Saving Eutychus: A Review

As a pastor, I try to read homiletics books from time to time to help me continue to grow as a Christian preacher.  I recently purchased Saving Eutychus by Gary Millar and Phil Campbell (two Presbyterian pastors from Australia).  I want to point out this brief book here because it is a good resource on preaching.

I recommend this book because it is like a good sermon: biblical, to the point, gospel-centered, and applicable.  Millar and Campbell are firmly committed to expository preaching that has Christ at the center.  There’s even a brief chapter in the book on how biblical theology relates to the pulpit (and how it doesn’t!).  I also appreciated their emphasis on prayer and sermon prep.  The authors don’t cover every topic in this book, but they touch on the basics in a way that is helpful for developing the skill of good preaching.

As with all homiletics books, there are things in Saving Eytychus that are debatable.  For example, one of the authors is committed to sermons that are around 20 minutes long.  Some might argue that a few points in this book are cultural (i.e. the need to use short, simple words in sermons).  One author gave a sermon example in which a slide presentation and video clip were used.  This struck me as odd since the entire book is about biblical, expository preaching of a text.  Presenting a video clip in corporate worship is not preaching!  Some of the argumentative force of the book was lost on me because of this.

However, I still recommend this resource on preaching.  I needed to read this book as a good reminder to keep studying the text hard and with much prayer.  I was glad to be reminded of the need to fight against monotone and dry preaching and was happy to read ways how to improve on sermon delivery.  The emphasis on “the big idea” of the sermon was also a good one; point well taken!

Here are a few of my favorite quotes.

“Just about the worst thing that can happen when we finish preaching is that someone will walk out of the door of the church buoyed by their own resolve to try harder” (p. 77).

“The key to preaching…is to make the message of the text obvious.  Help people to see it and feel it.  Help people to understand the text” (p. 29).

“When I listen to you preach, do I want to see that you have grappled with the biblical theological implications of the text?  Yes, I do.  Do I want listening to a sermon feel like sitting at home reading a book on biblical theology?  No, I don’t.  There is a difference between doing biblical theology and preaching in a way that is shaped by biblical theology” (p. 91).

This isn’t an “end all” book on homiletics.  Millar and Campell don’t do everything in this book.  But what they do include is extremely helpful.  I’ve already made a few slight changes in my own sermon preparation and delivery.   In fact, I’m confident it will be a blessing for pastors who have labored for three months or thirty-five years.

Gary Millar and Phil Campbell, Saving Eutychus (Kingsford: Matthias Media, 2013).

rev shane lems

How to Listen to a Sermon

  (This post is an edited repost from May, 2008)

Christopher Love (d. 1651), a Welsh Presbyterian and pastor of a church in London, manuscripted his sermons sermons on mortification and published them in The Mortified Christian (Morgan: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1998). The whole book is worth reading, but the last section is what I’ll note for now. The chapter is called “The Right Hearing of Sermons.” Here are seven practical directions for listening to the preaching of the gospel (I’ve edited them for length).

1) Take heed that you hear the Word of God preparedly. As the preacher must take care to find acceptable words, so the people should labor to bring acceptable affections to the work – when we come to the service of God we should hear with all attention and pray with affection.

2) Hear the Word attentively, as those did in Acts 8.6. Those who hear the Word with gazing eyes, wandering thoughts, and sleepy bodies cannot hear it attentively, but are to be reproved.

3) Hear the Word of God retentively. Labor to keep in your memory what you hear, that you may put it into practice for your life. Hearing is for practice’s sake. This also has to do with treasuring the Word, so it will have a continual impression upon your hearts.

4) Hear the Word understandingly. Christ called the multitude and bade them hear and understand. This is what the Bereans did.

5) Hear the Word applicatively. If a patient has never such excellent counsel given him, never so powerful a medicine prescribed, if he does not apply it, it will do him no more good than if he had never known it.

6) Hear the Word of God reverentially. Many people represent God to themselves in such familiar notions that they ultimately breed a contempt of God which we ought not to have. We must demean ourselves with a humble reverence in His presence.

7) Hear the Word of God obediently. Come…ready, prepared, and disposed to stoop and submit to all the instructions, corrections, and reproofs of the Word of God, like those spoken of in Acts 10.33.

All of the advice Love gave assumed that we sit “under” the preaching of the Word, not over it.  The congregation does not rule the preached word; the word “rules” them.   So we come to hear a sermon ready to hear God’s word read and explained – we pray for ears to hear, eyes to see, and hearts to believe what God speaks in and through his word read and preached.  

shane lems

sunnyside, wa

Preaching, Emotions, Experiences, and the Gospel

 As a pastor, I have to preach the gospel week in and week out through the ups and downs of my own Christian life.  That’s one of many things that makes the ministry of the word a difficult calling. But I can stand behind the pulpit and preach the gospel even through the “downs” in my spiritual life because the gospel doesn’t depend upon my emotions, feelings, or experience.  These comments by J. Gresham Machen have been a source of comfort and motivation for me in the ministry.  I trust all our readers will benefit from these words, though pastors will especially want to take note.

“I know that it is hard to live on the heights of Christian experience.  We have had flashes of the true meaning of the cross of Christ, but then comes long dull days.  What shall we do in those dull times?  Shall we cease to witness for Christ?  Shall we make common cause in those dull days, with those who would destroy the corporate witness of the church?  Perhaps we may be tempted to do so.  When there are such enemies in our own souls, we may be tempted to say, ‘What time have we for the opponents without?’  Such reasoning is plausible.”

“But all the same it is false.  We are not saved by keeping ourselves constantly in the proper frame of mind, but we were saved by Christ once for all when we were born again by God’s Spirit and were enabled by him to put our trust in the Savior.  And the gospel message does not cease to be true because we for the moment have lost sight of the full glory of it.”

“Sad will it be for those to whom we minister if we let our changing moods be determinative of the message that at any moment we proclaim, or if we let our changing moods determine the question whether we shall or shall not stand against the rampant forces of unbelief in the church.  We ought to look, not within, but without, for the content of what we are to preach, and for the determination of our witness-bearing; not our changing feelings and experiences, but to the Bible as the Word of God.  Then, and only then, shall we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord” (p. 137-138).

To be moved and brought to joyful tears by the gospel is a blessed thing, but neither my preaching nor my salvation depends upon my emotions, experiences, or feelings.  My preaching and salvation depend upon the historical and biblical truth that Jesus died on the cross and rose again to save sinners.  The gospel is true no matter where we are in the Christian life; thus it is truly good news.  And so we pastors can confidently preach “in and out of season.”

By the way this book, God Transcendent, is worth every cent of the $8.00 it costs.  If you don’t have it, I highly recommend getting it:  J. Gresham Machen, God Transcendent (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2002).

rev shane lems

For Weary Pastors

 A short while ago I did a review here on Paul Tripp’s book, Dangerous Calling.  By way of reminder, I said Tripp’s book contained good content, poor writing, and is an excellent resource for arrogant pastors that needed to be humbled and brought low.  But Dangerous Calling is not a good book for weary and humbled pastors who need encouragement.  Since I read Tripp’s book, I found a better one for pastors who need encouragement and refreshment in the ministry: Preaching with Freshness by Bruce Mawhinney. 

Preaching with Freshness is different than most books on the pastoral ministry in that it was written as a novel.  The main character is a pastor who has been at the same church for ten years and is feeling burned out, rejected, and worthless as a pastor.  He’s not really struggling with deep, habitual sins; he’s simply tired and weary of preaching week in and week out for so many years.  He doesn’t think he’s ten feet tall and bulletproof; he thinks he’s simply too tired and fatigued to press on.

I don’t want to give any more details (no spoilers here!), but I do want to note that the book does give practical insight into preaching and the pastoral ministry.  In other words, it is not just a novel, it is a sort of teaching novel.  As I read it, I was reminded of a pastor’s high calling and dependence upon God’s grace.  I was also instructed in the area of homiletics – specifically writing and delivering solid, biblical sermons.  At the end of the book Mawhinney outlines the different sermon methods he explained in the book. 

If you’re a pastor looking for pastoral encouragement, you’ll want to get this book.  It just might grip you as it did me.  Or, if your pastor has been preaching week in and and out for many years, get him this book as a token of love.  Though it talks about preaching, it isn’t “preachy;” it is a believable story that encourages and refreshes along the way.  In fact, I even gave it to one of my elders who read it and thoroughly appreciated it.  Basically, if you’re a weary preacher who needs refreshment and renewal in the ministry, or if you have a heart for preachers, this book is for you: Preaching with Freshness by Bruce Mawhinney.

shane lems

When to Hear a Sermon (Or: When Not to Hear a Sermon)

Christopher Ash’s Listen Up: A Practical Guide to Listening to Sermons is a helpful pamphlet aimed at giving Christians some lessons in listening.   This book is only thirty pages long and written at a popular level, so any Christian could benefit from it.  In it, Ash gives seven ingredients for healthy sermon listening and he even talks about listening to poor sermons.  I won’t list every point out here, but I do want to mention #4 and give some edited excerpts from it.

“Hear the sermon in church.  The normal place for preaching is the gathering of the local church.  We are to hear sermons as a people gathered together; they are not preached so that we can listen to them solo later.  There is nothing such as ‘virtual church.’  [The people of God] are gathered by the word of God (God takes the initiative to summon…us) and gathered to sit together under the word of God (‘to hear my words’ [Deut. 4:10]), to be shaped together by his word.

“When we listen to an MP3 recording of a sermon, we are not listening to preaching, but to an echo of preaching that happened in the past.  Listening on my own to a recording can never be more than a poor second-best to actually being there with the people of God in a local church.  It is better to listen to the pastor you know, and who knows you, than to hear a recording of the well-known preaching you don’t know, and who doesn’t know you.”

“When we listen to a sermon together, we are accountable to one another for our response. …You know what message I’ve heard, and I know what message you’ve heard.  I’ve heard it.  You know I’ve heard it.  I know that you know I’ve heard it!  And you expect me to respond to the message, just as I hope you will.  And so we encourage one another and stir up one another to do what the Bible says.”

This is a great point.  Hearing God’s word together as an assembled people is profoundly biblical and covenantal; it is one of the primary ways God builds his people up, as is evident in Acts.  It is a good thing to be able to listen to recorded sermons in the car or on a jog, but if this practice lowers a person’s view of hearing the word preached “live” and corporately, it should be done infrequently.  Furthermore, sometimes Christians listen to famous popular preachers so much it makes them discontent with their own preacher and church, which opens the door for many spiritual illnesses.

Ironically, some people who listen to tons of sermons online are in fact guilty of disobeying the call in Scripture to regularly attend the Christian assembly (Heb. 10:25).  I suppose this comes back to the discussion of using technology in a biblically wise way.  Just because technology makes something easier and more convenient doesn’t mean it is right, proper, and good.  At the risk of being called “unspiritual,” I’d say that some Christians need to stop listening to recorded sermons during the week and stick to hearing them in a solid local church on Sunday.  Finally, as food for thought, does this topic relate to another topic we’ve blogged on here, namely rampant American individualism?  If so, how?

Get the book: Listen Up! by Christopher Ash.

shane lems