Seven Ways To Boost Your Storytelling Power

Fifteen-year-old Charles Spurgeon, a few months after his conversion, began teaching a Bible class for younger boys. One day a lad interrupted his lesson. "This is very dull, Teacher. Can't you pitch us a yarn?" Young Spurgeon could and did. Later the Prince of Preachers said he learned to tell stories in that class because he was "obliged to tell them."

Prevailing Prayer

Mark 10:46-52 Someone has proposed a Dial-a-Prayer line for atheists. You dial the number; it just rings and rings. No one answers. When we pray - thank God! - He does hear us. In this text, a blind beggar beside the road heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He began to shout, “

Jesus, At Your Service

Mark 10:35-45 John Mark's portrait of Jesus shows him girded, not in the regal robes of a King as in the gospel of Matthew, but in the plain tunic and apron of a servant. The key verse of his whole gospel is this text: "Whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the

The Only Way To Eternal Life

Mark 10:17-31 A key verse of this text is the question of the astonished disciples, "Who then can be saved?" (vs. 26). If a devout and diligent seeker of salvation can't find salvation, who can? I. No one has eternal life who trusts in his own works (vv. 19-20). He was

John Knox: Bold Reformation Preacher

John Knox first appeared on the stage of history bearing the two-handed great sword as bodyguard to reformer George Wisehart. Canon law forbad priests to carry a weapon, but Knox, already disgusted with Rome, was committed to reforming Scotland. For five weeks Wisehart and his...

Christian Living In A Pagan Culture

1 Corinthians 8:1-13 Distinguished New Testament Professor Jack MacGorman, now retired, told of a missionary and his son walking down a jungle trail with a native pastor. They came on a pile of medicine sticks planted by a witch doctor in the trail. It was an attempt to transfer the illness of...

How God Heals The Sin-Sick Soul

2 Kings 5:1-14 No doubt, some today might take exception to seventeenth century Bible interpreter, Benjamin Keach, who said, "By the plague of leprosy, all expositors agree, was represented the hateful nature of sin." (Preaching for the Types and Metaphors of the Bible. Kregel [1855] 1972, pp....