A Clear Steer on Stott Roger Steer “Inside Story. The life of John Stott”

A Clear Steer on Stott Roger Steer “Inside Story. The life of John Stott” (IVP: 2009) A Review: by Simon Vibert

There have been lots of worthy tributes of John Stott, a man of God whose influence was felt throughout the latter half of the 20th century and resonating around the world. I am sure there will be much synthesis and analysis of his 50 books, strategic thinking, insightful logic and godly influence.

Roger Steer’s book belongs in this genre. Although it was published in 2009, in Stott’s 88th year, the biography covers his last public speaking event in Keswick in July 2007 and concludes with comments and appreciation from leaders around the world. Among many other positive comments about the book, “Inside Story” belongs among the first of such tributes and reflections on this great man of God.

On Steer

“Inside Story” provides lots of insights gleaned from Stott’s personal diary and notes, interviews with friends and careful conversation. In fewer than 300 pages Steer has managed a distillation of 90 years and 50 books. He combines biography and bibliography!

He has similar gifts of succinctness and clarity which are so admired in John Stott. For example, in summarising Stott on Evangelical Christianity, he says: Evangelicals held the three “R’s” – revelation, redemption and regeneration, associating revelation with the Father, redemption with the Son, and regeneration with the Holy Spirit. Yet the more the three persons of the Trinity were glorified, the more completely human pride was excluded. To magnify the cross of Christ was to confess our utter lostness without it. To magnify the regenerating, indwelling, and sanctifying role of the Holy Spirit was to confess our abiding self-centredness without it. (p.250).

Though in every respect a saint – a man who took holiness seriously – Uncle John would have hated hagiography. Steer has succeeded in being honest and at the same time deeply appreciative and respectful.

At times there are some clunky gear changes. The transitions from one chapter to another feel a bit arbitrary and the book tends to list rather than critique (e.g. the Peter Forster and Jim Packer comments on “double listening” on p.237 could do with some evaluation).

Nevertheless “Inside Story” is a very valuable addition to the many past (and no-doubt forthcoming) appraisals of John Stott’s ministry. Steer regularly succeeded in causing me to pause and pray; to give thanks and ask to be Christ-like in the way John Stott was. This was the fitting theme of his final Keswick appearance in June 2007: “God wants us to become like Christ. Christ-likeness is the will of God for the people of God.” (p.271).

On Stott

The John Stott we meet in “Inside Story” could be summarised as follows: He was a man of incredible self-discipline. He took seriously the challenge of Isaiah 1:18 “’Come now, let us reason together,’ says the Lord”, and was sometimes accused of “evangelical tidy mindedness”. But this gift of succinct clarity is unsurpassed in evangelical writing.

He also allowed himself to be challenged and to change, a point which Steer brings out very well. In early years, his self-discipline was perhaps in danger of leading him to an individualistic private pietism. He was challenged to learn to really listen and ultimately developed the notion of “double listening” as a model of faithful biblical preaching. His vision for setting up organisations and evangelical bodies (e.g. , EFAC, CEEC, Langham Partnership), and critical and costly intervention in the 60’s tension between Anglican Evangelicals and the Westminster Fellowship under Martyn Lloyd Jones, has implications even for today.

There is so much more to say, but not to be over-looked was Stott’s personal interest in helping the poor and downtrodden. This was eventually worked out in a thorough evangelical conviction about social concern and evangelism. I was interested to note that both Steer and Stott considered “The Cross of Christ” as his finest and most important book. Of course, the contribution this book makes to a clear understanding of penal substitution as central to the many faceted ways in which the cross may be viewed and the penetrating application of the Scripture’s teaching on what was achieved by God through the work of the cross must not be denied. However, I wonder whether enough has been made of the huge impact of “Issues Facing Christians Today” in encouraging a biblical vision for the poor and the alienated alongside the need for effective evangelism. I know that for me, reading “Issues” was a life transforming experience.

Personal

So many people will want to add their own testimony to the influence of John Stott on their life. For me, there at least four things with which I resonated strongly in Roger Steer’s book.

Firstly, I am inspired by Stott’s amazing self discipline over a lifetime matched by a willingness to change. He stayed faithful and grew in stature and wisdom. He exemplifies what Eugene Peterson calls “A long obedience in the same direction”, which is indeed a challenge to much modern, instant and “quick fix”, spirituality.

Secondly, as a preacher, Stott’s rigorous study of the text alongside the gift of succinct clarity is desperately needed in our pulpits and something which I want to be the hallmark of mine and a new generation of preachers.

Thirdly, despite the caricatures of stuffy upper class Brit (possibly justified in his early years), Roger Steer has done a good job bringing out his great interest and love for all kinds of individuals. Evangelical ministry is about application of the Word of God to people.

Finally, John Stott was a strategic thinker working with the structures of Anglicism but also with the cross-denominational networks. Here is a great lesson from Stott: work out the things you do well, hone those gifts and skills, and spend a lifetime doing them.

So, thank you Roger for a good Steer on Stott!

Rob Bell and Love Wins, Article by Simon Vibert

Rob Bell’s Love Wins – taking its toll among evangelicals?

 Rob Bell could be characterised as a young, hip and trendy preacher, media savvy and culturally alert.  He is the founding Pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids Michigan which since its beginning’s in 1999 now has a Sunday congregation of over 10,000.   

He is best known for high quality DVD’s entitled Nooma (a phonetic transliteration of the Greek word for “spirit”).  These are 12-14 minute teaching resources.  They are intended to be “visually stunning and emotionally compelling”. 

Much ink has already been spilt over Rob Bell’s recent book Love Wins.  The advanced publicity caused quite a stir, but I think that was the point.  I have refrained from making comment on the book until I have read it, and I have also read quite a bit of blog comment subsequently.

Up until now I have been pretty positive about Rob Bell and commend him in a forthcoming book on preaching (“Excellence in Preaching”, IVP 2011).  He is a great communicator.  But, like many others, I was taken aback by the advance publicity in mid March (see HarperCollins http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Love-Wins-Rob-Bell/?isbn=9780062049636).  Now, with the book on the market, it is sure to be a bestseller: not least because there must be many others who, like me, have bought it to see what he really says.

Some generally positive comments:

He asks good questions.  This is one feature of the Nooma DVDs.  Asking difficult questions elicits empathy from the hearer and also shows due self-awareness that teachers don’t necessarily have all the answers.

He is a good verbal communicator.  His style is engaging, relaxed and humorous; thousands flock to Mars Hill Church every week to hear him preach.

He is keen to win those who may have been disenfranchised by the Church. He is convinced that many have heard a wrong view of the Christian faith, namely, that in this short life-span on earth a decision made for or against Jesus Christ determines whether they spend eternity in hell or eternity in heaven. 

[God’s} love compels us to question some of the dominant stories that are being told as the Jesus story.  A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better.  It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus.  This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’s message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear (p.viii).

 He demonstrates the power of story to change lives.  The Gospel is God’s story, which has the ability to transform your story and reconnect you with the author.  And the story of the Bible is bigger than rescuing people from hell (see p.134).

 He is keen to emphasise the positive message about the love of God.

Love does indeed win, (see Rev 21:5-7).  I am with him when he says we need fresh and engaging ways to communicate this message:

I want to rescue preaching. I believe it's an art form and I want to rescue it back from the scientists and the analysts. I want to see the poets and the prophets and the artists grab the microphone and say great things about God and the revolution. I think a whole art form has been lost that needs to be recaptured, a grand ambition for the art of preaching.  (The Subversive Art Leadership Journal January 2004).

 Some genuine concerns:

 He does not always give clear answers where clear answers are available.  He claims: this isn’t a book of questions.  It’s a book of responses to these questions.  But is it?  Chapter after chapter is full of questions.  If Bell is not clear in his mind on these matters should he not keep his questions to himself?  And, as Job learned, not all questions are good ones to ask; indeed God asks the most searching questions of us (Gen 3:9; Job 38).

He is a better speaker than writer. I do not think that Bell is a great writer.  It is partly because the written word does not enable the same kind of engagement that the spoken word does: inflection, nuance, eye contact, non-verbal and para-verbal issues; all these come across well in his speaking.  But there is more:

He is in danger of knocking down straw men/ being disingenuous

One of the better chapters is “The Good News is better than that” (Chapter 7).  Here he emphasises the fact that both sons in Luke 15 had misunderstood God; they had a skewed idea of the Father’s love and goodness.  Is he charging Evangelicals of being too Older Brother/Pharisaic?  Is he saying that the Church generally does not preach enough the message that “Love wins”?  

His questions have prompted a few questions of my own: what is the target at which Love Wins is aimed?

Is this a debate about legalism?

So when we hear that a certain person has “rejected Christ,” we should first ask, “Which Christ?” (p.9). In Chapter 9 he cites websites which are, quite frankly harsh, off putting and hardly the most winsome in welcoming non-Christians into Church!  His worry is that the “Turn or Burn” placard is toxic and inherently dangerous to the Church.

His corrective is to emphasise that God “gets what he wants” and “love will win.”

Of course there are religious fundamentalists who give the Christ of Christianity a very bad name (note Louis Theroux’s recent TV exposé of some of the worst extremes).  Richard Mouw argues that this book is about the gap between “generous orthodoxy” and “stingy orthodoxy.”  But Bell’s problem is not with a fanatical fringe, but rather he seems to be suggesting that mainline churches have been mistaken over the biblical teaching of hell and have got the message wrong.

Is the issue over Universalism or Annihilationism?

There is a legitimate evangelical debate over whether the Bible envisages unending torment for the wicked in hell. 

John Stott argues that the biblical language of “destruction” and “fire” (as consuming) implies that hell will not be unending.  The nature of God’s justice questions whether “eternal conscious torment” is compatible with biblical revelation of divine justice (Evangelical Essentials, p.319).  Universalism is an unbiblical concept, he states, not least because of the repeated warnings of the Bible about judgment.  Nevertheless Stott pleads that ‘the ultimate annihilation of the wicked should at least be accepted as a legitimate, biblically founded alternative to their eternal conscious torment’ (p.320).

Evangelical contemporary, Jim Packer, responds saying that the Scriptural language of “destruction, death and punishment” point to the ruin of unbelievers, not necessarily their non existence.  Human beings have an eternity: either to intimate relationship with God or eternal distance from God.  References to “eternal punishment” following judgment (see Matt 25:46) need to be taken seriously. (See: The Problem of Eternal Punishment, Fellowship of Word and Spirit, Orthos 10).

Some of Bell’s concerns relate to this issue of “the eternity of hell.”  But he goes much further.  He asks: what does it means when Jesus says he will draw all people to himself (John 12:32)?

At the heart of this perspective is the belief that, given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God’s presence.  The love of God will melt every hard heart, and even the most “depraved sinners” will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God (p.107).

 God’s goal in all things is restoration and reconciliation: Which is stronger and more powerful, the hardness of the human heart or God’s unrelenting, infinite, expansive love? But a few pages later he asks: So will those who have said no to God’s love in this life continue to say no in the next? Love demands freedom, and freedom provides that possibility.  People take that option now, and we can assume it will be taken in the future (p.114).

There is a conundrum here: Bell argues that love can not be coerced and we get the hell (or heaven) we choose.   But, he argues: in the end, “love wins.”

Is the issue over penal substitution?

Considerable controversy was raised in the evangelical world over Steve Chalke’s book The Lost Message of Jesus.  In this book Chalke likens penal substitution to “cosmic child abuse.”   Some of what Bell writes sounds similarly concerned:

However true or untrue [that Jesus paid the price for sin] is technically or theologically, what it can do is subtly teach people that Jesus rescues us from God (p.182).

 So, what happened at the cross?  Is the cross about the end of the sacrificial system or a broken relationship that’s been reconciled or a guilty defendant who’s been set free or a battle that’s been won or the redeeming of something that was lost?  Which is it? (p.127).

The traditional evangelical answer has been: God is holy; there is sin; there will be a judgement; and that is why we need a cross to rescue us.  As with the Steve Chalke debate, we do well to remember that the cross is more than penal substitution (which Bell helpfully points out in chapter 5), but, we say too little if we don’t put at the heart of the Gospel Christ’s “full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world” (as the Book of Common Prayer so eloquently puts it).

 

Is the issue over the nature of the new heaven and the new earth?

Is heaven and hell to do with the eternal life hereafter?  Bell’s corrective is spot on: it starts with “life eternal.”  This is reflected in the prayer Jesus taught: “thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”

Bell’s thoughts about the new heaven and the new earth clearly have been influenced by Tom Wright’s Surprised by Hope which he cites for further reading.

He is right to say:

Heaven, for Jesus, was deeply connected with what he called “this age” and “the age to come.” (p.30).

Equally, discussions about “eternal life” have as much to do with life “now” as life “then” (e.g. p.41).  Heaven is dwelling with God; and when we dwell with God the future is dragged into the present (p.45).

 Do I believe in a literal hell?  Of course. (p.71) – so that settles it?  Well no, because for the most part, Hell is what is experienced now on earth when people reject God: if we want to say “no” to God, we can, and that is hell.

He notes the way in which Jesus speaks about Hell to religious leaders of his day as a place of purifying.  Then he concludes: the punishment of hell is for chastening, rebuking and purifying.  God is in the business of restoration: Failure, we see again, isn’t final; judgment has a point, and consequences are for correction (p.88).

It certainly seems that Bell doubts the eternity of hell:  Hell is distance from God and hell is lived on earth.  But, I was also left asking: does he believe in an eternal heaven?  I think he does but the book is not clear on this point: for him, heaven should be read as synonymous with “God.”  As he rightly corrects errors in popular views about heaven, I wonder whether he has lost any sense of the hereafter.

Conclusion

Unhelpful advanced publicity

The short video promotional focused on a response he records in chapter one of the book: “Gandhi’s in hell.  Really? … Has God created millions of people over tens of thousands of years who are going to spend eternity in anguish?”  Surely this served no other purpose than to stir up an unholy ferment ahead of publication.

 Unhelpful reactions

Following the initial publicity some initial comments, including from high profile speakers, were quite sharp.  I do not think that it helps to respond in this hasty way before the book was published and available for careful review.

Better was the debate between John Stott and David Edwards in Essentials which is a great model of how to disagree agreeably! See also chapter 6 of their book for extended discussion on Judgement and Hell.

Ultimately an unhelpful book

Bell begins with a key question:

Have billions of people been created only to spend eternity in conscious punishment and torment, suffering infinitely for the finite sins they committed in the few years they spent on earth?

 I think the Bible seems to say: quite probably; Bell thinks no.  Surely the point is God never made me the Judge!

 Of course we do not know the answer to every question.  But some things are very clear: God will judge the wicked and the only way to be saved is through faith in the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross.  James 3 instruction to teachers sounds a sharp warning, Bell!

 * Further blogs/resources

Ben Witherington: chapter by chapter analysis of the book http://www.patheos.com/community/bibleandculture/2011/04/03/for-whom-the-bell-tolls%e2%80%a6%e2%80%a6-chapter-eight-coda/

Richard Mouw: a more positive review http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-orthodoxy-of-rob-bell-49500/

Christianity Today http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/april/lovewins.html and http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2011/02/rob_bells_book.html

A measure and helpful response: EA and Derek Tidball http://www.eauk.org/articles/love-wins-response.cfm

Best title: Michael Horton “Bell’s Hell” http://wscal.edu/blog/entry/bells-hell-a-review-by-michael-horton-part-1

Tim Challies http://www.challies.com/articles/at-the-speed-of-the-web?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+challies/XhEt+(Challies+Dot+Com)

Michael Yousseff http://michaelyoussef.squarespace.com/michaels-blogs/love-has-already-won.html with retort from Virtue online http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=14160

For fun: Don Miller http://emergingbracken.blogspot.com/2011/04/don-miller-on-rob-bells-new-book-love.html

Some important resources from recent Gospel Coalition conference in Chicago http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/

Summary of the very helpful Q&A session between Tim Keller and Don Carson at the Desiringgod website http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/god-abounding-in-love-punishing-the-guilty

Simon Vibert is Vice Principal at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.  An abbreviated version of this article is published in the Church of England Newspaper (15^th April 2011).  See also www.simonvibert.com.

 

Make a house a home

Make a house a home

 Some thoughts on preaching which hits home

We are preparing to move house again soon (2 miles across the other side of Oxford).  As we prepare for the process of transporting all our possessions from one house to another my thoughts turned to what makes a house a home?  The bare structure and location of a property only becomes home when it feels lived in and starts to reflect the personality of its inhabitants.

The same could be said to be true of preaching.  Many sermons which I listen to show evidence of structure, design and effort.  But they often don’t feel lived in.  They lack the warmth and personality which only comes when the preacher has inhabited the text for themselves and taken it home.

What are some of the errors which sermons make?  You can probably think of more, but these few thoughts came to mind.

Pegs

When you first move into your new house boxes get emptied and mounds of clothing, books etc. await proper ‘filing away’.  Should someone come to visit the chances are their coat will need to be draped over a chair or put on the bed.  Hopefully, in time, pegs will appear upon which you may hang your coat.

In a similar way, many sermons which I hear offer nowhere to ‘hang your hat’ so to speak.  There is content, but it lacks pegs.  Without this attention to structure, the hearer can struggle to navigate their way through the sermon.  Without pegs it is unlikely that hearers will be able remember salient points of the sermon for the week ahead.

Rhetoric gets a bad name today. But the later Greek sophists (Isocrates. Cicero etc.) believed Rhetoric to be the ability to speak with such clarity that the audience would be persuaded.  Philosophers think clearly.  Rhetoricians think clearly out loud.  Preachers should be doing the same.  This will in part be reflected by careful attention to the structure and form of the sermon.

Personality

It takes time for a house to become a home.  Over time the inhabitants will begin to stamp their own personality on their property – hanging curtains, arranging flowers, decorating to taste etc. 

Many sermons I hear lack personality.  Phillip Brooks’ now famous comment that preaching is “communication of truth through personality” is exactly right.  Obviously we don’t want the sermon to be littered with personal anecdotes and stories.  It is not supposed to be a talk about them.  However, congregations listen when they can see that for the preacher the message has hit home personally.

They have been moved by the message they are preaching.  They have made the connections as to how it applies to their own life.

Punch

Sermons which hit home are those which apply pertinently and pointedly to today’s world.  They are illustrated in real life.

Too many sermons I hear leave me only in the world of the text.  Now, of course, this is not the worst problem, there are equally many messages that never take me to the world of the text and only start in the world of today.  I guess the former may be the weakness of evangelical expository preaching; the latter is the weakness of liberal preaching.

John Stott has regularly repeated the need to engage in “double listening” – Hearing the voice of the text; hearing the voice of the world. 

When you move into a new house you are inclined to think: however did they live with that wallpaper?  How come they didn’t modernise the bathroom suite etc.  But of course, it is very difficult to see your environment and culture from the fresh perspective of an outsider. 

As preachers we need to retain the fresh “eyes” of an outsider, someone who has not spent the whole week labouring over the text, and who can see the difficult punchy questions which might need addressing.

At home in the sermon

By this expression I don’t at all mean that preaching should be psychologically therapeutic, only comforting and devotional.  What I think I mean is that I expect preaching to give me pegs (to help me recall and apply the bible to my life in the week ahead); personality (so I feel that the preacher has met with God in his preparation); punch (I see the issue with a freshness and pertinence for the week ahead).

On being ‘contemporary’ and ‘biblical’ by John Stott

“Imagine if you will, a flat territory that is deeply cut by a ravine or a canyon.  On the one side of the ravine is the biblical world, and on the other side is the modern world.  Between these two territories lies a deep gulf – two thousands years of changing culture.  Evangelical people like me live in the biblical world, on one wide of the divide.  We believe the Bible, meditate on the Bible, and love the Bible.  We are essentially biblical people.  But we are not so comfortable in the modern world, on the other side of the divide.  If like me you’re senescent, if not senile, the you probably feel threatened by the modern world.

Much modern preaching emanates from the biblical world.  Indeed, we wouldn’t dream of preaching from anywhere but the Bible.  But somehow this preaching goes up in the air but fails to land on the other side of the divide.  Our preaching is biblical but not contemporary.

Those who think themselves as liberal often make the opposite mistake.  They live in the modern world.  People listen to them because they seem to resonate with modernity, or post-modernity.  They are not chocked or threatened but the culture of the modern world – they have built in shock absorbers.  They read modern poetry, modern philosophy, modern psychology, modern science; they are moving with the times.  But in reality they have jettisoned biblical revelation.  They may be contemporary, but they are decidedly un-biblical.  Their preaching lands squarely in contemporary reality, but where it comes from, heaven along knows!  It does not come out of Scriptures.

… Evangelicals are biblical, but not contemporary, while liberals are contemporary but not biblical, and almost nobody is building bridges and relating the biblical text to the modern context.

{We need ‘double listening’} Listening to the voice of God in Scripture, and listening to the voices of the modern world, with all their cries of anger, pain and despair…

(From ‘Preach the Word’ (Edited by Greg Haslam) chapter by John Stott entitled “The Paradoxes of Preaching”, by John Stott)

Confidence in the tools of our trade…

Something has bothered me for a while.  I have not quite been able to put my finger on it until now.

 

My unease started when I began my new job teaching preaching at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.   There are a number of issues which I have been coming to terms with.  For one, you really set yourself up when you are introduced to a congregation as the tutor in preaching.  People expect you to be making comments or observations on another person’s sermon.  And, of course, if you are about to preach, you are supposed to be something of an expert and will invariably disappoint!  (Although my preferred definition of an expert is scientific: X is an unknown quantity, and a spurt is a gush of water!).

 

The second bit of unease is a degree of uncertainty as to whether a spiritual gift can really be taught by an academic institution.  Can I teach someone to preach?  At many levels the answer is ‘no’.   And of course, coming into an adult education environment where many of the students already have higher level degrees, persuading them to submit to being taught – well anything! – is a challenge.

 

But I have finally realised what it is that has been nagging away in the back of my mind.  I think it is this.  If I was a perfect teacher I could fill my students’ heads with all sorts of information and understanding about the content of Scripture, the tools of exegesis, the craft of sermon construction, the ability to communicate engagingly and convincingly etc., but never have taught them to preach.  In fact, it is possible that I could have made them worse preachers if they end up putting their confidence in the tools of the trade rather than in the thing that is most important about preaching.

 

Everything I am trying to teach them is focussed on filling up my student’s tool box in order to be able to prepare sermons throughout the rest of their ministry.  I am sure that this remains the key priority of theological education.

 

But, in order to preach, the preacher’s confidence should be in the God who is keen to communicate with the people he made.  The task of preaching is to let God do the speaking through His word.  I think that might be what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote:

2 Corinthians 5:20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

 

1 Thessalonians 2:13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.

 

Should my students be confident in the tools of their trade?  Well, they should be able to use them skillfully and creatively in the same way a craftsman or an artist uses his lathe or brush.  But their confidence should be in God.  He is a God who makes and keeps promises.  Who reveals Himself through His Word.  When a preacher is faithful to that word congregations don’t just hear preachers, they hear God speaking through His word.

 

Consequently a congregation will soon become aware whether the preacher has met with the Lord as they have prepared their sermon.  They may be impressed when the preacher cuts and pastes a John Stott, Don Carson, John Piper (or whoever) sermon.  But they will not meet with God if the preacher has not.  The only way in which I can help mould and shape a new generation of preachers is by encouraging them to be deeply immersed in the Scriptures and ravenously seek the presence of God in the preparation and preaching.

 

In the context of an appeal not to harden their hearts towards the Word of the Lord, the writer to the Hebrews says: We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first (Hebrews 3:14).  I am cautious when we are overly dependent on our wit, our gift of illustration, our clever alliteration, our ability to tell a story, our PowerPoint or use of video clips.  A truly confident preacher is one who has confidence in God and allows Him to speak faithfully through his word.  This is a confidence which arises out of time spent labouring over the Scripture in God’s presence.  There are no tools for this task, only time and humility in God’s presence.