“Christian preaching is always and only biblical preaching. The sermon’s content, shape, style, tone, and impact are derived from the biblical text. Disciples know that the power of God’s word to achieve its purposes is not in doubt (Heb 4:12).” - Common Good
“So what I would do with Matthew 11 is outline the various options, give a few reasons why each are plausible, and then make some application.” - C.Leaders
A. In 1982 a book appeared in the United States that revolutionized thinking about the way American corporations are run and the way business should be done in our country. That one book sold more than 6,000,000 copies and spawned a new effort to make business more effective and productive.
B. The book was In Search of Excellence by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr.
Reposted from The Cripplegate.
The Olympic Games is a dignified affair. The athletes who are selected to compete represent the most physically and mentally dedicated, talented, and trained people on the planet. The various events serve to put on display the prowess, agility, strength, and determination required to perform at such an elite level of skill mastery. Which is why it is amusing to consider some of the odder sports to have snuck onto the roster for a time, only to expose their unsuitability for Olympic attention.
Last month, I introduced the concept of expository preaching, an issue which can no longer be restricted to discussions between preachers, or reserved for Seminaries and Bible College classrooms. Today, exposition has become an identity marker by which to evaluate churches. In his book, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Mark Dever lists expositional preaching as mark number one. Dever believes it is the most important characteristic of a spiritually healthy church, the foundation upon which the other eight marks are built.
A sermon delivered at Calvary Baptist Church, Derby, Kansas. Reprinted with permission from As I See It, which is available free by writing to the editor at [email protected].
Tonight, I want us to study a single word in the NT: proskartereo. It looks and sounds like a perfect candidate for use in a Jeopardy category: “twelve-letter Greek words that are difficult to pronounce”!
This word caught my attention as I ran across it at various times over the years in my studies of the NT in Greek, and I thought its various occurrences and uses rather interesting.
It is a compound word, composed of the preposition pros, which means, “to, toward, in the direction of” and kartereo, a verb with the root idea of “to be strong, firm.” So it literally means “to be strong toward something or someone.” As used in the NT, the word carries the sense and meaning “to be devoted to, to be dedicated to, to focus on, to be committed to, to persist in” some purpose, object or person.
This word is used ten times in the Greek NT, six of which occur in Acts. I want to briefly note each of these uses.
Reprinted with permission from Doug Kutilek’s As I See It, (May, 2010) with some editing. AISI is sent free to all who request it [email protected].
Reprinted with permission from Faith Pulpit, November/December ‘05
