Articles

The notion of self-defined morality has become entrenched in contemporary Western culture. The world often invites us to freedom on our own terms, and it has peddled that idea everywhere from Supreme Court decisions to viral Disney lyrics (“No right, no wrong, no rules for me; I’m free! Let it go!”)¹

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William Sangster, the twentieth-century Methodist preacher, began a volume on preaching with these words: “Preaching is in the shadows. The world does not believe in it.”¹ Today the situation is graver still. Despite its recovery in some pockets of the global church in recent decades, strong, healthy preaching largely remains in the shadows—but now it seems many churches do not believe in it.

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In certain traditional Scottish Presbyterian churches, a few minutes before a worship service begins, the parish official ascends the stairs of the pulpit carrying a large Bible. Laying the book in its place, he marks the passages for that morning with ribbon markers. After a brief pause, he then descends the stairs and disappears.

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In the late 1960s, Martyn Lloyd-Jones gave a series of lectures on preaching to the students at Westminster Seminary. Explaining why he traveled all the way from England to Philadelphia to teach on the subject, he said,

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After Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51) and began to count the days to His arrest and crucifixion, the Gospel of Luke tells us of three men that He and His disciples encountered “as they were going along the road” (9:57). We don’t know who these men were, nor do we know what their history with Jesus was. But we know that they were at a moment of decision: Would they follow Jesus, or would they go home again?

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Imagine the hands of thirteen men at the Last Supper—twenty-six hands passing the bread, passing the cup, running fingers through hair, wiping crumbs from beards, one moment on the lap, the next on the table.

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John 17 gives us a glimpse into Jesus’ prayer life—the Son praying to the Father for the disciples who are immediately present and for all those who would later believe.

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Prayer is essential to the Christian life. Some of us take a more systematic approach, writing down requests and scheduling time for focused communion with the Lord. Others of us are more spontaneous, bringing our requests to God as they come to mind and throughout the day.

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In Mark 4, Jesus tells a parable in which a farmer sows seed in his field. As he scatters, the seed falls on four kinds of soils: on the path, on rocky ground, among thorns, and then on good soil (vv. 3–8). The sower in the story, as verse 14 makes clear, is the one who declares God’s Word, beginning with Jesus and extending to faithful Bible teachers in every age. Jesus’ parable teaches that whenever God’s Word is faithfully proclaimed, it is met with different kinds of responses.

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In medicine, certain vital signs—breath in the lungs, a pulse felt on the wrist, movement in the eyes—show that a person is alive. The same is true in the church, spiritually speaking: If a local body is truly alive, a few indicators will make it easy to tell. Where these vital signs are present in a congregation, they prove that Jesus Christ is in fact the head of that body.

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