What constitutes good preaching? A man once commented to me that such-and-such a pastor was the best pulpiteer in the city. It made me think: “Is a preacher like a Musketeer, a Buccaneer, or Puppeteer? Please now, a pulpiteer? Paul cut to the heart of this false thinking when he told his Greek, philosophy-loving friends that “Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.”
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This is the real tragedy. We don’t live by faith because we really don’t trust the living God. Our churches, our programs, our conduct is altogether human, too human. Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of compromised Christians, we ourselves default to a level of mediocrity that does not look like the mighty faith of the New Testament.
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Recently, I was bemoaning the state of male spirituality. I was genuinely grieved that I could not find a single male candidate to hire for job openings at the school.
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I was struck recently by these verses. The news of Jesus resurrection motivated Peter and John to action. They evidenced their desire to authenticate truth by their feet. Belief inspired change, displacement, and careful study of the evidence.
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Resolving to live in the power of God and not in the death of sin and failure is very difficult, because we are daily consumed by the latter and shrouded from the former. God is not dead however, in spite of Nietzsche. God laughed when He woke up one day and found that Nietzsche posted the Savior’s obituary. But who’s dead now?
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If God indeed gave us our message, why do we want people to tell us it was from Him? Is that really necessary? If no one walked the isle, no one said ‘amen,’ no one shed a tear, does that mean that the message was fleshly? Do we really need congregational reinforcement for something we prayed over days before we delivered it? We certainly don’t need that kind of pat on the back week after week.
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When a person becomes alienated from a Christian community in which he has been placed and begins to raise complaints about it, he had better examine himself first to see whether the trouble is not due to his wish dream that should be shattered by God; and if this be the case, let him thank God for leading him into this predicament. But if not, let him nevertheless guard against ever becoming an accuser of the congregation before God. Let him rather accuse himself for his unbelief. Let him pray God for an understanding of his own failure and his particular sin, and pray that he may not wrong his brethren. Let him in the consciousness of his own guilt, make intercession for his brethren. Let him do what he is committed to do, and thank God (Life Together 29-30).
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Because of the issues related to the adoption of the Common Core across the country, it is helpful to delineate as clearly as possible the dangers and benefits of this kind of philosophical shift. There is a fundamental need to reaffirm that the Bible is the Common Core. In order to clarify in detail the ramifications of what is going on around the country, I want to answer a few simple questions related to the implications of this new Common Core strategy.
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One day I was out with another Christian doing what I thought all faithful Christians do, programmed evangelism, door-to-door canvassing. We saw someone walking up the street, so I took a tract and approached him. When I got near, I held out my hand and offered him some literature. He began to walk around me, holding out his hand in refusal. He sped his pace up, spewing out fiery, caustic words like: “You’re a cult, a sect! You’re a cult, and I don’t want to have anything to do with you! You’re a cult!”
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