Paul Washer Interviews

Paul Washer talks about his conversion.

Paul Washer talks about what was behind his “shocking youth message.”

Paul Washer on Evangelizing Jehovah’s Witnesses

What Happens to Those Who Have Never Heard the Gospel?

David Platt presents a great answer to this question.

A Disciple Is Someone Who Knows What Time It Is

Trevin Wax has a good article on discipleship.

You can’t obey Jesus’ command to go and make disciples if you don’t know what Jesus means by “disciple.” And you won’t know what Jesus means by disciple unless you watch the the way He portrayed discipleship in His teaching, particularly in His parables.

In other words, discipleship is portrayed in terms of “wisdom,” and wisdom is defined by living in light of “what time it is.”

 

What Does It Mean to Abide in Christ

From Sinclair Ferguson’s book In Christ Alone.

The exhortation to “abide” has been frequently misunderstood, as though it were a special, mystical, and indefinable experience. But Jesus makes clear that it actually involves a number of concrete realities.

What are those realities?  Read the full article here.

Should the Church Cater to Millennials?

Trevin Wax responds to Rachel Evan’s article about why Millennial’s are leaving the church (which some have said isn’t backed up by the recent data.) Nevertheless, some of what Rachel says needs to be responded to.  While many of the things she says are insightful, Trevin points out some concerns.

One sign of Jesus’ Spirit is He convicts the world of sin (John 16:8). The sign of the spirit of this age is that the world is coddled instead of convicted. And those who marry the spirit of this age will always be widowed in the next.

Perhaps that’s why millennials have left the churches that most resemble the type of community described by Rachel at rates far greater than evangelical churches. When the counter-cultural message of Jesus is softened or tweaked, or the raging idols of this age (such as money, sex, and power) are overlooked or ignored, the cost of Christianity disappears. Christianity without a cost is Christianity without the cross. And Christianity without the cross isn’t Christianity at all.

Read the full article here.

Apologetics in Preaching

Dayton Hartman says apologetics must be part of a healthy preaching ministry. He see’s a two-fold problem:

There is a two-fold problem at hand:

1. In our proclamation we have assumed a Christian worldview on the part of our listeners, and this is a false assumption.

2. As we are communicating poorly, our audience isn’t even listening.

The solution?

The solution to this growing problem is to recapture the apostolic method of preaching. The first sermons of the apostles do two things: (1) make much of Jesus and His gospel and (2) defend the truths contained in the gospel.

He goes on to explain:

The text of Scripture is so littered with apologetic elements, I would argue that it is difficult to preach the whole counsel of God without incorporating apologetic elements into one’s sermons.

How does incorporating apologetics into our sermons work itself out practically? Quite often, apologetics should be included out of necessity.

Read the full article here.

Preaching Benefits from the Cutting Room

Michael Kruger has a helpful article on cutting material out of  your sermon.

And once you have your God-given audience in mind, then suddenly you have a reason to hone, shape, mold and craft the sermon to connect with the people to whom you are preaching.  And when you do that, some things get left out.  Some points aren’t as important as others.  Some illustrations just don’t work.

And this is, by far, the hardest part of sermon prep.  It is one thing to sweep together a bunch of information about a passage. It is quite another to shape that content with real people in mind.

Put simply, preachers need to make a distinction between mining and sifting.  Mining is the hardcore research that draws the raw material of a passage together. Sifting is the hard work of picking the jewels out of that material that are needed by your congregation. We do mining because we are textually-oriented. We do sifting because we are people-oriented. Good preachers do both.