David Allen
I have always been partial to train whistles. My grandparents lived about a half mile from the railroad tracks in the little lazy mill town of Lindale, Ga. I would hear the train whistle blow day and night. My favorite time to listen was late on a fall night. Everything else in the house was quiet and tranquil. Suddenly, off in the distance, the first whistle pierced the darkness. The whistle grew louder as the train neared. After the powerful locomotives passed the crossing and the whistle stopped, the only sound was the rhythmical clickety-clack clickety-clack of the wheels as car after car rolled past and then disappeared into the darkness. I don’t know why, but somehow it brought to me a sense of comfort. Read More »
“God never uses a man greatly until he hurts him deeply.” So said A. W. Tozer. Few men can attest to this truth like John Donne, the 17th century English preacher, poet, and Dean of St. Paul’s Church in London from 1621 until his death in 1631. Today Donne is more known for his poetry than for his preaching, but he was a master at both. Oddly, Donne lay in virtual obscurity for the average person until the first quarter of the 20th century when T.S. Eliot’s recommendation that Donne be published anew catapulted him into the status of a major English poet. Read More »
So as not to be found unwilling to follow my own admonition to my preaching students (I tell them they “must read 3 books a week for the rest of your life” in order to continually improve their preaching effectiveness), one of my three books this week is Charles Seife’s Proofiness: How You’re Being Fooled by the Numbers. Seife’s book is nothing short of fascinating and should be read by all, but especially preachers. Preachers must make sure their “facts” tell the truth! Read More »
Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on the blog SBC Today.
The release of “A Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God’s Plan of Salvation,” has engendered a Convention-wide discussion and made nation-wide news. Tongues have been wagging and fingers have been pecking computer keyboards ceaselessly these past few weeks. The Statement has received both acclaim and criticism. In reflecting on the tsunami of words, and as a conversation partner along with my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I have asked the Lord to help me be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove. I hope the following thoughts will be helpful as we continue the conversation in the days ahead. By way of brief personal background, I have served the local church for 26 years, 21 of those years as a senior pastor of two churches. I have served two theological institutions in the classroom since 1985. In addition, I served on the Board of Trustees at one of our SBC Seminaries for 12 years. In the interests of full disclosure, I am a signatory of the document. Read More »
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a preaching series from Southwestern Dean of Theology David Allen. To view the series, click here.
A text-driven sermon is a sermon that expresses the main and subordinate information of a given text so that modern day hearers understand the meaning that the original audience would have understood. One does not necessarily have to package this information in a traditional deductive outline in order to accomplish this! However, the preacher must undertake careful exegetical work in grammatical, syntactical and semantic structure of the text in order to determine what the author has encoded as main and subordinate information in the text. The sermon should stay true to the substance, structure, sense, and spirit of the text. Only when this is done right and done well can valid application be given in a sermon. Application without exposition is groundless. Exposition without application is pedantic. Both must be coupled together with clear, pungent, illustration. Read More »
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a preaching series from Southwestern Dean of Theology David Allen. To view the series, click here.
Nowadays it is not uncommon to hear some people decry the notion of preaching through books of the Bible. Naysayers inform us that congregations won’t endure such preaching; that it does not meet the needs of people; that such series take too long; that it is boring; not to mention a host of other lugubrious objections. At the same time, many churches led by men who do regularly preach through Bible books are growing and thriving. What are we to make of this? Read More »
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a preaching series from Southwestern Dean of Theology David Allen. To view the series, click here.
By sermon form I mean the way in which a sermon is structured, or arranged. Just as thought has to be ordered if it is to be intelligible, so sermons have to have some kind of order and arrangement if people are to understand them and benefit from them. Read More »
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a preaching series from Southwestern Dean of Theology David Allen. To view the series, click here.
We all know preachers who are too big for their britches. You know the type. In the extreme, this is the guy who can strut sitting down. He exudes arrogance, either in the pulpit, outside the pulpit, or both. Probably for most preachers, however, our pride is not that extreme, but it is pride nonetheless. It is difficult to remain humble when you are constantly told by church members at the end of most Sundays’ sermon something like: “Pastor, you are my favorite preacher of all time.” “Pastor, you are the next Billy Graham.” “I’ve never heard preaching like that before!” “Pastor, that was a great sermon.” Read More »
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a preaching series from Southwestern Dean of Theology David Allen. To view the series, click here.
Sometimes reading the history of preaching can make you feel like a two-talent preacher surrounded by 10-talent preaching. After all, who among us can run in the same eloquent company with a John the Golden Mouth (Chrysostom), or soar with a Savonarola, or scale the heights of imagination with a Bunyan, or melt icy hearts like a Wesley or Whitefield, or wield the sword of the Spirit like a Spurgeon? Giants all, to name only a few, in the land of the giants known as the history of preaching. Read More »
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a preaching series from Southwestern Dean of Theology David Allen. To view the series, click here.
In the great western movie, “The Magnificent Seven,” Chris (Yul Brynner) leads a band of seven hired guns to protect a Mexican village from marauders lead by Calvera (Eli Wallach). They train the villagers how to defend themselves. When Calvera and his 40 bandits ride into the village, they are met in the town square by Chris, who firmly tells Calvera: “ride on.” Calvera protests. “I’m going into the hills for the winter. Where am I going to get food for my men? Somehow I don’t think you have solved my problem.” Chris replies: “Solving your problem is not our line.” At that point, the camera cuts to a lean, cool character standing a few feet to the right of Brynner–Steve McQueen. With a you-know-I-mean- business-look and voice, he utters my favorite line in the movie: “We deal in lead, friend.” (Rent it; you won’t be disappointed.) Read More »
