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The Sola Panel is dead; long live the Sola Panel! by Tony Payne (4 comments). Regular Sola Panel readers will no doubt have detected a little slowness and quietness over the past six weeks or so. … more
Kids’ culture watch spot: Facing fear by Gordon Cheng (3 comments). By popular demand (two people asked), here is my next script for a culture watch spot I did with the kids … more
Daniel 2-7, Harry Potter and Narnia by Gordon Cheng (1 comment). It's a Sunday as I write this, and I'm speaking on Daniel 2 and 7 later this morning at a friend's … more
A constituent on same-sex marriage by Sandy Grant (34 comments). Last year, the Australian Parliament agreed that its Members of Parliament (MPs) should seek the … more
A tribute to John Stott by Sandy Grant (2 comments). Friends, I'm not ashamed to say I shed a tear when I opened up my computer on Thursday morning to read … more
Talkin’ ’bout my generation (part 3): On giants’ shoulders by Scott Newling (26 comments). This is the third post in this series; you can read part one, and more
Bible reading with kids by Sandy Grant (0 comments). I was asked for recommendations for resources that would encourage parents to read the Bible with their kids, especially … more
Talkin’ ’bout my generation (part 2): Stepping aside (not out) so others can step up (not in) by Scott Newling (3 comments). This is the second post in this series; you can read the first post, Unassuming … more
One more sip of the coffee by Tony Payne (8 comments). Sandy Grant is a man of integrity. Back in the early days of Sola Panel, I wrote a post … more
Talkin’ ’bout my generation (part 1): Unassuming generations by Scott Newling (30 comments). There is a model of ‘intergenerational theological decline’ that has been doing the rounds of late, and perhaps you … more
Tony Payne
Paul is one of the Staff Editors at Matthias Media. He is married to Cathy and has three fantastic kids. He loves student ministry, reading, writing music and playing the saxophone, and is looking forward to meeting Jesus face to face.
Sola Panellists
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- Mark Baddeley
- Andrew Barry
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- a local church and a certain Christian publishing house. (Sometimes the latter vocations can happen without the first.) Many people call him a nerd, which he prefers to geek. He\'s keen on biblical studies, languages, great technology, science fiction, coffee, photography, frisbee, family, jazz, and hats. You could call his tastes eclectic. ");'>Sam Freney
- Sandy Grant
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- Gavin Perkins
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- Jean Williams
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- Girl Talk
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- Jean Williams's blog
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- Nicole Starling's blog
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- The Proclamation Trust
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Mark, I reckon one of the blokes around who does what I think you are looking for - expound the text, but with passion and application - is Sinclair Ferguson.
I am really enjoying - or rather being taught and moved through - listening to his Six People You Meet En Route To Calvary series - apparently they were mid-week lunchtime Bible studies and so are quite concise.
I do listen to audio downloads on and off, and one of the traps I was falling in to was mainly listening to conference talks (Together for the Gospel, Desiring God, 9Marks interviews etc). I noticed that for some reason, these often end up being topical/doctrinal talks rather than the bread and butter systematic expository preaching that at least some of those guys do week by week in their home church. So I am trying to hear some of the latter as well.
Thanks for the post, Mark. One problem is that great expository preaching also skillfully weaves in great biblical, historical, systematic and pastoral theology into the sermon, without losing the expository thread.
I fear that those committed to expository preaching sometimes don’t see the role of weaving in the other theological disciplines into the expoisition. What do you think?
Thanks for your post Mark
You said:
‘We need a serious conversation about what preaching really is, why good sermons succeed and bad sermons fail.’
As a listener, I would like to suggest one very big problem has to do with a lack of understanding of the Word of God on the part of the preacher.
Once the word of God is understood, as it is intended to be, then the rest tends to fall into place to varying degrees over time.
A ‘great’ preacher will humbly submit to Christ, and so understand the scriptures (Christ) that he can explain them in such a way that everyone can respond in obedience of faith for the sake of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Mark
This is an excellent post. One of consequences of the massive and relatively sudden rise of the ‘internet preacher’ is that our preaching heroes have changed. And the new heroes for all their strengths (and the strengths are considerable!) lack one essential ingredient (at least in the examples I have listened to): their sermons are rarely driven by the text.
What I mean is that they tend to preach their frameworks rather than the unique and often surprising message of this particular passage. As you point out, the invaluable legacy of Stott (mediated to us by Chappo, the Jensens, John Woodhouse et al, and further reinforced by Dick Lucas, David Jackman etc) was to preach THE PASSAGE, to make ITS message the message of the sermon.
Now to get that message across to the hearers, there’s more to be said and done than just tamely rehearsing the content of the passage. But the driver of the sermon has to be hard work the preacher has done in the text. That’s where we discover what we have to say!
TP
I would venture that many who attempt the preaching task but fall into one of the two errors you mention set out to be nothing else but biblical, profoundly theological and thoroughly engaging.
Why do they miss the target? My answer is ‘time’. To to a good job on the text and then do the work needed to apply it to the minds and hearts of the congregation is a big time commitment. So I think what then happens is that they choose: either spend the time on the text (and end up dry), or spend the time at the other end (engaging, with superficial content).
Perhaps an answer is to preach shorter sermons? It might be easier to do both in 10 minutes than both in 20-25. Or perhaps reduce all our other midweek commitments and distractions, like commenting on posts…opps, back to it!
Greetings Mark
Would Jesus, in his preaching, have reached the bar set by John Stott? Or was he guilty of “launching pad sermons”?
Advent Blessings
Bosco+
http://www.liturgy.co.nz
Hit the nail on the head.
Mike
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