A frightened wife calls us. Her husband is in a state of panic, locked in a bedroom. Two of us coax him out and restrain him. It is a classic panic attack, an anxiety attack. Worry and anxiety are real, but they are devastating and [...]

Preaching in a large assembly of pastors and elders, I quoted W. G. T. Shedd, where he speaks about how impressive it is when the Word of God touches us. See the full quote below. After the sermon, one of the pastors in the congregation [...]

A well-used Bible is a dear friend and sometimes needs to be rebound. The seminary library where I taught had access to a book bindery, and I had my Bible nicely rebound. When a friend of my oldest daughter needed her Bible rebound, I suggested [...]

The student critique was loud and clear, “Professor, you spend too much time on presentation and not enough time on content.” My response is threefold. First, in seminary, the bulk of the curriculum guides students in the proper interpretation and understanding of the content of [...]

Preaching on 2 Timothy 3:16, Calvin notes the two crucial sides to proclaiming the Word. “Teaching on its own is not sufficient, for we are cold and indifferent to God’s truth. We need to be pierced. The preacher has to use vehemence, so that we [...]

The consensus among commentators is that the Apostle John wrote what we call 1 John late in the first century, perhaps around 90 A.D. The Epistle carries the language and phraseology of the Gospel and thus appears to be written by John (Wescott, 1966, p. [...]

While serving as a seminary Professor of Homiletics, I assigned sermons to students based upon texts from various books of the Bible. We always took class time to discuss the assigned book. In particular, we zeroed in on the purpose of the book. If the [...]

Students, pastors, and teachers are reluctant to use the second person. As a result, the first person use of we dominates. There is also frequent use of the third person he and they. But this is not the biblical pattern. “It is not arrogant for [...]

"The biblical parable is a very specific literary form. As it was developed in the biblical tradition, a parable was a device used by preachers to epitomize a sermon. A whole sermon could be packed up into a parable and put away in the memory [...]

We were stopped at a traffic light while driving through Colorado Springs, Colorado. The bumper sticker on the back of the car in front of us asked a simple question. “What would happen if everyone told the truth?” With a laugh, I repeated the question, [...]