Every Day Bible

a walk of discipleship

Luther’s Qualities of a Preacher

May 18

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In the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther taught passionately the importance of study. In contrast to the Catholic teachings of his day, he emphasized pulpit over altar, preaching over communion. (For good or ill, the pendulum now swings back!)

Luther gave nine “properties and virtues” of a good preacher. What say ye about them?

  1. Teach systematically
  2. Have a ready wit
  3. Be eloquent
  4. Have a good voice
  5. Have a good memory
  6. He should know when to make an end
  7. He should be sure of his doctrine
  8. He should venture and engage body and blood, wealth and honour, in the word.
  9. He should suffer himself to be mocked and jeered of everyone.

Luther’s Table-Talk: ‘Of preachers and preaching’ quoted in Stott’s Between Two Worlds

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Book Review: Captivating

May 10

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Captivating (Revised and Expanded Edition) by John and Stasi Eldridge

The subtitle says it all when it comes to this book’s goal: "Unveiling the mystery of a woman’s soul." The book didn’t so much unveil as it did remind. It would be the understatement of the century to say that men and women are different. (Remember Mars and Venus?) Man’s typical understanding of woman is the source of many a comedian’s jokes, but more significantly it’s the root of many of our world’s problems.

John and Stasi remind us men that women think, feel, and process differently. Being cherished isn’t a desire that’s on the top of my radar screen, but the Eldridges remind me that a woman want to be cherished. Remember dress up games and fairy tale endings? Life in the real world hasn’t crushed that innate feminine instinct.

Here’s a great quote that sums up a lot of the authors’ intent: "If we could read the secret histories of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostilities."

The book is a great conversation starter. It would be healthy for couples to read this alongside "Wild at Heart" to deepen our understanding of each other. The book is likely guilty of sweeping generalizations at times, but these don’t weaken the spirit of the book. Bottom line: it’s worth the read. Not earth shattering, but if it leads to more open communication between men and women, it could be life changing.

(Disclosure: I received a free reviewer’s copy of the book from BookSneeze.com. I’m allowed to review however I want…I don’t get fired for hating a book!)

Review: Same Kind of Different

May 1

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Several weeks ago, James and Harriett drove to Nebraska for a funeral. The Nebraska-Tennessee isn’t just a hop down the interstate, so of course they brought reading material.

Harriett came back from their trip without a voice—because she was so engrossed in the book, that she read it aloud to James. That was endorsement enough for me!

The chapters alternate, telling the story of two different lives. What could a loaded art dealer have in common with a homeless sharecropper? Everything and nothing.

The story read quickly and well. It is an emotional telling of two men seeking God from different places and having different struggles. It will challenge your thoughts about service, wealth, relationships, and the homeless.

Just watch out, guys. You might, um…end up with something in your eye near the end…

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Written Prayer

Apr 10

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A written prayer of A. W. Tozer taken from the Moody Handbook of Preaching:
O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
I’m impressed by the wisdom of this petition. While I’m grateful for our ability to spontaneously approach the throne, there is something special that is lost when we don’t occasionally take the time to prepare words for our creator.
Have a favorite prayer you’d like to share?

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Idling in Intellectual Neutral

Mar 23

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Came across this quote in a class I’m taking:

Our churches are filled with Christians who are idling in intellectual neutral. As Christians, their minds are going to waste. One result of this is an immature, superficial faith. People who simply ride the roller coaster of emotional experience are cheating themselves out of a deeper and richer Christian faith by neglecting the intellectual side of that faith. (William Lane Craig)

At the same time, I suspect there is another number of Christians who are idling in emotional neutral. Their hearts are beginning to harden. They rarely feel; they always reason. Pangs of sadness for the hurting are absent, only a dim satisfaction with the current status quo.

If only our hearts and minds were in gear!

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Satellite Launch in Florida

Mar 19

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A couple of weeks ago in Florida, we got to watch the launch of a weather satellite (GOES-P)…what a show! Here’s the video we shot with a little Flip camera:

As best I can tell, we were about 6.5 miles south of the launch pad. (See the other videos on the site for the footage that other people shot on the beach). That would fit with the ~30 seconds it took for the sound of the launch to reach us…a sound that was incredible!

Here’s the official NASA video of the launch. Really cool:

Space.com had a neat article about the payload as well. Enjoy!

The Resurrection of Jesus

Feb 16

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The message of the resurrection is that this world matters! That the injustices and pains of this present world must now be addressed with the news that healing, justice, and love have won…If Easter means Jesus Christ is only raised in a spiritual sense–then it is only about me, and finding a new dimension in my personal spiritual life. But if Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, Christianity becomes good news for the whole world–news which warms our hearts precisely because it isn’t just about warming hearts. Easter means that in a world where injustice, violence, and degradation are endemic, God is not prepared to tolerate such things–and that we will work and plan, with all the energy of God, to implement victory of Jesus over them all. Take away Easter and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring problems of the material world. Take it away and Freud was probably right to say Christianity is wish-fulfillment. Take it away and Nietzsche probably was right to say it was for wimps. — N.T. Wright

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Observation: What drew the most ‘amens’?

Feb 8

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Enjoyed visiting the ol’ alma matter for Lectures today. Something stood out to me in one of the lectures I attended. The speaker made several comments that were met with yells of “amen.” Within a minute’s time, he made two statements that each were met with an enthusiastic response.

The first statement: “We need to realize that everything–it is all about Jesus.”

The second statement: “We need to remember that the church is worth fighting for.”

The “amen” offered to the second statement was easily twice as loud as the first. That caught my attention.

There are several ways I could interpret this:

  1. We are living in a time in which people have not defended the church against slander, and it is really, really, really important we start defending her. Or,
  2. We like the idea of fighting for something better than we like the idea of personally living for Jesus.

I’ll leave the discussion as an exercise to the readers.

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What’s your focus?

Feb 3

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“In the average crisis, the crisis itself gets the attention God should have had. Helmut Thielicke said that during the bomb raids on Stuttgart he used to hear two kinds of prayers rising from the bomb shelters. Most prayed, “Lord, save us from the bombs!” and only a few prayed, “Lord, save us from the bombs.” Most believers cannot really get their minds on God when the crisis looms large. And preaching on a crisis will probably leave people talking more about the crisis than it leaves them talking about God.”

Miller, Sermon Maker p 130

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The Presence of God in Preaching

Jan 29

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When preachers lose track of God, their sermons get pushier. Not only that, when God is most absent in their lives, they are all the more present. The quieter God gets, the louder they get.

Barbara Brown Taylor raises the same issue:

Sometimes I think we do all the talking because we are afraid God won’t. Or, conversely, that God will. Either way, staying preoccupied with our own words seems a safer bet than opening ourselves up either to God’s silence or God’s speech, both of which have the power to undo us.

So we lose God when he’s quiet, because we’re too loud. We run from him when he gets loud, because we cannot stand the storm of his coming. Either way, we often come to the pulpit without him, having no clear remembrance of our last real conversation.

From Calvin Miller’s “Sermon Maker” page 18.

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