Preaching

Reprinted with permission from As I See It, which is available free by writing to the editor at dkutilek@juno.com.

⁴ Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. ⁵ And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. ⁶ And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. (KJV, Luke 5:4–6. Emphasis added.)

Hello Mr. Kutilek,

Years ago, I heard a preacher make an entire sermon out of the difference between “nets” plural and “net” singular in Luke 5:4-5 [KJV]. The message was that Peter trifled at the word by not obeying and letting down the nets and instead just threw out one net because of his lack of faith. This past Sunday, I heard another person mention this very thing so I’m prompted to check into it.

It seems that the Greek word diktuon is exactly the same in both places. NIV and NASB use plural in both places. I can see where people would pick up on it and make a point out of Peter not fully following the Lord’s instruction, but I’m not sure that it really is written that way. I don’t know Greek well enough to know how to see the difference between the singular and plural forms. Would you be willing to comment?

Thanks for your help.
C.

Preaching?: Simple Teaching on Simply Preaching by Alec Motyer

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“The Word of God is the constitutive reality at the heart of the Church” (p. 18).

There are as many ideas about how to grow a church as there are books on the subject. There are books that focus on meeting felt needs, worship strategies, small groups and a myriad of other ministries that can be maximized to grow your church. However, what many of these books fail to recognize or address is that the bedrock of growing a church is the ministry of the Word through preaching.

With a biblical focus on the Word of God at the heart of a church Alec Motyer has written Preaching?: Simple Teaching on Simply Preaching. As the Old Testament editor for The Bible Speaks Today series, Motyer has turned his pen to writing on preaching and has written a book that addresses both the biblical-theological aspects as well as some practical issues.

The first five chapters address the nature of preaching. These chapters are exegetically grounded in various passages of Scripture. Motyer defines good preaching as that which has a “sense of being plain and unmistakable” (p. 11). Preaching that is good is to be expositional, that is, “the restatement of a Scripture” (p. 30). Motyer wants to impress upon his readers that preaching is the ground upon which the whole church grows and functions. All ministry grows out of the Word and the preaching of the Word. His exegetical work deals with many NT passages that provide us with the nature and task of faithful biblical preachers. His observation, especially of the book of Acts, is that it is the ministry of the preaching of the Word that drove the growth of the early church. Surely there were other attending contributions, like the work of the Spirit through the Word, but it was always the Word that led the way and was responded to.

This sermon outline continues a series preached in 2002.

Precious Knowledge

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In 1928 Alexander Fleming was doing research in the area of bacteriology. He’d been growing a bacterium called staphylococcus in a culture dish and found it had been contaminated by a mold of some kind. Taking a closer look, he discovered that the mold was killing the bacteria and did this consistently. Howard Florey and Earnst Chain learned how to extract the substance and use it as medication. It was eventually used to fight staph infections, gangrene, scarlet fever, meningitis, and more. We know it as penicillin. It was a great discovery, priceless knowledge.

Nowadays we take that discovery for granted. We don’t remember what life was like before antibiotics. It’s human nature to lose sight of the context of things we benefit from and, as a result, fail to fully appreciate them.

As Christians we even manage to get used to the gospel—especially the gospel in its totality—God’s great redemptive, gospel plan. We weren’t around in the days before this plan was known, and we slip into taking it for granted. But in the days of the apostles, the gospel plan as a complete whole was a great new discovery of sorts. It came by revelation rather than research. That makes the knowledge even more precious.

This outline continues a series I preached in 2002. Due to overly sketchy notes, historical material is drawn from sources I’m now unable to identify. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the KJV.

Born Again

I recall seeing a bumper sticker once that said “born OK the first time.” I was puzzled at first, then it clicked. The sticker was a response to all those “born again” bumper stickers that used to be so popular (1980s?). I chuckled, but then thought, “how tragically far from the truth.”

In these verses, Peter writes to remind us that though we were not born OK the first time, those who believe the gospel are born far more than “OK” the second time.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you (KJV, 1 Peter 1:3–4)

Reading sermon outlines has never been one of my favorite things to do. Creating them, though, is another story. It’s therapeutic. The other day I discovered that dusting off old ones and tidying them up was a healthy exercise as well. There’s a certain amount of “preaching to yourself” involved, and who doesn’t need more of that?

We also occasionally get requests for sermon outlines at SI—and I’m pretty sure I’ve got a handful or two collecting digital dust on my hard drive.

This first installment dates from 2002, the beginning of a series preaching through 1 Peter. I like to think my later outlines are much better, after a decade of practice (and some small improvements did creep in here and there during editing). It did my heart good to ponder the truths here and I hope they will bless some of you as well.