Angie Cheatham from Crossway:

At The Gospel Coalition, Mike McKinley discussed the centrality of the word and preaching in the planting of a church. McKinley says, “The word is the church planters biggest tool.”

2:20: God uses his word to build the church.
6:00: How does God’s word drive the agenda of the church?
6:45: What displaces the word in the life of a church plant and/or church planter?
8:15: My main job is to prepare to feed God’s people on Sunday morning.

The Word (TGC) from Crossway on Vimeo.

Getting Out – Tim Keller – TGC 2011 from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

13. Your associate pastor is warming up in the bullpen.

12. The praise band begins playing you off the stage.

11. When asked to read from the King James Version, you involuntarily blush every time you say the word “ass.”

10. The congregation is filling in the blanks of your outline before you get there.

9. You think the lyrics to a bluegrass song are really connecting with your audience.

8. When you pause for dramatic effect, several people giggle.

7. Your cell phone starts ringing, and you answer it.

Read the rest here.

From the Westminster Larger Catechism:

Q. 159. How is the Word of God to be preached by those that are called thereunto?

A. They that are called to labor in the ministry of the word, are to preach sound doctrine, diligently, in season and out of season; plainly, not in the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit, and of power; faithfully, making known the whole counsel of God; wisely, applying themselves to the necessities and capacities of the hearers; zealously, with fervent love to God and the souls of his people; sincerely, aiming at his glory, and their conversion, edification, and salvation.

Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is proclaimed, and received by the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be invented nor is to be expected from heaven: and that now the Word itself which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; for even if he be evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God remains still true and good.

Three points of qualification:

1. Certainly, this stress on the Word rather than the preacher does not excuse a lack of qualification on the part of the pastor (1 Tim 4:15-16).
2. The confession goes on to emphasize the illumination of the Spirit so the point isn’t that the Word can only be received from preaching.
3. I don’t mean to imply that I agree with everything in this confession.

HT: Z

Trevin Wax:

Those of us who are entrusted with the task of expositing the Scriptures in a local church must take care to verify our sources, illustrations, and stories. No matter how helpful an illustration may be, it is dishonoring to God if it is untrue.

Here are a number of urban legends that get repeated in sermons. Some are more pervasive than others, even appearing in commentaries and scholarly works.

1. The “eye of the needle” refers to a gate outside Jerusalem.

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God,” says Jesus in Mark 10:25. Maybe you’ve heard of the gate in Jerusalem called the “eye of the needle.” The camel could pass through it only after stooping down and having all its baggage taken off.

The illustration is used in many sermons as an example of coming to God on our knees and without our baggage. The only problem is… there is no evidence for such a gate. The story has been around since the 15th century, but there isn’t a shred of evidence to support it. . . .

3. Scribes took baths, discarded their pens, washed their hands, etc. every time they wrote the name of God.

As a way of getting across the reverence of the Jewish and Christian scribes toward God, preachers like to describe the honor given to God’s name. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence that scribes did these sorts of rituals every time they came across the name of God.

4. There was this saying among the sages: “May you be covered in your rabbi’s dust.”

This is one of the most pervasive and fast-spreading stories to flood the church in recent years. The idea is that as you walked behind your rabbi, he would kick up dust and you would become caked in it and so following your rabbi closely came to symbolize your commitment and zeal. Joel Willitts explains:

This is powerful stuff isn’t it? Well the only problem is that it just isn’t true… The context in which it is given in Mishnah Aboth 1:4 is expressly not what is assumed by those who promulgate this idea.

Read the whole thing here.

The Doctor’s basic case has been made. Preaching must convey the truths of the gospel as the basis for all Christian practice. It must arise out of the Biblical text to show that the message is from God. It should be heard in person in an assembled community. And preaching “sets up” everything else—it creates regenerated agents of justice in the world, it provides the material with which Christians counsel and disciple one another and which equips believers to share their faith with others.

But Lloyd-Jones has one more objection . . .

Read the whole thing here.

See also Is Preaching Simply One Alternative for Proclaiming the Truth

You can also see this post where Matt shares about what God has taught him through his brain tumor.