Book Review: Why Johnny Can’t Preach by T. David Gordon

By Charlie Wingard · August 20, 2013 · 0 Comments
Posted in ,

Seventeenth century Puritanism produced some of Christianity’s most able preachers. Many of them received a university training that required the careful reading of texts in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. A language-based educational system prepared future ministers to find a home in biblical texts. If they tutored children of the affluent, they sharpened their expository skills. (T. David Gordon, Why Johnny Can’t Preach. P&R, 2009) The written text no longer dominates America’s educational landscape, and comparatively few students devote themselves to rigorous study of literature or ancient languages before entering seminary. Preaching suffers. T. David Gordon’s Why Johnny Can’t Preach engages the modern preacher by considering his ability both to read biblical texts and communicate compellingly their God-breathed truth. The minister’s…

Read More

From the Heidelberg Catechism for the Lord’s Day, August 18

By Charlie Wingard · August 17, 2013 · 0 Comments
Posted in

88. In how many things does true repentance or conversion consist? In two things: the dying of the old man, and the making alive of the new. 89. What is the dying of the old man? Heartfelt sorrow for sin, causing us to hate and turn from it always more and more. 90. What is the making alive of the new man? Heartfelt joy in God through Christ, causing us to take delight in living according to the will of God in all good works. 91. What are good works? Those only which proceed from true faith, and are done according to the Law of God, unto His glory, and not such as rest on our own opinion or the…

Read More

A Prayer for the Lord’s Day, August 18

By Charlie Wingard · August 17, 2013 · 0 Comments
Posted in

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire, or deserve; Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen. (1662 Book of Common Prayer)

Read More