From Prison to the Pulpit: A Stunning Story of God's Grace

Every Christian has an "impressive" testimony. There aren't Varsity and JV versions, because there aren't Varsity and JV sinners. "Dead in our trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1-3) described all of us before God butted in (Eph. 2:4).

But while all testimonies are miraculous, some are unusually gripping and encouraging. Mez McConnell has one of those stories.

Once an abused, addicted, homeless, Christian-despising criminal, Mez now serves as senior pastor of Niddrie Community Church in Edinburgh, Scotland, and founder of 20 Schemes, a ministry dedicated to building gospel-centered churches for Scotland's poorest communities ("schemes"). Here's their vision:

Our long-term desire is to see Scotland's housing schemes transformed by the good news of Jesus Christ through the planting of gospel-preaching churches, ultimately led by a future generation of indigenous church leaders. . . . We believe building healthy, gospel-preaching churches in Scotland's poorest communities will bring true, sustainable, and long-term renewal to Scotland's schemes.   Continue at Matt Smethurst

Orators and Heralds: Audience-Driven vs. Obedience-Driven

Two weeks ago, I posted a third principle of faithfulness for Gospel ministry from 2 Corinthians 4. If the Gospel is veiled to those who are perishing (2Cor 4:3), and if the problem we’re trying to solve is the world’s blindness to glory (2Cor 4:4), then our task is to preach a message that is powerful enough in itself to overcome that blindness. Paul tells us that such a proclamation is not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord (2Cor 4:5).

And yet it seems that many pastors, churches, and individual Christians have not understood the implications of those principles. Sadly, many do preach themselves. Jerry Wragg has offered us two magnificent posts over the last two days (one, two) outlining some reasons he sees for this. Another of the reasons I believe that is the case is that we have a fundamental misunderstanding of our role. Many evangelical preachers see themselves as orators rather than heralds.

To help us see the difference, I want to quote generously from a chapter by Duane Litfin called “Swallowing Our Pride: An Essay on the Foolishness of Preaching.” It appears in Preach the Word, a book on expository preaching in honor of R. Kent Hughes. In this chapter, Litfin examines the widely-held notion that 1Cor 1:24 speaks only of the foolishness of the message preached to the exclusion of the method of preaching itself. He contrasts the ancient keryx, or herald—that is, what New Testament preachers are called to be—with the orator that Paul labored so diligently to distance himself from (1Cor 1:17–2:5).