Spurgeon's book, The Soul Winner, is the kind of book you really need to read several times over the course of your life. I decided to dip into it once more over the summer, and read just the first chapter. It's a book I have recommended previously. I found the following quote which is interesting. He is speaking about how church growth statistics are indicative of something. I wonder how many Spurgeon lovers today would agree with his assessment of churches which are not growing by conversion?

"I am not among those who decry statistics, nor do I consider that they are productive of all manner of evil; for they do much good if they are accurate, and if men use them lawfully. It is a good thing for people to see the nakedness of the land through statistics of decrease, that they may be driven on their knees before the Lord to seek prosperity; and, on the other hand, it is by no means an evil thing for workers to be encouraged by having some account of results set before them. I should be very sorry if the practice of adding up, and deducting, and giving in the net result were to be abandoned, for it must be right to know our numerical condition. It has been noticed that those who object to the process are often brethren whose unsatisfactory reports should somewhat humiliate them: this is not always so, but it is suspiciously frequent.

I heard of the report of a church, the other day, in which the minister, who was well known to have reduced his congregation to nothing, somewhat cleverly wrote, "Our church is looking up." When he was questioned with regard to this statement, he replied, "Everybody knows that the church is on its back, and it cannot do anything else but look up." When churches are looking up in that way, their pastors generally say that statistics are very delusive things, and that you cannot tabulate the work of the Spirit, and calculate the prosperity of a church by figures.

The fact is, you can reckon very correctly if the figures are honest, and if all circumstances are taken into consideration if there is no increase, you may calculate with considerable accuracy that there is not much being done; and if there is a clear decrease among a growing population, you may reckon that the prayers of the people and the preaching of the minister are not of the most powerful kind."

— C. H.Spurgeon

UPDATE An friend of mine just emailed me the following, which we both agreed to keep anonymous.

On Spurgeon, firstly he was a man of his times. In those days active churches grew - churchgoing was a national habit, not a bizarre minority practice - that is one reason why CHS wanted to see conversions, not endless transfers to sit under his ministry.

I do believe that we can say today with confidence, however, that active churches don't decline unless something is wrong. We might struggle to grow - but note that he says that the keys are good preaching and good prayer, and if a church declines then something is deficient. He doesn't say that a church has to grow hugely - of course that is what we seek because we want to see people saved. My own small church has maintained and even gained a little in the last two years I have been there.

In my constituency (reformed evangelical (cessationist although I hate the term)) some churches grow. Prime example being Spurgeon's own Met Tab. Why? I say CHS's formula is correct - sound and inspiring ministry with strong evangelistic content, and prayer - those Tabernacle church prayer meetings are what I miss the most. People falling over themselves to call upon the name of the Lord, it was like a seige on the Throne of heaven. If I am ever in London on a monday night and free, that is where I'll be! Other churches grow too, and again the formula holds.

You might be interested to know that Spurgeon also preached that it was a glorious thing to hold to a losing cause. He cited Noah as an example. A minority of one. That is in an unpublished sermon due out from Day One in January 09. . . As a friend of my quipped recently 'How many converts did Jeremiah have?'

And all this said it is DOUBTLESS true that those of a high calvinist (hyper) tendency will always decry any numbers game as unspiritual. I count my congregations every week and keep records. I may become aware of personal spiritual declines but I must be aware of trends in the numbers. If they fall, even more prayer is needed!

Ultimately I have never visited a shrinking church . . .where I could not SEE why the church was diminishing. It may be hard for those 'faithful' ones there to accept that they need to change things - but facts don't lie. One of the greatest scourges of our independent churches today is a crying failure to raise up godly men, for ministers to spot and train more ministers, so that pulpits are not empty. It is so chronic one might almost call it a judgement.

In 14th place on the list of most read posts here on the blog during the first half of 2008 is my series on the Together On A Mission 2008 conference.

In the 13th most read post, I asked about favorite preachers. I gave my own answers back in 2005. There are no prizes for guessing who might be added to that list if I were to answer that question again today.

Thanks to my friends at Acts 29 I'm able to share some sessions with you from the Dwell London conference. This is a talk Mark Driscoll gave on how to preach Christ from the entire Bible. You can download the audio, read my notes below, or watch the video right here:




No one has a worse life than a church planter’s wife. Her husband is flat broke. He won’t stop working, but makes no money. And he wants to grow his church by getting her pregnant!

The big idea is this—“It’s about Jesus!” There is always something that churches use to keep people motivated. The only way you will maintain something is if it’s about Jesus. Everything has to be about Jesus, whether it’s counseling or groups or classes or preaching.

Six framing questions to help you in your preparation of sermons:

1. What does Scripture say?
   Does the Greek work? What exactly does it say?
   
   
2. What does this mean, i.e. to the original audience and to us?
   
   
3. How can I make it memorable?
   It can’t just be true—it also has to be easy for people to remember, to stay in their minds. How does one do that? Use doctrine—e.g. providence with Ruth. God orders her affairs. Big theological issues can sometimes be your hook. Or just a word, like grace—e.g. fifteen aspects of grace. Or an emotion. Naomi said, “Call me ‘Mara’ for God has made me bitterness.” If you’re in the book of Psalms you will have to explain "lament"—worshipfully grieving out pain. Or an image, like the throne. Spurgeon was best at taking images and captivating people with the images of the Bible. He said, “Some men preach heaven. I try to take them there!” Or a person,—sometimes the hook can be a character. Hang your sermon on the hook.
   
   
4. The apologetic question—How are people going to resist this?
   Assume they are going to fight it. Anticipate the probable objections and answer them. If you do this, you can’t preach for twenty-five minutes. The longer you preach, the younger the crowd if you are any good at it. Forty-five minutes to an hour plus is what many growing churches do. Classic Puritan preaching included this approach to any possible objections: “Some of you are thinking this . . .” It’s not that you are reading minds, just that there will be objections. Hell, sex, pornography, homosexuality, etc. will all raise objections in people’s minds. This is where you will see an angry response. If you say, “This is just my perspective,” it’s fine, but if you say “This is wrong!” there will be conflict. If they have a good reason you did not consider, then it is easy for them to walk out ignoring you.
   
   
5. The missional application—What does this mean for our community?
   What about our church, our families, our friendships, our city, our town, etc. Live in such a way that the rest of the city sees there is a different way of life—birth, work, sex, death, etc. For example, take sexual sin. It’s not just that you are disobeying, you are hurting the church and you are hurting the mission God has called you to—i.e. you are preaching a false gospel.
   
   
6. The Christological Question—How is Jesus the hero?
   Every single sermon needs to talk about Jesus as the hero. This will train the people to look for Jesus in the Bible. Also, if they don't hear Jesus they will make note of that. It will also quietly train people to be evangelistic. People will naturally bring their friends to church because they know you will always be talking about Jesus.

Jesus said to the Pharisees that they did not love the Word of God because they didn't love him. He is the fulfillment of the Bible. How you can find Jesus? Foreshadowing christophanies in the Old Testament, and the messenger of the Lord who is worshipped. Prefiguring types—e.g. Adam, the priesthood, David, the prophets, sacrifices, shepherds, judges, bread, wine, etc. Also, “Unlike the first Adam, Jesus passed his test in the garden” etc. Do not merely preach moralistically, i.e. there’s good guys and bad guys—do what the good guys do. Teach that in this Book they prefigure Jesus and he is the hero.

We tend to turn Old Testament heroes into super-heroes. They are people saved by grace and are not the heroes. God is the hero. The key is to make sure that it is solely about Jesus. Very few people do this consistently in their preaching.

Titles for God—“Son of man” from Daniel.

The big idea is this. Please tell people about Jesus. Too often people try and get them excited about being missional, etc. But to be honest, the only way to really get them excited is to tell them it is all about Jesus. If it’s about Jesus, it works. Even if you don't have the best building or the best band or the best preacher. The Holy Spirit likes to show up when much is made of Jesus. In some churches the people sing as if they had just been captured by Al Quaida, but the church is growing. Why? Because it’s about Jesus. The Jesus of the Bible.

A lot of things can be done wrong. But you have to do this one thing right. If you do it, it will make up for a lot of things that aren’t done so well. If your family and your church family will love Jesus, everything else will follow. GO AWAY AND LOVE JESUS.

Today I wrap up my interview with John Piper in this last segment. It is based on the video version of the interview, which can be viewed here. John talks about preachers he listens to and describes the circumtances which led him to the pastorate of Bethlehem Baptist Church. The three previous parts to the interview can be read at the following pages:

• John Piper on New Word Alive
  
  
• John Piper on Passionate Preaching
  
  
• John Piper on Prayer and Bible Study

Adrian
We have just been talking about studying the Word, and obviously books, but I guess for most preachers, they like to listen to other preachers as well. I guess you’re probably no exception to that. So who have you got on your iPOD that you’re actually listening to?

John
I do have an iPOD. It happens to sit in my speaker base in my bedroom as kind of an alarm clock. But my computer is in my study, and my treadmill is in my study. That’s the only time I ever listen to preaching—when I’m running. So three times a week, for thirty minutes or so, I’m listening to other people speak. So I download them from the Web, usually. Who are the last ones I listened to? I listened to [Don] Carson. I listened to R. C. Sproul. I listened to Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Somebody gave me the whole series of MLJ on Romans. I listen to C. J. Mahaney. I listen to John Sailhammer on the Old Testament. I listen to Carl Trueman on, what’s the topic? I can’t remember. A little while back. Basically, I’m looking for two things—one, contemporary relevant issues that I might want to dig into, or model preaching. So, whoever at that point, and they’re not always the same people, the model preachers and the ones who are talking about the things I feel like I need to get to know about.

Adrian
Okay. You’re obviously deeply committed to preaching and to pastoring, and you’ve been at Bethlehem an awful long time. I wonder, first of all, how did you make that decision to join Bethlehem, and was it a lifetime commitment at that moment, or was that something that evolved? How did it then develop into a long-term thing?

John
I was teaching Bible and Greek for six years at Bethel College from 1974 to 1980. I had a sabbatical and I was working on Romans 9—the book on justification of God—the odyssey basically, Romans 9. And while I was doing that, the Lord, I believe, just kept saying through the words of that chapter, “I will be proclaimed and not just analyzed.” And I couldn’t resist it after awhile. Finally, I began to ask those who knew me best, “What would you think if I left academia and took the pastorate as a preaching pastor?” And they all said, “Do it.” So, in December of 1979, I gave my resignation and started looking for a church. I said, “I’d like to spend ten years here.” Well, they said, “Ten years would be good.” And ten years went by like that. And now it’s twenty-eight. And I have no intention of going anywhere else until I’m done.

Adrian
Do you think that kind of longevity is important for a pastor?

John
It’s important, at least in volatile urban settings. In other words, where there’s a lot of change in the people, there needs to be less change in the pastoral ministry. Where the people are stable, say in a small town that has very little coming and going, the stability lies very much in the people. In an urban setting of growth, with a lot of people in and a lot of people out, there’s no stability in the people. And if it isn’t in the staff and elders, then it’s not going to be anywhere. So the degree to which there is movement among the people, it seems to me to be good. And I think it’s healthy for the pastor himself to press on in preaching in a way that doesn’t redo the same stuff over and over again. I mean, after the first five years I thought to myself, “I would not want to do this anywhere again.” I mean, those first five years are hard. You’re figuring out everything; you’re rebuilding everything. You’re trying to make some changes. And to start all that over again instead of building on it would have felt very discouraging to me.

Adrian
So for you the pull of the church was a stronger pull than the pull of Bible college or seminary?

John
Yes, oh yes. And the reason in that day was because, in the college, I felt like, year in and year out, I had the same age group (18-22). They were culturally basically the same. Their questions were, every year, the same. They always revolved around Calvinism and free will and sovereignty, and whatever. And in the church you’ve got cradle to the grave. You’ve got ethnic and cultural differences. You’ve got people all over the spiritual map on their questions. You’ve got dying and birth. You’ve got weddings and funerals. The reality of the totality of life—what that said to me was — “If this is real, if this Book is real, it will relate to all of that instead of this little slice of humanity that comes to college.” And I just wanted to see the Word of God take root in a people.

Adrian
That’s really interesting. Would you say, then, that part of your development as a pastor and as preacher is just being there in the long-term and seeing that kind of development?

John
Absolutely. I had probably preached fifteen times in my life when I came to this church. I was 34 years old and I was a teacher. I taught Sunday School. I didn’t preach around. Most of my colleagues preached on the weekend in addition to teaching. I said, “I’m not going to do that. I’m going to be with my family in church, sitting with my children at my side and my wife, listening to the Word of God every weekend, and I’ll teach a Sunday School class.” So I had done a few weddings, and I had done a few little sermons here and there. But I was an absolute green preacher when I came to Bethlehem. So all of my development as a preacher has been through these 28 years in the same pulpit.

Adrian
Okay. So, you’re a busy guy because you’re a preacher there, you preach regularly. You go to all these conferences. And I’ve noticed you almost always bring, if not a completely brand new message, at least a newly reworked version of it, perhaps slightly different . . . How do you manage to find all that time? Or is it just that you prioritize that and don’t watch too much TV?

John
I don’t watch any television. I don’t have a television.

Adrian
That’s what it is probably.

John
That certainly helps. And I have a wonderful wife who tolerates a very absent husband, even when I’m home. I ask her—I’m always taking her temperature as we do our dates on Mondays and go out. “How we doing, Noel? Do you want to make any changes?” She’s just so incredibly flexible that I married the right woman. And ever since we’ve been married, I’ve always worked, both in the day and in the evening. I’ve raised four sons, and now I’m working on one daughter. And they’re all married, and they have sons, and they’re following the Lord. So I feel some deep, deep gratification about that. But I always took from 5:30 to 7:00, and that was their time. I ate with them and then we had play time. We were kicking the ball around in the backyard or we were building towers and knocking ‘em down — this is your time. And I went to all their ballgames. A pastor has his own time. He can do whatever he wants. So 3:30 in the afternoon, while other guys are working, I’m banging my fists at the soccer match, or you’d call it football, to make my son, Benjamin, run faster . . .

Adrian
You played soccer?

John
I didn’t — I watched it.

Adrian
But, no, still, I mean . . .

John
Oh, I love it. We try, we try! (Laughing.)

Adrian
You have David Beckham now, of course.

John
Well, he did score a goal the other day. I think it was headlines. One goal out of this billion dollar deal. So . . . where were we?

Adrian
We were talking about football playing . . . you were just talking about all the time . . . .

John
Oh, the time to do things, yeah. The point was that even though I work in the evenings (at 7:00 I’m back in my study or with a book in my hand or at some meeting) and Noel is doing her handwork, or working on her projects, and I’m working away. But, really, the key is — I’ve been in the church long enough that they let me do what I want to do. And we’ve got such diversification staffing, that I’m the preacher guy. They want me to feed this flock on the weekend, and they want me to provide vision for the staff. That’s my title — Pastor of Preaching and Vision. I’m here in Wales, and I’ll be back to preach next Sunday, and most of them won’t even know I was gone.

Adrian
Yeah, sure. You write books. What would be the three books that you’ve written that would be your most important books, in your opinion? Three most important books you’ve written, or three significant . . .

John
I will be interested to watch from heaven to see what the answer to that question will prove to be, because I don’t think my answer really has any authority. I don’t know. Don Carson told me he thought Pleasures of God was the most important thing I’ve done, so I think I would put that in the top three. I’m going to put Desiring God there just because it’s the seminal book from which everything else flowed. And after those two, God’s Passion for His Glory maybe. That’s my [Jonathan] Edwards—Edwards is half of that and I’m half of that. And because Edwards is so important, and that essay, The End for Which God Created the World, is so absolutely foundational to everything I do and what I think, that may be the other one.

Adrian
Great. Well look, thanks very much for joining us, John. It’s just been wonderful to have a few moments here just to pick your brains . . .

John
Yeah. I wish we had more time. Thank you very much!

Adrian
God bless.

Yesterday we began sharing the transcript of my interview with John Piper at New Word Alive. Today we continue with John Piper talking about passionate preaching. The video of today's segment can be seen here.

Adrian
People do talk about you, John, as having a real sort of passion about you. It’s almost like a zeal, I guess. In fact, particularly when you’re preaching, I certainly experience that, having actually only heard you for the first time in the flesh last night, and so many people afterwards were saying the same thing. I was just blown away by the passion, and also by a sense of the presence of God that you brought when you were preaching. I guess that’s probably the best way of describing it. Is that something that you’re aware of in some way for yourself? Is that something you can explain a bit as to why you feel that other people experience that? Is it something you feel yourself when you’re preaching as well? How did that come about? Because I know, for example, that Lig Duncan said that when he heard you preach at Together for the Gospel, he felt, “Boy, I’ve never preached before. I’ve never done it.” So what is it about you? Is there something special about you? Do you have some kind of secret you can share with the rest of us?

John
I don’t usually feel that way when I’m done preaching, okay? I talked to Don Carson one time, and I regard Don as a very effective communicator and a brilliant person. He mentioned to me that he regularly walks away from his events feeling that he’s blown it, which made me feel better, because I don’t think you can ever quite know what God’s doing. At the times that I have felt bleakest about the way I did what I was supposed to do, others have testified to being helped. And the times I felt liberated, free, engaged — Did anything happen in them rather than just in me? So, I’m very suspicious about the way I feel about my preaching. I doubt myself regularly that my assessment of what just happened is accurate. Which helps me and hurts me. It means I never feel very excited about what I’ve just done, and it means I don’t fall out the bottom because I say, “Well, God can do what he wants to do. You know, Balaam’s ass can accomplish what he wants, so he might use that, even though I felt terrible about it. So I’m a lousy judge when it comes to saying, “Was there a presence of God, or was there an anointing, or was there an effect?”

I just know that what I want is the gift of self-forgetfulness in what I would call a full engagement, a full passion, a full zeal with what’s there in the text, and the reality of God in and through the text. I want to see him, and know him, be engaged by him, be thrilled by him, say it with whatever effectiveness I can, and let the chips fall where they will. And that, as far as my own subjective awareness goes, that rises and falls. One Sunday I feel thrilled. I feel met. I feel carried. I feel helped. And others I don’t. But that doesn’t correlate necessarily with what God is doing in the people out there. So, to me, an effective, experienced sermon would be when I forget myself. I’m not thinking, “Oh, I’m doing well here,” or “I’m doing badly here,” or “That was an effective comment,” — anything like that ruins it for me. The gift is when you’re not outside yourself watching yourself. You’re so here—you’re so here that you’re not at all conscious—there’s no two of you, there’s just one of you, and God and the people, and a transaction is happening that’s a miracle. Because you can’t choose to forget yourself. The act of choosing to forget yourself is self-awareness. So it’s a gift. It’s a phenomenal precious gift in the moment. You pray for it ahead of time, and it may come for twenty minutes and then you lose it for ten, and you’re thinking about your hands, and you’re thinking about your notes, and you’re thinking about the faces out there, and it’s all discombobulated, and then it may be taken away in the moment, and you’re free to . . . you go, and you wake up ten minutes later and — What was THAT? You know? That was free!! So that’s what I’m after.

I think there are ways to cultivate what I’m talking about. It basically is cultivating God-centeredness. It’s cultivating prayer. It’s cultivating a serious engagement with the Word. It’s cultivating asking certain kinds of God-centered, Christ-exalting questions. There’s a focus and a preoccupation. And then my root Christian hedonism, I mean, my root philosophy of life — whether you are satisfied in God really does make a difference as to whether you can glorify God! That’s a huge thing! It’s a theoretical construct that I think is in the Bible, but it has a practical effect because I really believe that if you’re not passionate about God, you won’t glorify him as much. If you’re more passionate about football than God, you glorify football. If you’re more passionate about food or cooking or sex or money or work or the stock market than you are about God, then that’s what gets glorified. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. That construct of reality has an effect on how you pray about your life and how you live you life.

Continued in part 3 . . .

In this section of our interview I begin by asking Ed if he thinks there is a particular type of preaching that is missional.

UPDATE
The Dwell Conference talks are now online, and you can download them.

I love the people at Resurgence. They keep sharing more and more video and audio—all for free. After my pastor, Tope, reported his experience in New York I wanted to watch some Tim Keller as, bizarrely, I hadn't yet listened to him or read anything by him. The Dwell talks are not online yet, so I watched Tim Keller's Gospel Coalition talk. I was totally blown away by it! Here are a few of the highlights I picked up.

Early on Keller explained that the gospel-bringer is not like an adviser coming to tell us a set of how-to’s, telling us to fight for our souls. Rather they are a messenger telling us what God has already done. The result of both models might look similar. In both cases you would want to do something in response. But, if the gospel is merely a how-to, you will obey out of fear. If the gospel is a declaration of what has already happened, you obey out of joy. Because it is a message (not a method!) words are critical.

Keller quoted Luther's Larger Catechism in which he claimed that the first commandment comes first because the other commandments are only broken if you have already broken the command to put God first and have your satisfaction in him. Therefore, sin stems from idolatry, making something more important than God. The only way we change is through honoring God, and we learn to do this in worship. This challenged me. We must keep coming back to God in adoration and gratitude to him. If you are not being generous, it is because your heart is not given over to God.

The purpose of preaching is not just to make the truth understandable, but to make it real. It is important that it is crystal clear, but that its is vivid. He quoted MLJ on Edwards’ view of the purpose of preaching. He commented that he doesn't mind if people are taking notes at the beginning of his message, but that if they are still do so by the end he feels he has missed the mark.

Keller also argued strongly that every sermon must be about Jesus. Christ needs to be taught every Sunday. The difference between a lecture and a sermon is that in a sermon Jesus shows up. If a sermon is just about what I should do or believe, people will just feel more guilty. Instead, if you say this is what you must do, but, by the way, you probably can't do it, but there is one who did it on our behalf—if you understand what he did for us—then you will begin to be able to do it, too.

Jesus is our true wealth, giving status, security, and stability. The Bible is basically about Jesus and what he has done, and not me and what I have to do. Tim spoke about how each of the main OT characters are examples of Jesus. For example, Jesus is the true Esther who didn’t just say, “If I perish, I perish” but “When I perish, I perish.”

Even becoming a Christian is not something we do. We are instead converted, something happens to us. We are born again from outside. We must have God reveal to us the state of our hearts. Keller repeatedly quoted Doctor Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and said that he learned how to preach by listening to tapes of the Doctor's evangelistic sermons. He gave the following example, which so impacted me I found myself sobbing real tears alone in my room.

The Doctor apparently said that if he was to come home and someone was to say, “O, while you were out a bill came, so I just paid it for you,” he would not know how to respond. He would not know how happy to be. He would not know whether—if it had been some extra postage, just a few pence—to simply say “thank you,” or whether—if it was hundreds of thousands of pounds—to fall on his hands and knees and kiss the person's feet. We have to appreciate that Jesus has paid a MASSIVE debt for us, and when we do so, gratitude will well up in our hearts. Our problem is that we have become immune to the size of the debt by over-familiarity.

Tim also spoke about the need for us to avoid the twin dangers of (1) isolating ourselves from the world around us through cultural withdrawal, and its opposite (2) cultural assimilation and accommodation. We need to be countercultural, but engaged and caring. Tim explained that in New York people love what the gospel has to say about forgiveness and hate what it has to say about sex, while in some other countries they love what it says about sex and hate the concept of forgiveness.

He also explained in closing that the gospel is not simple. It is not boring. It is infinitely deep and complex and stimulating and thrilling. As Peter says, even angels long to look into it. We therefore need our preaching to reflect the richness of this wonderful truth that saved us.

UPDATE
The written transcript of this segment of my interview with John Piper is now available. It can be read here.

This is the fourth and final segment of my interview with John Piper. You can also watch these preceding segments:

• John Piper on New Word Alive and Spring Harvest
  
  
• John Piper on Passionate Preaching
  
  
• John Piper on Prayer and Bible Study

I began this section by asking John which preachers he listens to on his iPOD. He mentioned a number of names, and if you have the e-mail address for any of them, why not drop them a line and tell them you heard Piper has been listening to them! I doubt many things will bring more encouragement to them than knowing that John Piper has found their work helpful.

When I asked about why he chose to leave the seminary setting and become a pastor, he explained that after a period of time studying the Bible, he felt God was saying to him, “I will be proclaimed and not just analyzed.”

He also spoke about the need for long-term stability in a church’s leadership team. He spoke about how his wife supports his ministry. “She's just so incredibly flexible that I married the right woman.” He spoke about what the Piper family home looks like. We even spoke about soccer.

UPDATE
The written transcript of this segment of my interview with John Piper is now available. You can read it here.

Yesterday I began speaking with John Piper about New Word Alive and why he comes to the UK. In this segment, I began by putting before John the notion that he has an unusual degree of passion and anointing when preaching. I even quoted Lig Duncan, who said that he wondered if he had ever really preached after hearing Piper's talk at the first Together for the Gospel conference. I asked him whether he was conscious of this, and if he had any explanation for it.

Piper began his answer by honestly stating, “I don’t usually feel that way when I am done preaching.” He spoke about how the sermons he is most unhappy with are sometimes the ones people feel most helped by. He spoke about the need for a ”self-forgetfulness in a full engagement with what is there in the text . . . and the reality of God in the text.”

He did say that there are ways to cultivate this. “It is cultivating God-centeredness, prayer, a serious engagement with the Word, and asking certain kinds of God-centered, Christ-exalting questions. There's a focus and a preoccupation. And then my root Christian hedonism, my root philosophy—whether you are satisfied in God really makes a difference about whether you can glorify God . . . If you are not passionate about God you won’t glorify him as much. If you are more passionate about football than God, you will glorify football.”

This whole segment is tantalizing, as is much of Piper's unusual ministry. It made me want to spend about three hours with Piper probing him further about all this. Sadly we did not have three hours, but we did have longer, and I continued my conversation in a video I will share tomorrow.

My grandfather, Edwin Warnock, was an evangelistic tent preacher. He was from Scotland, but came down to England, where he married a Londoner but lived in Suffolk. He had six children—five boys and one girl. Sadly, one boy died young. Each of the other boys married and had two boys. In my father's and one other case, they also had a girl. My auntie also married and had two girls and one boy. Many of those thirteen Warnock cousins of mine are now married themselves and have begun their own families. The vast majority of this extended family continue to go to church and love the Lord. Many of the men have also preached, at least to some extent.

It was a real delight to meet with a significant portion of the surviving descendants of Edwin Warnock and their wives this past Monday—a national holiday in the UK. I was thrilled also to receive a precious gift from one of my uncles. As far as I know, this is the last surviving tape of my grandfather preaching. His passion is clear, even amidst the English politeness of communication that was still common in churches back in 1968. The gospel message is strong and clearly identifiable. I could have preached this message. May God prosper the cause of my grandfather's gospel, which is now mine, and is, of course, also faithfully preached by many millions throughout the world.

You can download the message or listen to it right here:



The following photos are of Edwin and include his marriage to Muriel Driver, a river baptism, his children's camps and the tent he used for evangelism.

In a variation on the “Ask a Blogger” theme, I received this e-mail, which was effectively asking Doctor Martyn Lloyd-Jones a question.

“I have been doing some research lately on the revivals in Wales and the ministry of Christmas Evans and have come across an emphasis in the Welsh Revivals and in Lloyd-Jones on unction in preaching. Even C. J. Mahaney referenced this in a recent post on his blog: Recommended Chapters on Preaching. Long question, short: Is there anything that you’ve posted on unction in Lloyd-Jones or could you do that on an upcoming Lloyd-Jones day? I would be greatly served by it.”

You ask a great question. I don't think I have posted on the doctor's view of unction in preaching. I would commend his book, Preaching and Preachers, and a book about his preaching called The Sacred Anointing for more on this subject. Thanks to the wonders of my Logos Bible Software, I was able to quickly find a couple of great examples of the Doctor's teaching on unction which I will share shortly. In essence, for Lloyd-Jones, true preaching was much more than a mere intellectual explanation of words in the Bible. His views on this matter were closely related to his views on the baptism with the Spirit, which I have blogged about previously here.

I love these two quotes from E. M. Bounds which I have also shared once before, and which help to explain what lies at the heart of the Doctor's view of unction in preaching:

“This divine unction is the one distinguishing feature that separates true gospel preaching from all other methods of presenting truth. It backs and interpenetrates the revealed truth with all the force of God. It illumines the Word and broadens and enrichens [sic] the intellect and empowers it to grasp and apprehend the Word. It qualifies the preacher’s heart, and brings it to that condition of tenderness, of purity, of force and light that are necessary to secure the highest results. This unction gives to the preacher liberty and enlargement of thought and soul—a freedom, fullness, and directness of utterance that can be secured by no other process.”

— E. M. Bounds, Power Through Prayer
“Preaching is not the performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life. It takes twenty years to make a sermon, because it takes twenty years to make the man. The true sermon is a thing of life. The sermon grows because the man grows. The sermon is forceful because the man is forceful. The sermon is holy because the man is holy. The sermon is full of the divine unction because the man is full of the divine unction.”

— E. M. Bounds, Preaching and Prayer

Here's how the Doctor explains it:

“When the Holy Spirit comes in revival there is a great anointing, and it shows itself in many ways. You read of men who had believed the truth, and who were preaching faithfully and regularly, but who were ineffective and lacking in power. Suddenly they are filled with power. They speak with boldness and with power and with great authority. That is the anointing of the Spirit . . .

But this anointing is not confined to revival. I use that simply as an illustration. Thank God it is given at other times. Any man who has ever preached should be able to testify to this. There are times when, entirely outside his own control, he is given a special authority, special power, an unction which is unusual. And there are good reasons for its bestowal. There are circumstances which he himself is not always aware of, which he only discovers afterwards. Somebody may have come to the congregation who needed a particular message or word, and the preacher, without knowledge on his part, is guided to say something which is just appropriate to that particular state and condition. There is, therefore, this special enduement of power which is called ‘the anointing’. It is something that one should seek and covet, it is something for which one should be constantly praying . . .

Our Lord was setting out on His public ministry. As the Son of God, He was always full of the Spirit. But in order to do His work He needed a special anointing and He received it at His baptism in the river Jordan by John the Baptist. The Holy Spirit then descended upon Him, He was given this special power. He was God; but as man He needed this ‘baptism’, this ‘anointing’ with the Holy Spirit.”

— David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Christian Soldier: An Exposition of Ephesians 6:10 to 20, Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh; Carlisle, PA, 1977, p.115.

“The Holy Spirit enables Christians by giving them what is called in the New Testament “unction”; He gives “anointing,” understanding, freedom, and clarity of speech, an authority. Many terms can be used with respect to this God-given ability to preach. One quotation seems to me to sum it all up very well. Probably the first letter that Paul ever wrote was to the church at Thessalonica, and in the first chapter of the first epistle, he reminds the believers of how the Gospel had come to them: “Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance” (1 Thessalonians 1:5). Paul was saying: “I did the speaking, but it was not I. I was used.” As he was speaking, he knew that he was merely the vehicle, the channel, the instrument that the Holy Spirit was using. He was taken up; he was out of himself; he was, as it were, possessed by the Spirit, and he knew that he was preaching with “much assurance.” Everything was against him. Thessalonica was a pagan city, part of Macedonia. The people did not have a Jewish background or the Old Testament Scriptures; they did not know the prophets; they knew nothing. They were living a life of sin and degradation in utter ignorance, and yet when the apostle appeared among them, he was able to speak with assurance. Why? Because it was not his word only, but he spoke “in power, and in the Holy Ghost.” . . .

The Holy Spirit takes people and helps them to speak in a clear manner . . . That is the way the Holy Spirit works, but there is another—His action upon the listeners. If the Holy Spirit only acted on the preacher, there would be no conversions. The supreme example of the Spirit’s action on the hearers is what happened when Peter was preaching in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. In Acts 2 we read that halfway through his sermon, as he was expounding the Scriptures, the people “were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (v. 37). The Holy Spirit did the pricking. It was not Peter’s sermon, which was a straightforward exposition of Scripture. The power, the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, was there working in the listeners. On that day three thousand were added to the church. The beginning of chapter 4 tells us that in the next day or so another two thousand were added.

This, then, is the dual action of the Spirit. He takes the preacher, the speaker, whether in a pulpit or in private, and gives this enabling. Then the Holy Spirit acts upon the ones who are listening and deals with their minds and hearts and wills. Both things happen at the same time.”

— David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Courageous Christianity, 1st U. S. edition, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL, 2001, p. 190.

For more information on Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones see this summary post or the MLJ Recording Trust.

More than once I have been accused of appropriating Lloyd-Jones to my charismatic cause. Today I want to restart my MLJ Monday tradition by sharing a quote which comes from a context where the Doctor is strongly disagreeing with one of my positions. He is talking about the so-called Ephesians 4 ministries. The Doctor divides these into two groups, believing that all but pastors and teachers are temporary. I believe that they all continue, although I think of modern-day apostles as being, in some important ways, different to the original. Anyway, the Doctor then goes on to speak into what is perhaps a less interesting discussion, but one that is worth opening up nonetheless. Does Paul have in mind two distinct groups, the pastors and the teachers, or one group of people who are both pastors and teachers? Let's see what he has to say:

The permanent offices are described as those of ‘pastors and teachers.’ This group is much simpler to understand, although there has been much dispute as to whether pastors and teachers are two different offices. I agree with those who say that they are one. Were they two separate offices we would expect to read, ‘He gave some, apostles; some, prophets; some, evangelists; some, pastors; some, teachers’; but the apostle writes, ‘some, pastors and teachers,’ linking the two together; and generally speaking, these two offices are found in the same man. They apply to a more settled state of the Church, and have persisted throughout the centuries. The office of a pastor is generally concerned about government and instruction and rule and direction. It is borrowed, of course, from the picture of a shepherd. The shepherd shepherds his flock, keeps the sheep in order, directs them where to go and where to feed, brings them back to the fold, looks after their safety and guards them against enemies liable to attack them. It is a great office, but unfortunately it is a term which has become debased. A pastor is a man who is given charge of souls. He is not merely a nice, pleasant man who visits people and has an afternoon cup of tea with them, or passes the time of day with them. He is the guardian, the custodian, the protector, the organizer, the director, the ruler of the flock. The teacher gives instruction in doctrine, in truth. The Apostle proceeds to elaborate this, showing that we need to be built up, and that we must not remain ‘babes.’ We must be protected against ‘every wind of doctrine,’ and the way to do so is to give instruction and teaching.

Although I say that these two offices generally go together and have done so throughout the long history of the Church, sometimes one man has had more of a pastoral gift than a teaching or preaching gift; at other times a man has more of a teaching and preaching gift than a pastoral gift. This is a matter of individual variation according to the gift of the Spirit. But in the Church you have these offices, these men who teach and preach and care for the souls of the members of the church."

— David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Christian Unity, Studies in Ephesians (Chapter 4, verses 1 through 16), Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, 1972, p. 192.

For more information on Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, see this summary post or the MLJ Recording Trust.

UPDATE
I have had an e-mail from a correspondent who strongly believes that Lloyd-Jones was wrong about pastors and teachers being one office. My correspondent cited the grammatical work of Dan Wallace (see p. 284 of his Greek Grammar—Beyond the Basics) and an article on the evangelist, which discusses this point (p. 30ff).

I also have had another e-mail on the subject which said, "We actually had to study a full-length technical paper on this verse by Dan Wallace as part of our second-year Greek course. He does not argue that they must be two separate offices—he does not go that far. What he says is that the Greek language does not demand that they be one office. We should determine the answer from the context. Personally I go with theoretically separate giftings which are very commonly held by the same person. (Apostles can also be teachers, etc.)"

This is the first post in several I'll be doing in what I call “remote blogging.” A few times when Tim Challies and others have been at conferences, I've shared extracts from their posts here on my blog. This time Tim is not at the Resurgence Conference on Preaching, but the Resurgence folks are offering live videocasts of their sessions.

Here, then, are my thoughts on Mark Driscoll's talk, which is taking place right now as I'm listening to it sitting in my room here in London. (Incidentally ... No! I'm not in my pajamas!) The usual "rules" apply—these are my notes taken in real time, and I may well have missed important bits or imported a few of my own ideas as I go along! This was posted within seconds of Driscoll ending his sermon. I'm trying to decide whether to stay up another hour or so to cover Mahaney. I know I won't be able to do all of them! Whether I do CJ's will depend on if they have worship or start straight with him at 4 p.m. Seattle time.

In the first session Driscoll began with a rallying call to put preachers in their rightful place. The world came into existence with a sermon preached by God. The Bible is full of “God said ...” God's Word does what it is intended to do and brings life. We preachers are following God's example. God is not the only preacher. In Genesis 3, the serpent preached a false message. Satan tells us we need not preach because he would like his voice to be the only one heard. Our forefathers listened to the wrong sermon, but even after that, God preached another sermon which promised the coming of Jesus.

Proclamation is crucial—Jesus was announced by John the Baptist's preaching. Jesus' own ministry began with preaching, and so should ours! Jesus was a proclamation preacher; he didn't say, "Let's discuss it in groups"! It infuriates Driscoll that ANYONE can call into question the validity of preaching when God does it, then comes to earth and preaches! Yes, Jesus did other things, but he was a preacher first and foremost. He drew crowds. Jesus had thousands come to hear him.

The first thing that must be proclaimed is the cross of Jesus for our sins and in our place. Liars who work for the devil will tell you that you don't need to proclaim the cross centrally as it is offensive. But if you don't preach it you will offend God. Seeker insensitivity is “hot.” Preaching needs to be anointed by the Spirit. When the Spirit came at Pentecost, they immediately went out and preached! And the Church was born! The preached word brought forth the Church, just as God's original preached Word brought forth creation.

We should connect the ground war with the air war, that is, connect the small groups to the Sunday sermon and apply them there. The Apostles were devoted to prayer and the ministry of the Word. Driscoll went through Acts showing the emphasis that was placed on proclamation preaching.

We must keep on preaching in spite of persecution. Some of us are too cowardly. After one lousy e-mail, we're in the fetal position and our wives are rubbing our backs. We need courage. People will react. When people say we need to do things in the way the early Church did them, Driscoll agrees. “Let's yell at people!” We have to protect our people from the wolves! The world is full of wolves—they're publishing books, making videos, etc. There is so much preaching in Acts. Don't let your people dishonor the pulpit. Some of us, in an effort to be humble, allow others to be proud.

The reformers defined the Church. The Church is both universal and local. The Church is both visible and invisible. They discussed what constituted a rightly gathered Church. They said it was about preaching the gospel and the administration of the sacraments. The Church is led by Jesus. He is not just our example. He is no longer merely a humble marginalized peasant. If we could see Jesus today we would see him like Isaiah saw him—glorified! We must teach Jesus' exaltation, not only his incarnation.

The Church needs qualified leaders. These need to be male. This issue is a "border issue." If you don't teach male elders, then you are in a different country! Everything will be seen differently. The gospel must be preached by those men. The sacraments must be administrated—baptism and communion, and Church discipline must be carried out. In preaching, the Word is heard, in sacraments the Word is seen, and in Church discipline the Word is protected.

Driscoll challenged us. When was the last time you called your people to repentance and brought them to the Lord's table? When was the last time your church disciplined someone who persistently lived an unrepentant life while claiming to be a Christian? The authority comes from the head of the Church. Elders must be godly. Their life styles need to be worthy of imitation. Preaching is not all that we must do in churches—but it is the FIRST THING WE MUST DO! It is the air war. Everything else comes after it—the ground war. Everyone is looking at the effects, no one is asking about the cause!

Driscoll was very clear about the invalidity of many groups today who function as "house churches," but have no authority and no preaching. God's grace is one-way, and so is preaching. Many emerging churches try to build communities without leadership, and without a declaration of God's Word. How can such a group be a church if no one is preaching the Bible?

The devil tried to have a debate—did God really say? Why should anyone tell you what you have done wrong?

Preachers—you must preach FOR your church. You must preach knowing what a church is. Leaders must build, defend, protect, and shepherd their church. "Internet churches" are not churches as there are no sacraments, no authority, no relationships, and no church discipline. Multi-campus churches need a bit more than just a screen for the preaching to be displayed. Although Driscoll's church does have many campuses, each campus has its own pastor who performs the sacraments, disciplines, and pastors.

Driscoll ended with the last sermon preached—that in Revelation 14. It was preached by an angel. God was the first preacher. An angel is the last preacher. In-between, we are to preach. What an awesome responsibility!

No. 16 on the list of most-read posts on this blog appeared on July 20, 2005. In this post I simply asked my readers to identify their favorite preachers, and I listed my own personal favorites. I have retained all of the comments from this post and have now added them to the end. To see my list and some of my readers' lists, click here.

If you are interested in letting me know who are YOUR favorite well-known living preachers, please e-mail adrian.warnock@gmail.com and place BLOG PREACHERS SURVEY in the subject line. We will then add your comments to the list.

It's time once again to review another year's worth of blogging here at my place. I have made it something of a tradition to look back and reflect on the year that has passed. I have done this previously in December 2006, 2005, and 2004. The format is simple: I highlight some of the posts that I remember most, or enjoyed writing the most over the year. This time I will break it down into a series of posts.

This year I began January's blogging—after extending my customary Christmas break slightly longer than previously—by taking up my autobiographical story with a post entitled My Story Part Five—Learning to Value Being, Not Doing. I did not return to my story again this year, so this remains surely the longest running, as yet unfinished, series on my blog. I am sure that I will eventually return to this and catch up to the current day. In that post I talked about the value of silence and reflection.

In one of the shortest, but most personally challenging posts of the year, in the second post of 2007 I shared some Reflections of a Returning Blogger, citing Scripture that said few words were wiser than many. I suspect this contributed to a trend this year on my blog to shorter posts and, hopefully, to more careful consideration of what I say.

I also spent a few days in January on an interview with Wendy Alsup, a deacon in the Mars Hill Church—Seattle, where