As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“We Evangelicals have come to view the word ‘worship’ as referring to something like God-focused music. And music is inherently emotional. So it follows that our understanding of ‘worship’ could then be reduced to the personal expression of a God-centered, emotional experience.” - CLeaders
In my last post, I walked through my method for becoming more familiar with the biblical text through the process of reading, translating, and diagramming. Although at this point much progress has been made, there is still more work to do before we can confidently say we know the main idea of the text. Up to this point the study has been with the Bible alone—no commentaries should have been used thus far.
“After decades of fierce controversies over sexuality and theology in the Anglican Communion, some leaders of a conservative coalition say it’s time to make a final break from what has long been one of the world’s largest Protestant church families.” - RNS/AP
“It is my desire to carry on Billy Graham’s vision at CT by serving the church through creative and redemptive storytelling, informative journalism from an evangelical Christian worldview, and resources and convenings that foster flourishing.” - CToday
“The influx of people from all over the world has happened in the last five years….What is your church like? Are you learning to love a wide variety of cultures and educational backgrounds? I hope so.” - Don Johnson
“Millennials and Gen Z outpace the 12-point increase, with reading jumping 16 points among Millennials, half of whom now read Scripture weekly. Among Gen Z, the 49 percent who read Scripture at least weekly represents a 19-point climb.” - Baptist Press
“He said they’ve seen that communion is in the evening service tonight, but they were christened and confirmed, not baptized as believers. He asked your counsel: ‘Are we allowed to participate?’” - 9 Marks
“The Presbyterian Church in America gets a gold star. They’ve got individual church-level data for most of their 1,700+ congregations. So, let me show you all the cool stuff I can do with data like this.” - Ryan Burge
Whether you call it the “main idea,” “big idea,” “propositional statement,” or something else, we are going to be looking at how to make sure you preach the main idea of a section of Scripture so that you are not preaching about an ancillary idea or worse, force your own idea upon the passage. In this post I will be walking through a process I have developed for myself. To help myself with this, I have made a worksheet. In a previous post, I shared it on this blog.
“I once paid a visit to one of the most mega of America’s megachurches…. I went into this modern worship situation with as open a mind as I could muster. I left perplexed. I was perplexed not by what was said or done in the service as much as what was left unsaid and undone.” - C.Leaders
Discussion