William Perkins despised ostentatious sermons.  Messages which seemed to be delivered in order to attract attention or impress listeners.  Perkins, a Cambridge-educated English cleric and theologian, was one of the foremost leaders of the Puritan movement in... Read More »

Preaching is more than just “standing up and talking about the Bible.” While it may look like that to the person sitting in the pew, for the individual standing up behind the pulpit, there is an entire framework driving that particular sermon. In t... Read More »

Last year, I had the opportunity to think through the biblical objectives for preaching in preparation for writing a prior blog for Preaching Source. This was a great exercise in critically thinking through what I must do when I stand to preach. There are some... Read More »

Most preachers have faced the frustration of the clock. A text is packed with information that begs to be explained and applied. The preacher, excited by what he has discovered through exegesis, anxiously anticipates showing the congregation the jewels within ... Read More »

I raised my son Joseph on a steady diet of Bob Dylan. I wasn’t too surprised, therefore, when Joseph became a fan of the young indie-rock and folk songwriter, Connor Oberst. Joseph noticed similarities between the younger artist’s writing style and the fam... Read More »

There is an Arab proverb that says, “He is a good speaker who can turn an ear into an eye.” Good speakers and preachers use words as artists use brushes and paint. If you would persuade, portray. Don’t merely present a truth, picture it. The Bible says t... Read More »

C. W. Brister,[1]C. W. Brister was a professor of Pastoral Ministry at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX for 47 years. During this time it was said that Brister instructed more men in pastoral ministry than any other in the history of... Read More »

One of my favorite television shows from my childhood was Full House, which chronicled the life of a widower Danny Tanner, his three daughters (D.J., Stephanie, and Michelle), brother-in-law Jesse Katsopolis, and his childhood best friend Joey Gladstone as the... Read More »

In the earliest surviving treatise on the subject of persuasion, The Art of Rhetoric (330 B.C.), Aristotle said there are three things that persuade listeners: logos, pathos, and ethos. Logos is the persuasive appeal of a sound argument supported by good evide... Read More »

As expositors, we’ve all struggled with how to make our sermons “stick” with our people. As we work through the text, wrestle with the syntax, and come to an understanding of the passage, we do so with the hope that on Sunday the congregation... Read More »