preaching on Treasure

Pastor: Let us pray to the Father who has given us the water of eternal life in His Son. Father of glory, only the gift of Your Spirit quenches the thirst of mankind. Look in mercy on all the way...

The gospel cannot be preached and heard enough, for it cannot be grasped well enough.… Moreover, our greatest task is to keep you faithful to this article and to bequeath this treasure to you when we ...

Preaching Commentary Preaching Angle: Preach the Word, Rest in God’s Work Maybe I tend to focus on the negative, but when I read the parable of the soils, I tend to focus on the soils that struggle...

Preaching Angle: Preach the Word, Rest in God’s Work Maybe I tend to focus on the negative, but when I read the parable of the soils, I tend to focus on the soils that struggle (the soil too close to...

Believe the incredible truth that the Beloved has chosen for his dwelling place the core of your own being because that is the single most beautiful place in all of creation.

The Power (and Peril) of Words One time, I lied to the elders. (That’s another story except to say that they were blinded by trust.) It wasn’t a big lie—I said I’d done something I hadn’t—but I reali...

Preaching Commentary Preaching Angle: Wheat and Weeds Grow Even in the Church God’s good creation grows food for all living creatures. God made the Earth, God made all the plants, and God made all ...

Famed pastor and educator A. T. Pierson (1837–1911) lamented his own human inadequacies in communicating to his congregation the depth and levels of the “unsearchable riches of Christ:” “Unsearchabl...

I came to believe that my job was not to receive and critique a sermon but to dig into it, to seize its power, to participate with its message, and to steal its fruit.

May the words of my mouth. And the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable to you, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

The scope of our art [preaching] is to provide the soul with wings, to rescue it from the world and give it to God, and to watch over that which is in his image—if it abides, to take it by the hand; i...

Introduction Easter stands out from every other day. It’s time to celebrate and to reflect: how will you “preach the resurrection” and proclaim the new life we have in Jesus Christ? How do we invite ...

Ancient lens? What can we learn from the historical context? Context and Tone Paul was writing from prison to a Christian community that he didn’t establish. Rather, it was his co-laborer, Epaphr...

How Will We Preach and Teach from Proverbs? Reading, let alone preaching, from The Book of Proverbs comes with its challenges. Sometimes those sayings can seem just plain obvious and not much help ...

Your life is in the pulpit with you Fred Craddock said, “Not everything that’s in the Bible is in the Bible .” That’s why we have, among other things, commentaries . The most helpful ones throw o...

As in buying real estate, three principles are crucial to understanding a person’s words: location, location, and location. We cannot make sense of what someone says unless we understand the context i...

At the heart of it, preaching is the telling and retelling of Christ's story and our stories from creation to parousia. It is the remembering of the stories with a special kind of remembrance of w...

When thou writes, promise me nothing, unless I read Jesus in it. When thou converses with me on religious themes, promise me nothing if I hear not Jesus’ voice. Jesus—melody to the ear, gladness to th...

The Lord calls us to examine the wounds of the Risen One and to see there the depth of his love for us. Let us therefore approach the throne of God in confidence as we pray for the people of God in Ch...

God of Grace and God of Glory–rich in love and mercy, all powerful and everywhere present: We come to You at Your bidding, trusting in Your faithful compassion and not in our fruitless efforts to do w...

Building anticipation into one's preaching simply calls for one basic understanding of the task of the pulpit: the goal is not to get something said but to get something heard.

God of our hearts, Lord of nations and Creator of worlds; Father, Son and Holy Spirit: When You redeemed us and called us each by name, You made us a family—united by your love and grace. Across towns...

We affirm that the fire that Christ sent out is for humanity's salvation and profit... The fire is the saving message of the gospel and the power of its commandments... The gospel ignites all of u...

To preach Christ is to feed the soul, to justify it, to set it free, and to save it, if it believes the preaching.

When I remember that the literal translation of the term gospel is “good news,” I recall a wonderful encounter with her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. In the summer of 2001, I f...

Pastor: Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly t...

Only with “gentleness and reverence” will people be able to see, verify, and be persuaded to respond to what we have to say.

Diane Ackerman was talking about life, but I think it applies to preaching when she wrote, “I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived to the length of it. I want to have liv...

We pray, dear God, for our spiritual leaders. Increase in them the charism of faith that they might preach the Word of God with boldness. Increase in them the charism of wisdom that they might gui...

My goal is to speak the truth in love. There are a lot of people speaking the truth with no love, and there are a lot of people talking about love without much truth.