Sublime

objective understanding of Scripture,

The long and short of it appears to be that an entire ministerial enterprise dedicated to meeting felt needs, supplying biblical advice, and providing top-notch production values has quietly become a huge success at drawing crowds but a huge failure at what the Bible actually calls the church to do.

The writer’s approach is to present instruction interspersed with exhortation throughout his epistle.

Whether by vocal, written, or sign language, evangelism requires a clear articulation of the gospel. Focusing on the need to communicate the evangelistic message does not negate the necessity for believers’ lives and actions to match their evangelistic speech.

So maybe we really have three principles. Christian practice must be (1) gospel-centered in the sense of being word-centered, (2) gospel-centered in the sense of being mission-centered, and (3) community-centered.

Augustine might make Christianity plausible again for those who’ve been burned—who suspect that the “Christianity” they’ve seen is just a cover for power plays and self-interest, or a tired moralism that seems angry all the time, or a version of middle-class comfort too often confused with the so-called American Dream.

Asking a strong diagnostic question after the proposition and then answering the question with the main-point statements make people keenly aware of the purpose of each main point and give the entire message a sense of unity as it progresses. Interrogating the proposition and answering it with the main points is one of the most common and effective