A parable is a story or that could be true but the truth of the story is not the point. A parable has a truth about the work of God that is hidden from view and requires interpretation. The Bible is filled with parables. When we think of them, we mostly think of the parables of Jesus. However, Ezekiel was instructed to tell or display parables many times, and they are also found throughout the Bible. Nathan's story of the pet lamb [...]
This blog is in our Ministry Monday series. Read more articles for ministry by clicking here. Check back each Monday for more! How a pastor dresses for ministry is something that has certainly changed, and drastically so, in the almost three decades that I have served as a local church pastor. In those early days, I would not have thought of wearing anything other than business attire to the office, and would have always had a suit when I was behind the pulpit. [...]
Note: This is the third of a planned series of blogs on the family. Follow the Family Fridays tag in the future for more articles. In my pastoral experience, taking your children to church is a huge parenting advantage. The belief that children cannot benefit from "big church" has been harmful to children and their families. Here are a few things both you and your children gain when you take your children to church. Children learn to sit quietly The best way to [...]
In most denominational circles a confessional statement or a creed (with their marginal differences) are sacred holy cows, not to be questioned. Their presence saves the denomination from doctrinal drift and error, or so the parrots tell us. But is this the case? A little Baptist History I have a Baptist background, so I know Baptist history better than other groups. However, I suspect that the Baptist dealings with confessional statements is true of most in the free-church movement (a free-church is [...]
The church is not dead, but it sure is on its death-bed. Oh, I am fully aware that it will not die before the rapture, but I am also fully aware that a departure from the faith has happened in western civilization. Find any community in America that existed 25 years ago, and in that community overall church attendance has declined, often precipitously. This is true in the west as well as the east, in the north as well as the south. In every established [...]
Note: This is the second of a planned series of blogs on the family. Follow the Family Fridays tag in the future for more articles. I did not grow up using a King James Bible. Born in 1965, a KJV was never far from reach in my Christian family, but we were (at that time) solidly Southern Baptist, and that meant we used the version that most suited our needs or the one that "felt right." Most of my teenage years I used [...]
Every preacher has had the frustrating experience of coming home on Sunday afternoon, upset with themselves because of their presentation. Having preached multiple times almost every week since November, 1992, I know this frustration. I suppose I have delivered somewhere between 3,500 - 5,000 sermons over these 28 years. From this journey, I want to encourage preachers not to be over-prepared. Here is where preachers over-prepare In my experience, younger (or newer) preachers over-prepare in the area of presentation. They prepare pristine outlines. They prepare [...]
Note: This is the first of a planned series of blogs on the family. Follow the Family Fridays tag in the future for more articles. Talking is teaching. That is a plain and simple fact. What a parent often fails to realize, however, is that teaching does not have to be planned activity or spontaneous "teachable moments," but that it takes place every time the parent opens his or her mouth. Because of this, parents should make it a habit to talk, talk some more, [...]
Your local church, outside of a few stragglers, sits empty all but an hour a week. During that hour, it sits a third full (looking much like a Joe Biden rally). Your local theater (the movie kind or the play kind or the opera kind or the symphony kind or the lecture kind) hasn't had more than a maintenance man in it since April. Your local restaurant has blocked off half its dinning (or more). Your local library hasn't had a book [...]
One of the most important rules of Biblical interpretation is that "scripture interprets itself." One of the greatest errors in interpreting the scripture is that the preacher, professor, or student of the Word allows self to interpret scripture. To avoid this error when we study the Word, we need to make sure that we consider the source of a truth when we make the application of that truth. Doing so will keep us from making a dispensational error, which is important because if we do not rightly [...]
