age when people want quick results, when there is a lack of confidence in the Word of God as being sufficient to do its work, when even evangelical preachers are copping out and opting for the exciting and dramatic because it appears to work quicker and better, William Still is a great example of a man who proved the power of the straightforward, faithful and consistent exposition of God’s Word.
Of William Stlll it was written, “A man whose very life breathed the grace and love of God, no one who ever met him, received his counsel, or sat under his ministry, could have escaped the sheer Christlikeness of Mr. Still’s life. In the early days of his ministry he wrote: “There is no part of me, or of my life, that I will withhold from the work that God has called me to.”
This week’s preacher making ‘The Preacher’s Choice’ is Thabiti Anyabwile, Minister of First Baptist Church, Grand Cayman. A convert from Islam, Thabiti was kind enough to respond to my request for the ten books that have been most influential in his life and ministry.
(My thanks to Ryan Thompson for permission to use this great photo)
I’m not sure you can do much better the Bridges on the nature, challenges, joys and calling of Christian ministry. Every pastor (Christian!) should read.
Bonhoeffer’s discussion of cheap grace vs. costly grace ended once and for all any “easy believism” in my thinking. And the fact that he lived the way he did drove the points home all the more.
3 and 4 were the first two books I read as a new Christian. The Lord was kind to start me off well.
Classic.
I bought the book because it sandwiched together “Joy” and “Fear.” I kept reading the book because it illustrated so well how my joy was connected like a Siamese twin to a proper filial love and reverence for God.
Absolutely insightful and entertaining.
Probably the 3rd and 4th books I read as a Christian. Were the first books I read on the church and her condition. It was my introduction to people like Robert Godfrey, Kent Hughes, S. Lewis Johnson, Ed Clowney, Al Mohler, Mark Dever and Sinclair Ferguson. Some of whom, in God’s providence, would become friends and partners in ministry. Began to settle for me the centrality of the church and the gospel in the Christian life.
10. A.W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God
Despite reading Packer and Lloyd-Jones as my first books as a Christian, these were the ones that connected the dots for me in terms of coming to a reformed understanding of the faith. I’d also have to mention some of Sproul’s work as well.
This weekend’s choice is the Gospel, but probably not as you’ve heard it before. Thanks to Worlds Apart for the link
While working on notes for a seminar I am preparing to give I came across the following.
The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith points out six aspects that bear an inner witness to Scripture’s authority. It stirred and warmed my heart and I trust it does yours too.
1. “The heavenliness of the contents”
The things of which Scripture speaks are of such a nature and a depth that no man or angel could ever have known of them if God himself had not revealed them. We read of the Trinity of the Godhead, the incarnation of the Son, the mystical union of Christ and the members of his body. We are challenged by its calls to holiness, righteousness and Godliness. Who could be the author of such a book but God himself? No other book is of such a unique character and the men who actually wrote the words of Scripture must have been taught by the immediate inspiration of the Spirit of God.
2. “The efficacy of the doctrine”
The reading of God’s Word has changed men’s hearts and had tremendous effect on their lives. The Scriptures have power to convince and awaken and wound the conscience (Hebrews 4:12); they are powerful to convert and change the hearts of men (Psalm 19:7); they are powerful to bring dead men alive (Psalm 119:50; Isaiah 55:3); they have power to bring joy and comfort to those in deepest distress (Psalm 19:8). When applied by the power of the Holy Spirit of God they have a powerful effect on its hearers (1 Thessalonians 1:4-5).
3. “The majesty of the style”
There is a majesty and loftiness about the Scriptures which is not to be found in any book of human authorship. God is revealed in a way that could only be due to God himself being the author (Isaiah 57:15; 1 Timothy 6:15-16).
4. “The consent of all the parts”
There is a perfect agreement between the Old and New Testaments; between the types and figures under the Law and the things prefigured under the Gospels; between the prophecies of the Scriptures and the fulfilment of the Scriptures. Considering the various human authors, the enormous time-span covered, and the variety of social circumstances, the way in which there is such a constant consent and awareness between all the various parts of Scripture is a testimony to its Divine authorship. Never has an alleged contradiction or error within Scripture been proved.
J C Ryle, an Anglican, comments on this issue: “The writers were men of every rank and class in society. One was a lawgiver. One was a warlike King. One was a peaceful King. One was a herdsman. One had been brought up as a publican; another as a physician; another as a learned Pharisee; two as fishermen, several as Priests. They lived at different intervals over a space of 1500 years, and the greater part of them never saw each other face to face. And yet there is a perfect harmony among all these writers! They all write as if they were under one dictation. The style and handwriting may vary, but the mind that runs through their work is always one and the same. They all tell the same story. They all give one account of man, one account of God, one account of the way of salvation, one account of the human heart. You see truth unfolding and developing under their hands as you go through the volume of their writings, but you never detect any real contradiction or contrariety of view.”
5. “The scope of the whole which is to give all glory to God”
This is quite unique in all literature. Men usually rather hide their blemishes than publish them to the world, but the writers of Scripture overshadow their own name, taking any glory from themselves and directing it to God. They do not spare their own feelings. Moses records his own impatience when he struck the rock and tells us that he could not on that account enter into the Promised Land. David relates his own acts of adultery and bloodshed. Peter acknowledges his cowardice in denying Christ. What man that writes history would blacken his own face by recording those things about himself that might stain his own reputation? Surely had their pen not been guided by God’s own hand, they would never have written that which reflects dishonour upon themselves. But their intention, under the leading of the Holy Spirit, was to give all glory to God, and draw no praise to themselves. The design of the Scriptures is to give God all the glory; the design is not to exalt but to debase and empty men, and exalt God’s name and grace in the world.
6. “The full disclosure it makes of the only way of man’s salvation”
No human could have invented such a marvelously wise way for man’s recovery. What man could ever have conceived or devised such a humbling way of salvation that depended not the slightest on his own efforts or achievements? Only a Divine authorship accounts for such a realistic, honest understanding of man’s nature, man’s need and the provision God has made for his need.
A brief round-up of what I’ve stumbled across on the web this week:
Steve Lawson gives us ‘Keys to Rightly Handling the Truth’
The History and Theology of Calvinism
Biblical Preaching reflects on the use of Old Testament stories as illustrations
Tim Challies has a selection of quotes on the Bible and I took great comfort from this one: “God sometimes blesses a poor exegesis of a bad translation of a doubtful reading of an obscure verse of a minor prophet.”
Acts 29 brings us Mark Driscoll’s distinctions between religion and the Gospel and Al Mohler has an article on the urgency of preaching
For the last in the series on ‘The Preacher and….Prayer’ I have pulled together an assortment of quotes on the subject from my own collection. Watch out for a new ‘The Preacher and……’ theme next week.
Prayer is not an elective but the principal element in the kaleidoscope of spiritual characteristics that mark a preacher. These traits unite into a powerful spiritual force; they build a spokesman for God. Jesus, the finest model, and other effective spokesmen for God have been mighty in prayer coupled with the virtues of godliness and dependence on God. The composite of spiritual qualities that centres in prayer is conspicuous in God’s long line of proclaimers in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and in church history, even to the present day…..Preachers who follow the biblical model take prayer very seriously. In sermon preparation, they steep themselves in prayer.” James E Rosscup
“Prayer must carry on our work as well as preaching: he preacheth not heartily to his people, that prayeth not earnestly for them. If we prevail not with God to give them faith and repentance we shall never prevail with them to believe and repent.” Richard Baxter
“Satan dreads nothing but prayer. His one concern is to keep the saints from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.” Samuel Chadwick
“Strange it is that any discussion of preaching should take place outside the context of believing prayer. We have not prepared until we have prayed….We cannot represent God if we have not stood before God. It is more important therefore for me to teach a student to pray than to preach….” David Larsen
“The young preacher has been taught to lay out all his strength on the form, taste, and beauty of his sermon as a mechanical and intellectual product. We have thereby cultivated a vicious taste among the people and raised the clamour for talent instead of grace, eloquence instead of piety, rhetoric instead of revelation, reputation and brilliance instead of holiness.” E M Bounds
“If we would prevail with men in public we must prevail with God in secret.” H A Ironside
“A sermon steeped in prayer on the study floor, like Gideon’s fleece saturated with dew, will not lose its moisture between that and the pulpit. The first step towards doing anything in the pulpit as a thorough workman must be to kiss the feet of the Crucified, as a worshipper, in the study.” Thomas Armitage
The preacher under the spotlight in this week’s book was described by Emil Brunner as “the greatest preacher of Reformed Theology in the twentieth century” and few would argue that Dr D Martyn Lloyd-Jones was deserving of that accolade. Tony Sargent’s book, ‘The Sacred Anointing’, analyses the theology and preaching of Lloyd-Jones and helps us understand the man behind the ministry.
Lloyd-Jones, a Welshman who was born in the last year of the 19th century, became a doctor and a member of the Royal College of Physicians before God called him into the ministry that was to make him known the world over.
After 12 years pastoring a church in S Wales he joined Dr Campbell Morgan at Westminster Chapel in the very heart of London, succeeding him as Senior Pastor and serving there for a total of 29 years before beginning a wider ministry and seeing many of his sermons published. He died on St David’s Day, March 1st, in 1981.
Tony Sargent’s book is not a biography but an attempt to discover what it was about this man that made his ministry so successful. “For what was he looking? And why did he often feel so frustrated despite the accolades which came his way? What are the lessons both negative and positive we can learn from him?” (I can’t give you page references for the quotes because I have been reading a manuscript copy of the book kindly emailed me by the author, a personal friend of mine.)
Lloyd-Jones preaching style was simple and totally devoid of gimmickry. Sargent quotes the results of an experiment when thirty or so potential young preachers, the majority of whom did not have English as a first language, were invited to several consecutive seminars on the preaching method of Lloyd-Jones. Some knew of his ministry but hardly any had ever heard him preach. Part of the course involved listening to one of his sermons randomly selected. They found it to be i. totally lacking in humour, ii. sparsely studded with illustration, iii. saturated in Scripture references, iv. increasingly gripping and v. it left them with a sense of the greatness of God, a desire to hear more preaching like this and to cultivate such a style for themselves.”
His usual introduction was almost invariably - “The words to which I would like to draw your attention this morning are to be found in…” He would then preach for forty to sixty minutes. Jim Packer describes hearing Lloyd-Jones preach. “The sermon (as we say nowadays) blew me away…He worked up to a dramatic growling shout about God’s sovereign grace a few minutes before the end; then from that he worked down to businesslike persuasions calling on needy souls to come to Christ….I went out full of awe and joy, with a more vivid sense of the greatness of God in my heart than I had known before…The thunder and lightning; the gestures - kneading fists representing perplexed philosophers, the vibrating arm with open hand marking God’s descent in grace, the right-angled turn to point to heaven and hell (one side of the church for each, and always the same side); and the electric impact of those trombone-sforzando shouts about God.”
So what are the main lessons I have learned about Lloyd-Jones philosophy of ministry?
1. The preachers’ dependency on the Holy Spirit. As Sargent forcefully and convincingly shows, you cannot begin to understand Lloyd-Jones view of ministry or his effectiveness in ministry without understanding his pneumatology. Controversially, Lloyd-Jones believed in the baptism of the Holy Spirit as an experience distinct from salvation and he maintained that unction in preaching was one of the consequences of the baptism in the Spirit. Though many of us lesser mortals, myself included, might differ with him on this aspect of theology, we cannot dispute the evidence of the Spirit’s anointing on his ministry or his own sense of dependence on it. “Seek Him! Seek Him! What can we do without Him? Seek Him! Seek Him always! But go beyond seeking Him; expect Him. Do you expect anything to happen to you when you get up to preach in the pulpit? Seek this power, expect this power, yearn for this power; and when this power comes, yield to Him. Do not resist. Forget all about your sermon if necessary. Let Him loose you, let Him manifest His power in you and through you.”
Sargent sums up the Doctor’s position like this, “he believed passionately that Apostolic power for preaching the Gospel is still available within God’s sovereignty today.”
2. Diagnostic Preaching. This fascinated me. In Packer’s words, “He was in fact a brilliant diagnostician both spiritually and theologically.” The man himself said, “My early training in medicine and surgery are always with me. I look at a text, diagnose the condition and decide where I am to make the first incision. I cut deep through the layers of the tissue until I reach the heart of the problem. I deal with it and then rebuild and sew it up.” Sargent says this was a style Lloyd-Jones had learned and applied from his former chief, King George V’s doctor. “Horder would put up a number of possible diagnoses of a patient’s puzzling condition. Having erected them like skittles, he would encourage his entourage of junior doctors to consider each one, whether it should be knocked down or allowed to stand. The one which remained would be the correct diagnosis. This process involved observations and logical deduction. It demanded deep thought.”
Those who try and slavishly follow Lloyd-Jones microscopic approach to the detail of Scripture, analytically preaching at great length and sequentially through Scripture will probably fail in their task, at least in terms of effectiveness. However, we could learn much from the Doctor’s conviction that without the empowering of the Holy Spirit he could say nothing of spiritual benefit and also that the Word of God itself was what spiritually diseased men and women needed more than anything else.
A Prayer of George Whitefield:
““Yea…that we shall see the great Head of the Church once more . . . raise up unto Himself certain young men whom He may use in this glorious employ. And what manner of men will they be? Men mighty in the Scriptures, their lives dominated by a sense of the greatness, the majesty and holiness of God, and their minds and hearts aglow with the great truths of the doctrines of grace. They will be men who have learned what it is to die to self, to human aims and personal ambitions; men who are willing to be ‘fools for Christ’s sake’, who will bear reproach and falsehood, who will labor and suffer, and whose supreme desire will be, not to gain earth’s accolades, but to win the Master’s approbation when they appear before His awesome judgment seat. They will be men who will preach with broken hearts and tear-filled eyes, and upon whose ministries God will grant an extraordinary effusion of the Holy Spirit, and who will witness ‘signs and wonders following’ in the transformation of multitudes of human lives.”
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