Recommended Read: Christ-Centered Preaching

A couple of months back I finally finished a book that had been on my reading list for some time: Christ-Centered Preaching by Bryan Chapell. Chapell is the president of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. In his work on preaching, he presents a useful and helpful homiletical model that will benefit both the seasoned preacher and seminarian alike. It goes like this:

Explanation---> Illustration--->Application

The careful preacher will weave a web of all three components to most effectively communicate the content of God's Word.

There is a singular statement that stands out to me in Chapell's book: "Explanation is for application." While application cannot properly be done until the Word is explained, application is not merely some component of exposition that can be eschewed under some misguided solus spiritus principle. The audience has the right to ask, "So what?" Many well-meaning, young Reformed preachers (of whom I am one) would do well to heed Chapell's advice here because the temptation to turn a sermon into an "oral essay" is strong. By following Chapell's model of redemptive preaching, sermons will avoid this pitfall. However, by emphasizing each chain of the so called "double helix", the preacher will avoid turning his sermons into therapuetic drivel as well. In his irenic way, Chapell avoids the extremes of turning preaching into either a lecture or a psychological pep talk. To put it simply, he is balanced and that alone should make his discussion of preaching appealing.

Many homiletic texts read in a cumbersome fashion because of the technical language that the discipline involves. Chapell's style, however, is both at once meticulous and perspicuous. He writes in a way that is understandable without marginalizing the reader who is coming to such concepts for the first time. In addition to this, Chapell provides useful helps in the appendices at the end of the book. It does not matter if you are a young preacher or a veteran preacher. Get this book in your library!

Blogging for the Glory of God

I apologize to our small readership for my intermittent blogging as of late. During my hiatus, I have spent time reassessing my goal in blogging. Why do I blog? Am I obeying 1 Corinthians 10:31 in the posts that I make? And most foundationally: why blog? Here are some of the good reasons that I blog:

1. Blogging allows me to communicate gospel truths to an audience that I would not be able to have apart from this forum.
2. Blogging is an easy and accessible way to keep honing and improving my writing craft.
3. Blogging presents an interesting challenge: how to say more with less.
4. Blogging is a way to further interact with the Biblical text you are reading as well as other edifying books.
5. Blogging gives me an opportunity to further assess "aha" moments that I might otherwise miss.

Some dangerous reasons to blog:

1. Narcissism. This is pervasive in our culture today. With the advent of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, it is easy to mistake the right to speak with the right to be heard.
2. Self-preservation. There is a feeling of permanency to what we write. Deep within the human heart is a desire to make something truly lasting. Living for the glory of our name is in direct opposition to living for the glory of God's name however.
3. Relationships. Yes, this can also be a dangerous reason to blog. If you long for genuine, meaningful relationships with someone, don't try to maintain it through a blog.

As with any technology, blogging is not inherently evil. The list above is not an exhaustive one. There are more good reasons to blog and there are more dangers to be avoided. So, I ask you, why do you blog?

Calvin the Charismatic?

This morning I stumbled upon this while browsing another blog:

The inward attitude certainly holds first place in prayer, but outward signs, kneeling, uncovering the head, lifting up the hands, have a twofold use. The first is that we may employ all our members for the glory and worship of God; secondly, that we are, so to speak, jolted out of our laziness by this help. There is also a third use in solemn and public prayer, because in this way the sons of God profess their piety, and they inflame each other with reverence of God. But just as the lifting up of the hands is a symbol of confidence and longing, so in order to show our humility, we fall down on our knees. (John Calvin, Commentary on Acts 20:36)

Who says that physical expressiveness in worship is incompatible with the Reformed tradition?

C.S. Lewis on Art for Art's Sake

"'How soon do you think I could begin painting?' it asked.
The Spirit broke into laughter. 'Don't you see you'll never paint at all if that's what you're thinking about?' he said.
'What do you mean?' asked the Ghost.
'Why, if you are interested in the country only for the sake of painting it, you'll never learn to see the country.'
'But that's just how a real artist is interested in the country.'
'No. You're forgetting," said the Spirit. 'That was not how you began. Light itself was your first love: you loved paint only as a means of telling about light.'" -C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce p.80-81

While enjoying art for art's sake as an ultimate end of itself is dangerously idolatrous, don't writers, musicians, painters, sculpters who attempt art "only as a means of telling about light" end up producing kitsch? Doesn't this form of didacticism miss the primary point about art?