Ears to Hear: Thoughts on the Congregation's Role in Preaching

Part One - Introduction / Why Discuss This? / Obstacles to this Discussion / Where will we be going?

Part Two - Preaching should be official / Authority without ability? / What can you do?

Part Three - A 'choir' of creeds sings about official preaching / Isn't personal witnessing a form of preaching? / What's the payoff?

Part Four - Why do you need a preacher? Some popular notions / Why do you need preaching? To receive divine grace / Preaching: God's means of grace / Ears to hear: Time for a quiz

Part Five - What is 'biblical'? / Topical sermons / Meaning #4: 'biblical' should mean 'textual' / Textual preaching

Part Six - Benefits and expectations of this approach / honors the way the Bible was written / fits the nature of the Bible as the Word of God / equips God's people

Part Seven - Hungry for intimacy / Hungry for intimacy with God / Intimacy and knowledge / God, Bible, and sermon / The heartbeat of God

Part Eight - Is your Bible divided? / How theology becomes practice / The unity of Scripture / Illustration: The blessing of Christ's resurrection

Part Nine - Evangelism and the Old Testament / Evangelistic preaching / Covenantal evangelism / Soufflé for the family, soup for the guests (a.k.a. the lactic heresy) / What then must we do?

Part Ten - What is experiential preaching? / History of salvation versus order of salvation? / Why do we need experiential preaching? / Preaching from heart to heart