Posts by Matthew Holst
One of the great difficulties we encounter when we seek to preach Christ from the Old Testament is the challenge of being able to rightly apply the text--both in its original context and then to our own. After all, a chasm of thousands of years exists between the life of the patriarchs and monarchs of Israel and us. What does their experience have to do with ours? How could Christ be preached to them centuries before His coming, and still be preached to us from the same events, teachings and texts? One of the illustrations that I have found to be most helpful in answering this question is that of an ultrasound. So how can ultrasounds better help us understand how to preach Christ from the Old Testament?
Restraint in speech, both in content and manner, is a mark of a Christian. How we say something can be as beneficial or harmful as what we say.
As I approach the fifth anniversary of my ordination to pastoral ministry, I confess that last five years have been a maelstrom of emotional highs and lows--as well as a school of previously unknown experiences. My own experiences and observations of pastoral situations have helped produce my baker’s dozen of lessons for seminarians and new pastors.
“For Everything There Is A Season...” So says the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 3:1. Our God has ordained whatsoever shall come to pass, according to His most wise and free counsel. He has set the limits for every hour, day, week, month and year. He has also ordained the seasons. We live our lives by the divine designations of days and seasons. We mark our births and deaths, we plant and pluck up, break down and build up, all according to the times that God has designated. We live our lives by calendars.
Many of us have joyfully welcomed the renaissance of Christ-centered preaching that churches in North America have undergone in recent decades. For some it has been an old practice to saturate their ministry with the person and work of the Savior. For others it is a relatively new thing to earnestly seek to proclaim their Savior in a more pervasive way in thier preaching. Praise God! If Christ is being proclaimed, the church has done well. Yet there is a fine line between being Christocentric (preaching the Scriptures in a Christ-centered way) and being Christomonic (preaching Christ to the exclusion of the Father and the Spirit).
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