A Quote by J. I. Packer
We complain today that ministers do not know how to preach; but is it not equally true that our congregations do not know how to hear?
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Those of us who preach the Scriptures, along with being nourished by it ourselves, have to figure out along with our congregations how we can incarnate the gospel in our community, or we will preach to a religious ghetto.
I now know what to do; I know how decisions can be made. I know how you can drive ministers and their departments to actually make decisions and bring results.
If the Communists win Europe and a large part of the world, it will not be because they know how to stir up discontent or how to infect people with hatred, but because they know how to preach hope.
We are confident. We have ourselves. We know how to sacrifice. We know how to work. We know how to combat the forces that oppose us. But even more than that, we are true believers in the whole idea of justice. Justice is so much on our side, that that is going to see us through.
Today must not be a souvenir of yesterday, and so the struggle is everlasting. Who am I today? What do I see today? How shall I use what I know, and how shall I avoid being victim of what I know? Life is not repetition.
There was a time when ministers spoke forthrightly and named things. We don't name anything anymore. Finney had a sermon on How to Preach so as to Convert Nobody. He said 'Preach on sin but never mention any of the sins of your congregation - that will do it.'
I do think that a minister who can preach a sermon without addressing sinners does not know how to preach.
We know how to be doctors, nurses, lawyers. We know how to be tweeters. We know how to be everything. But how do you just be people? How do you be present with one another? How do you be honest with one another? How do you be compassionate towards one another, forgiving towards one another? We know what to do. We don't know what to be, how to be.
I preach Christ, whether people want to hear that or not. I preach it in the spirit of love, you know, not in a spirit of hate, for whoever wants to listen - black, white, Jew or Gentile. They are all my brothers, you know? They are all my sisters.
One of the main reasons is that most Sunday school curricula only teaches disconnected Bible stories. They don't teach how we know the Bible is true, how to defend the faith, and how to answer the skeptical questions of today.
Jesus our Lord is Prophet, Priest, and King. The concept is not new, yet many preachers never preach it, and many congregations never hear it.
I think it would collapse my heart if I was super famous. I don't have the nerve for it, I'm too anxious. I don't know how you're not obsessed with how people perceive you, because they're real people, you know? You can convince yourself that they don't really know you, and that's true, but how can it not hurt your feelings?
How can you get very far, If you don't know who you are? How can you do what you ought, If you don't know what you've got? And if you don't know which to do Of all the things in front of you, Then what you'll have when you are through Is just a mess without a clue Of all the best that can come true If you know What and Which and Who.
If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don't know how to read, you don't know how to decide. That's the great thing about our country - we're a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way.
As people, we have forgotten to be people. We know how to be doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, we know what to do, we know what to buy, but how do I just sit with you in your pain? How do I sit with you in your vulnerability and not betray you, not abuse you? We do not know how to do that, even in our homes.
How you find out who somebody is, whether or not they are a true warrior, a true competitor all the way through... is people that don't know how to walk away or say, 'I'm retired.' Those are the ones that are purebred warriors. They don't know anything else.
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