The Gospel and the Ministry

The Inevitability of Criticism To be a pastor is to be told (often or infrequently) that you’re doing it wrong, that you are wrong, or that everything in the church is just wrong. You’ve committed yourself to people who are battling pain, unbelief, and multiform...

Suppose you were called to pastor a church where none of the elders were biblically qualified, though they had been serving in their “positions of authority” for decades? Or what if you are serving at a church that had learned a bit about the Bible’s teaching on...

What is Evangelism? In 1918, the Archbishops’ Committee in the Church of England defined evangelism in the following way: “To evangelize is so to present Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, that men shall come to put their trust in God through him, to accept...

The Great Commission passages in Scripture (Matt. 28:18-20; Luke 22:44-49; John 20:2; Acts 1:8) are powerful reminders from our Lord and Savior about the importance of sharing the gospel and discipling those who come to faith. Taken individually, they may at first...

"We cannot cure humanity with the Gospel unless we have carried our own burdens to Him in a humble and secret life of prayer." However lovely or rugged the path before us, we cannot speak with incarnate truth of its splendor or severity without walking it. Thus, it is...

Principles for Evangelism The Gospel according to Luke describes what “Jesus began to do and teach” leading up to his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Acts, on the other hand, tells the continuing story of Jesus’s work through the Spirit-empowered church. As...

Preaching at someone's funeral is one of the most difficult aspects of pastoral ministry. It is all the more difficult when it is the funeral service of a loved one or a beloved member of the church. However, the most challenging of all is preaching the funeral of...

Who has not heard about Charles Spurgeon, David Brainard, and George Whitfield? When we think of these names, we can draw a direct line to one common theme through all of their lives. That theme is that they were all effective and prolific evangelists. Whether it was...

Jesus was a busy man, going from town to town preaching the message of salvation to poor, lost, and broken people. This is the setting that we see in Matthew 9:35-38:  “And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming...

The Knowledge of the Holy Proverbs 1-9 are like the dining table in a palace, and chapters 10-31 are like the spreading of the banquet. With her own strong hands, Lady Wisdom has hewn a mansion with seven magnificent pillars (9:1-6). Thus, every Proverb we discover is...

Becoming like God The knowledge of God that the fear of the Lord brings is not a sterile knowledge. Those who fear God come to know him in such a way that they actually become holy, faithful, loving, and merciful, like him. Abraham’s faithfulness to God in offering...

Breathe, pastor. You’ve made it this far. So don’t collapse when the adrenaline wears off. Remember Adam, formed from dust, whose first gasping breath came from God. “Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of...

Colossians 1:24, “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church”- Can you feel the apostle Paul’s heartbeat here? He was at that time imprisoned (Acts 28:16,...

Colossians 3:12-17 (Pt. 2 - The Christian Life and Preaching) Well, you remember, don’t you, that Paul exhorts us, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” That's what we are to do as Christians. We are to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. And already,...

In the nineteenth century, God was pleased to raise up a man by the name of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834 – 1892). As one studies the life and ministry of Charles Spurgeon, it is evident that evangelism was an integral part of his ministry. Spurgeon was a man who was...

About two years after becoming a Christian, I sensed the tug on my heart to be in pastoral ministry. Early on as a new Christian, I desired to preach God’s Word and counsel God’s people. However, the latter has always been tough since I’m naturally an introvert. It’s...

Battles that the Pastor Fights Every pastor is a unique person with his own gifting and personality, strengths and weaknesses; but most pastors also have several things in common. Most of us battle insecurity. Too often we’re workaholics and perfectionists. We tend to...

Why Pastors Should Be Good Readers from Crossway on Vimeo. Reading Literature for Better Understanding of the Bible One of the things pastors can do that shouldn’t be underestimated is to read a lot of literature. Have a little book of poetry by your bedside or read...

Christmas Eve found me sitting behind a table with a sign on the front, offering prayer to those who wanted someone to pray with them or for them. As the quiet, instrumental Christmas carols played in the background, my heart cried out, “What if I am the one who needs...

Life Intertwined with Ministry On April 25, 1564, about a month before his death, Calvin wrote his last will and testament. In it, he identifies himself as “minister of the word of God in the Church of Geneva.”1 He served in this role for nearly half of his life. As...

Preacher, you can preach better than John MacArthur, John Piper, David Platt, and H.B. Charles. I wonder if that surprises you? It should not. You can preach better to your flock than any of those world-renowned expositional preachers. If you played their sermons at...

Domestic problems, a crises of trust in institutions, an uptick of domestic violence, apparent devaluing of human life, a military spread too thin, widespread cynicism and record low opinion polls of politicians and other national leaders…but why focus on the...

Learning Obedience by Suffering One of the most mysterious statements about Christ in the Bible appears in Hebrews 5:8: “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.” The Holy Spirit had just asserted that Christ, though tempted as...

Both/And The role of application in a reformed preacher’s sermon is critical today particularly because this is the area where reformed preachers, many times, can fall short. In fact, there are some reformed preachers today who say I shouldn’t do the application...

Why Your Sermons Should Address Both Unbelievers and Believers from Crossway on Vimeo. Trinitarian Transformation All biblical preaching should accomplish several things. Number one: it should speak to the believer in such a way that it urges him to be conformed to...

Five False Dichotomies Which is your kind of preaching—expository or relevant? That is an example of a false dichotomy—a logical fallacy. False dichotomies operate under the assumption that there is no alternative, including no way to combine the qualities entailed in...

4 Essential Ingredients of Reformed Preaching from Crossway on Vimeo. Letting God Speak The vision for reformed preaching is to bring a comprehensive worldview of what Scripture is presenting in terms of truth. What reformed preaching does is it aims to take all of...

Preaching is not optional to the life and health of the church. A church that does not emphasize and value preaching is not simply a different style of church; it is an unfaithful church. J.I. Packer warns: History tells of no significant church growth and expansion...

If you’ve been around church for any length of time, you’ve probably been encouraged to practice “spiritual disciplines.” Pastors want their people to read the Bible, and pastors want their people to pray. The disciplines of Bible reading and prayer are often termed...

This morning I picked up the Wall Street Journal and read about new leadership at the General Electric Company. G.E. has apparently fallen on difficult times recently (as of this writing in October 2018). A new chief executive officer has been chosen. The standard of...

Helpful but Hopeless In times of tragedy and suffering, well-meaning pastors and friends frequently offer a religious word that momentarily appears helpful but proves hopeless in the end. As sufferers wrestle with how a loving, good God could allow such painful,...

Let’s say you are called upon to share with a small group or a large congregation the recent happenings at Vacation Bible School, a missions trip, or some other event at school, church, or elsewhere. How will you do it? What priorities will inform your 60 seconds or 6...

A Plethora of Prosperity Do you remember that song in 2009 by Toby Keith called I Wanna Talk About Me? The song title gives away the lyrics, "I wanna talk about me, I wanna talk my, I wanna talk about number 1 oh my me my..." and on and one it goes. Though this song...

There is no greater honor or joy than teaching the inerrant and infallible Word of the Living God. To get to teach the Pastoral Epistles is a particular joy and a challenge. You will have the opportunity to help your fellow believers enter into the first-century world...

INTRODUCTION The following transcript comes from a classroom experience on “applied theology,” or “pastoral theology.” The lecture that day went to the matter of how to incorporate reading deeply and widely into the ministry, and why such a strategy is important. In...

Introduction No less than Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield of Princeton Theological Seminary wrote, in his still-popular article of 1864: "Christendom has always reposed upon the belief that the utterances of this book are properly oracles of God. The whole body of...

Equipped for the Work I remember hearing a pastor of a fairly large church saying—at a counseling conference no less—that he wasn’t going to hire any more counselors on the church pastoral staff. What he meant was this: he had hired fine counselors whose schedules...

Preaching is a wonderful privilege. Preaching is declaration of the gospel—what the Apostle Paul calls in Ephesians 3:8 “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” C. H. Spurgeon remarked on that verse that “all God's truly-sent servants have experienced much delight in the...

Beauty of Corporate Worship It is beautifully fitting that Christian people gather for corporate worship every week. When they do, they give united expression to their truth-rooted knowledge of the triune God and their treasure-rooted affections for all God is for...

My son in the Faith, I want to ask you to step aside from the fast-paced track that you are on. I know that it has been a whirlwind of activity since you finally said “yes” to God’s call on your life to preach the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ. You left your...

My beloved son, there is something that I want to talk to you about today. It has been on my mind as I have observed our evangelical Christian culture. The matter that I seek to address is that of “the pulpit.” The “pulpit” is a word that signifies more than a...

It is well documented that the apostle Paul had a hard ministry. He didn’t exactly have an ivory palace gig where he studied the ancient writings of Moses and churned out volumes of commentaries. Instead, he was God’s chosen instrument for the work of spreading the...

INTRODUCTION Among English Baptists of the eighteenth-century, Anne Dutton was known as “the most theologically capable and influential Baptist woman of her day.”[1] Anne Dutton’s hymns, poems, letters, and writings have had a tremendous influence on Baptistic life in...

INTRODUCTION The greatest need for the Church today is to have faithful men who will proclaim the whole counsel of God. Instead of feeding the sheep, preachers today have often sought instead to entertain people. This article aims to look at the life and preaching...

During the past 16 years, I’ve been the pastor of (this) church. We’ve grown from 32 in attendance to over 5,000 members. Our budget has gone from $43,000 a year to $4.2 million….Will you let me help you lead your church to the next level? —brochure advertising a...

Generally speaking, there is usually a debilitating and persistent viral infection in every human undertaking. The pastoral ministry is most certainly not exempt. I recently saw a quote that struck me as having contemporary universal acknowledgment: "Who is Mr. Error...

Dear Young Pastor, I pray you’re doing well. I hope the family is fine and your ministry is increasing. But if you’re like me, you probably struggle at times. I imagine there are some things you “didn’t learn in seminary” that you wish you had. I bet you wish you had...

Evangelicals have a deadly problem. Our obsession with celebrity culture is a cancer destroying our churches from the inside out. You can see this obsession on display in a number of places. For one thing, every celebrity or an athlete who mentions God or stands up...

I don’t know many pastors who took up preaching because they loved preaching funerals. That certainly wasn’t on my radar as a seminary student. I also don’t know many pastors who genuinely enjoy making hospital visits. People tell me all the time they hate hospitals....

I am a pastor who loves to preach. I find joy in proclaiming God’s Word to people. The thrill of watching people’s eyes light up as the truth of God comes to life is addictive. There are just few things that compare. So when I see articles and posts on preaching, I am...

There is a famous story that relates to the ministry of Charles Spurgeon, but it is really a story about the ministry of the Holy Spirt. As a young man, Spurgeon was invited to speak at the Crystal Palace in London. It was a massive venue that held over twenty...

I recently listened to one of the fathers of our denomination speak about the “ups and downs” that he was experiencing in ministry. This man had planted a church in the PCA (which he subsequently pastored for many decades), oversaw quite a number of church plants out...

One of the perennial problems of the fallen human condition is that men and women love to serve when there is respect, reputation and remuneration involved, and not serve when it involves what they perceive to be a menial task done out of the sight of the prying and...

Introduction to the Reading In risky times, God is getting our attention. Sometimes we think of surprises in our lives as the interruptions of life. But there can be no journey of Biblical faith without a divine interruption in our lives. And there can be no beginning...

In my previous post, Truth and Love: Sharing Scripture and Soul, I addressed the question, “Does the Bible teach that in biblical counseling relationships are tertiary?” I was responding, in part, to a blog post I had read by a fellow biblical counselor, Donn Arms,...

During my law enforcement career, my comrades and I were repeatedly instructed to use caution when responding to an emergency call because, as the saying went, you were no good to anyone and a drain on available resources if you were involved in a vehicle crash on the...

“I just wish I got to do what you—get paid to serve Jesus,” he said to me, with eyes betraying the wariness of facing another Monday under the hot sun. This longtime church member, who owned his own landscaping business, loved talking theology but could not see the...

I have yet to meet a young man who enters the ministry with the intention to neglect his family. No one begins this way. However, some come to the end of their ministry and their greatest regret is how they led their family. We are not pastoring our church well if we...

Editor’s note: This is an eight part series by Charlie on expository preaching. In his first post Charlie looked at the essential element of good preaching. In his second post Charlie looked at preaching to glorify God and transform lives. In his third post, he looks...

“You need to know your people and they need to see you as their pastor. It’s important.” Bill said this to me on the weekend before I was installed as pastor. Bill was in his late seventies at the time. I was not yet thirty. “Everyone today says that visits are a...

Editor’s note: This is an eight part series by Charlie on expository preaching. In his first post Charlie looked at the essential element of good preaching. Today he looks at preaching to glorify God and transform lives....

The Essential Elements of Good Preaching I believe in sequential, expository preaching, so much so that I wrote an entire book about it entitled Preach the Word: Why I’m Passionate About Expository Preaching (Xulon Press: 2012). In the first two sections of the book I...

Robert Murray McCheyne famously said, “The greatest need of my people is my personal holiness.” Now, before the critiques are lobbed at McCheyne for having too-high a view of pastors, let’s be clear, McCheyne is not implying he is more important than Christ. This is...

Since the inception of the Church on the day of Pentecost, the “sermon” has been a central part to the worship experience. The history of the sermon is quite intriguing. The communication of ancient wisdom and tradition passed down and delivered into the hearts and...

About five years into the pastorate–trying to discern my own weaknesses and deficiencies–I started to realize that there are essentially four kinds of men (the lazy pastor aside) who labor in pastoral ministry–“the Idealist,” “the Visionary,” “the Worker Bee” and “the...

The blessings of ministry far outweigh the realities below; however, ministry is definitely not easy. Don’t waste your time and money going to seminary or college for pastoral training if you are not prepared for the negative aspects of ministry mentioned below....