Many churches claim to be “Bible teaching churches”. And many churches do indeed have sermons based on the Bible or which work through a single Bible text. (If any church doesn’t even claim this, we should avoid it!) Yet it more than possible to preach from the Bible and not be a gospel preacher. I …
Some Christian traditions have a very spiritual-sounding Bible reading method: you just open up the Bible, and whatever verse is in front of you is the one you read and apply to your life. Some devotional guides also encourage this bite-sized approach to Scripture, having a verse for the day with a long explanation by …
There is an old saying: practice what you preach. It doesn’t only apply to preachers, of course! The message is that you should live a consistent life. If you say something is important, you need to live it out yourself. Nowhere is this more important than in churches. Preaching and Bible teaching of various forms …
When we are trying to communicate the Bible to people, we need to consider both sides of the bridge. Firstly, and most importantly, we need to understand the word of God well, spending time and effort in understanding what God is saying in this particular passage. And secondly, we need to understand the people being …
Preachers need to think about a lot of different things. It is hard work to interpret and explain God’s Word faithfully and well. A great deal of theological training goes into teaching the original languages, theology, Bible interpretation, and church history. All of this is critical. Yet preachers also need to consider how to connect …
Most Christians are used to listening to sermons, but how well do we really listen? I have had the privilege of growing up in church and often attended multiple services when I was younger. I have probably listened to at least a couple of thousand sermons in person, not counting conferences and online listens. On …
I’m sure that all Christians have heard glib, basic conclusions in Bible teaching in churches. Maybe you’ve heard a preacher tell you that God is love or God is in control. Or a Bible study leader tell you that you should love God and not money, or that you should tell other people about Jesus. …
Too many sermons are more complicated than they need to be. Like any specialty, the Christian world has its own special vocabulary. Words like holy, justification and glorification do turn up in the Bible, yet they rarely if ever turn up in everyday conversation. On top of this, there are all kinds of theological terms …
Song of Songs is a love song, and it has a chorus. While metaphors are occasionally re-used through the Song, there is only one verse that is repeated, and that verse is repeated three times with only minor variations (in 2:7, 3:5 and 8:4): I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or …
I fear that many people think that the Christian teaching on sex is “it is bad, don’t do it”. After all, many of the public statements from Christian sources on this topic are to oppose something that doesn’t fit the Biblical ideal. There are many “thou shall nots” when it comes to Christian teaching about …