Thoughts on Preaching:

Quotes from John MacArthur (can’t guarantee they’re all word for word) from the final panel discussion panel at the Together for the Gospel Conference today:

I don’t think we need to bring the Bible in modern times, we need to take people back to Bible times, and then to the applicational aspect of the text. You can stay with the text. 

I don’t spend a lot of time studying the culture, I think I know enough from living in it. I don’t want to be a student of the culture, I want to be a student of the Bible.

Just be an expert on the Word of God, and you will know what to say to the culture. You can be the cultural expert of all experts if you just read Al Mohler’s blogs. 

You never run out of material to preach if you go to the Word of God. And if you preach the Bible it will stand the test of time and can be translated and passed on. 

Right now in Evangelicalism there is no way of knowing who is in and out, who is on the right side of the fence or not.

I am nonconfrontational on a personal level, but when you come to the text there is nowhere to go, you have to say “This is it.”  People say that I am divisive, but is it me or is it the Word of God that draws the line?  

It’s about the truth to me.  At the end of the day, did I teach the truth, did I uphold the truth? It was the Apostle John’s heart.

My philosophy of church staff is to surround myself with the very best, a team with passion for the lost and to nurture and teach the saints, get the most gifted and pay them. Ministry produces church growth.  Buildings don’t, programs don’t.

Planning for church growth? I have no long-range planning, no short-range planning. No planning.
 
When I started at the church, I wanted them to see Christ in all His glory, that’s what I started out with, the Gospel of John, in one hundred sermons.

If I went to a church fresh, I wouldn’t get their doctrine straightened out, or their order straightened out, I wouldn’t drop hammers on their head, they are wherever they are because someone led them there. I would show them the glory of Christ. 

Paul said Preach Christ.

We in this country get so caught up trying to fix this life here and now that we forget about the hope of heaven.  If we had an opportunity to have people to sign up to go to heaven on the spot there would be people trying to decide whether or not to go because their kid had a little league game that afternoon.