January 2009

Free Book Challenge – Why I Love the Church

January 30, 2009

I love the local church. More specifically I love our local church, Jubilee. It acts as a channel of God’s blessings to me. I feel his presence in our meetings. I enjoy worshipping God there. I learn more about him, and his gospel, and how to live in the light of that wondrous news. I [...]

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Ten Conclusions About Preaching

January 28, 2009

This post represents the last of my republished series on preaching, and first appeared on my blog back in March 2007. I  still will be only blogging monday-wednesday-friday the next few weeks as my book deadline approaches.  I appreciate your prayers.  Here are 10 conclusions about preaching: Expository preaching should be defined as preaching that [...]

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Together At Butlins Session 4 – Terry Virgo

January 25, 2009

We are now drawing to a close of our weekend together, although there will still be swimming, and other activities this afternoon. I was pleased yesterday to get a fastest lap time on the gokarts of 21.150. If any of my readers were here and got a faster time, do feel free to let me [...]

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Together at Butlins 3 – Terry Virgo

January 24, 2009

Terry began by giving a report about his trip to Australia and New Zealand which really helped to put his talk into the context of a movement that spans the globe and is on a mission together. It was so exciting to realize how small we are here in this conference even though we are [...]

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Together at Butlins 2 – Dave Stroud

January 24, 2009

This morning I again plan on sharing only a short summary of Dave Stroud’s talk.  He spoke about how we are called to be salt and light in the world. Dave begun by speaking about the difference between Plato’s view of the physical body and realm and the Christian one.  He told us not to think of [...]

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Together At Butlins Session 1 – Steve Tibbert

January 23, 2009

This bit of live blogging will definitely not be as detailed as usual. You can blame my tiredness from the three hour plus drive. Friday night traffic had me wondering if I should have gone round the M25 the opposite way. But when I got here I found that everyone from Jubilee had the same [...]

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Together At Butlins

January 23, 2009

I interrupt my automated blogging to give you a bit of good old-fashioned live blogging from a Bible Weekend. Don’t expect too many posts, or the posts to be long posts. I won’t even be recording any interviews at this event. Why? Well, if you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know [...]

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"Preachers Are Modern Day Prophets" – Mark Dever

January 23, 2009

“. . . expositional preachers are modern day prophets, serving merely as conduits through which the Word of God may flow into the people of God in order to do the work of God in them.” Mark Dever

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What Black and White Preachers Can Learn From Each Other

January 21, 2009

The following is an old but very important blog post on preaching that you should read carefully and prayerfully. “Black preaching” is stereotypically thought to be emotional, even cathartic, rhythmic, centered on suffering and celebration, and ultimately doctrinally shallow. “White preaching” is thought to be (stereotypically) largely the reverse: doctrinal, cold, intellectual, etc. . . [...]

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MLJ on the Spirit’s Direction of a Preacher

January 19, 2009

You can call this what you will, but I would call it a prophecy. Certainly it seems like a communication from the Holy Spirit today. It might be enough to have got the Doctor thrown out of some churches… “..one morning while dressing, quite suddenly and in an overwhelming manner, it seemed to me that [...]

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John Stott on Conclusions that Count in Sermons

January 16, 2009

John Stott was a master of preaching. Here is what he believes on preaching for a response. You can read more here. “The conclusion should not merely recapitulate your sermon—it should apply it. Obviously, you should be applying all along, but you should keep something for the end which will prevail upon your people to [...]

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Steve Lawson on the Dangers Facing the Church

January 14, 2009

This quote is from Steve Lawson: “Two deadly dangers face the church as it advances into the 21st century.The first threat is the wholesale devaluing of preaching itself. In this paradigm shift, biblical preaching is being displaced by other things. Exposition is being replaced by entertainment; theology for theatrics; [the] unfolding drama of redemption is [...]

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MLJ – What is the Greatest Need of the Church?

January 12, 2009

“The most urgent need in the Christian Church today is true preaching; and as it is the greatest and most urgent need in the Church, it is obviously the greatest need of the world also.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, p. 9 Read more . . .

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John Piper on Exultation in Preaching

January 9, 2009

This from John Piper: “God exists to be worshipped—to be admired and treasured and desired and praised. Therefore, the Word of God is written primarily to produce worship. This means that if that Word is handled like a hot-dish recipe or a repair manual, it is mishandled. And the people will suffer. The Truth of [...]

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The Integrity of the Word of God

January 7, 2009

As a scientist, I have been raised with the idea that there is, indeed, such a thing as absolute truth. Either something has mass or it doesn’t. Either I will fall down because of gravity or float because I am in space. How can theology be any different? Give me someone who absolutely rejects the [...]

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Four Dangers of Preaching Slowly Through a Book of the Bible

January 5, 2009

I should say up front that this is an illusion. I may seem to be back from my blogging break over Christmas and the New Year, but the truth is, I am not. I need all my spare time at the moment to work on my book. So I’m planning to share some extracts from [...]

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Parenting Conference in the UK

January 4, 2009

The blogger in me is fighting what I know I really should be doing! I MUST basically shut down on blogging and allow some pre-planned posts to take over on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I really will do this, but not until tomorrow! As I have repeatedly told you, I do need the extra time [...]

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Buy Yourself A New Year’s Present

January 2, 2009

It’s the New Year, and maybe you have some Christmas money left. You could do a lot worse than treating yourself to something that will help you in your Bible study. Obviously, at the top of my list would be a Logos Bible Software package, which, as always, is available via that link on my [...]

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A Lovely Way to Start the Year

January 1, 2009

My lovely wife and I were both sitting here on our laptops next to each other in the lounge while the children were quietly doing things upstairs. It was a truly idyllic scene as my darling was editing the latest chapter of my book that I’ve been working on in some spare time over Christmas. [...]

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A HAPPY NEW YEAR . . . Hope to Meet You in 2009!

January 1, 2009

This post is scheduled to publish as soon as the UK date changes into 2009. For many of you, I’m sure this will be your first New Year’s greeting, if only because you live in the USA and follow us in the time zone. May the following verses be true of you this year: The [...]

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