Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Peter Masters: evangelistic preaching

I don't want to go on and on about this. And I'm not doing this just because my Saturday blog about PM got more comments than I'd had for weeks. Well, not just because of that. But go here, and scroll down until you find the sermon 'Living by human sight or spiritual light' - from June 13th this year. Listen to it, or watch it.

Note how he takes one simple spiritual truth - that we need faith not sight - and spends thirty minutes on it. Note how he illustrates it. Note his (very occasional) humour. Note the warmth of his delivery. Note the gentleness with which he speaks directly to the unconverted.

There's a lot of truth in here - and Calvary especially, of course. But he doesn't try to cover everything; he doesn't labour anything, and there really is just one point to the whole sermon.

It's one I picked at random. It would be amazing therefore if it were his best, or his worst. But it is very, very good.

I think I'm going to listen to some more. Why don't you?

2 comments:

Martin Walker said...

I'd forgotten what an amazing resource there is to learn from there about how to take the Bible and preach evangelistically as he does. I can't help wondering whether you could say it in less - but on the other hand he's actively 'wrestling' with souls, so why rush it. It'd be interesting to see if it's the case with most ministers but I think there is a vitality you have (unction??) in evangelistic preaching that isn't always there week by week. Not sure I'm putting that right, but do you know what I mean?
Top and bottom of it I guess is learn from PM and seek to do more. There you go Gary, hope that justifies a second bite at the blogging about Peter Master's cherry for you.

Gary Benfold said...

You're right - it's wrestling, and it takes time. 'Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.' Packer said once that the trouble with much preaching is 'doctrinal overload'. Now, while some preaching could do with a bit of doctrine (and wouldn't recognise it if it bit it on the backside), simplicity is important.