How I Accidentally Stumbled Across—And Then Fell in Love with—the Ordinary Means of Grace
In this post, Alex Duke tells a story of an ordinary preacher preaching a faithful sermon. He writes, “What happened over the next 40 minutes was as bewildering as it was beautiful. Now, I’d grown up in church. I’d read Christian books and led Christian Bible studies. I could explain how trusting in Jesus changes everything, and I could have probably articulated the teleological argument for the existence of God. I’d raised my hands in worship; I’d wept at my own sins and the sins of my friends. I loved Jesus. But I’d never heard anything like this. Because this plain-looking preacher with his well-worn Bible and his kind-of-pointless stool just stood there, explaining and applying Genesis 6 to all who would listen. And I listened, transfixed.”
Fisherman or Fishermen? Considering the Church’s Corporate Mission
We use “y’all” in the South, and it is downright biblical. As this post notes, “Western Christians often imagine the individual on the pier. Why? First, translators often flatten the distinction between second-person singular and second-person plural pronouns—between “you” and “you all.” Matthew 4:19 uses the second-person plural pronoun. So Jesus’ words could be translated, “I will make you all fishers of men.” The change is slight, but significant.”
Don’t trust your feelings, even your worst duffer sermons bring glory to God
As David Prince will often advise, you are not good at being self-critical of your latest sermons. You are too close to them. That is why you should necessary trust your feeling about them and what God is doing through them. Here, the author notes, “The point being, we shouldn’t assume that our feelings give us any real insight into what the Lord might be doing. Instead, we should preach the Word with confidence – even the ones we feel are right duffers – knowing that the sovereign God, whose Word we are trying our level best to handle well, will not allow it to return to him void. He will do with it whatever he wants to happen with it.”
