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Category: preaching

Published on Leave a comment on Meditating on Romans 3

I preached on Romans 3:21-26 recently.  It's a dense, theologically loaded paragraph on the vindication of God's justice in justifying the unjust through the cross.  Leon Morris has called it perhaps the most important paragraph ever written.

So how to preach it? Well it's Paul, so then clearly a strong didactic form is called for.  Verse by verse, commentary in one hand, a greek lexicon in the other.  Unpack the massive theological freight piece by piece and if you're lucky some doxology tacked on the end (if you're unlucky, an exhortation to evangelism).

Well, perhaps you'll think that's more the model I ended up with.  But close to my heart throughout the preparation was this desire simply to meditate on the three scenes Paul gives us. The law court (v19-24a); the slave market (v24b) and the temple (v25). 

To be honest, if I'd had my time over I think I would have ditched everything else and just gone with a simple meditation.  I'd have gotten the congregation to close their eyes and come with me on a journey...

You are in court. Standing in the dock. You and all humanity. The arms dealer is to your left and the amnesty international human rights lawyer is to your right. In front of you is a paedophile, behind you is Mother Teresa. But there you are in the dock.  The court room intimidates you, everything in it is against you.  You know that your very life hangs in the balance. You dread the verdict that is about to be announced.

The judge reads out these words. As he reads, you know that every charge is unquestionably true:

You are not righteous.

You have no understanding.

You do not seek for God.

You have turned away.

You are worthless.

You do no good.

Your throat is an open grave.

You use your tongue only to deceive.

The venom of vipers is under your lips.

Your mouth is full of curses and bitterness.

Your feet are swift to shed blood

Ruin and misery mark your way.

You have not known the way of peace.

There is no fear of God before your eyes.

The whole court-room is silent but the words ‘not righteous', ‘no understanding' and ‘worthless' still ring in your ears. Your mouth is stopped. You cannot answer a single charge. It's all true and the weight of condemnation is crushing.

The judge raises his gavel. There can be only one verdict. The hammer crashes down. The judge declares it:

I find you not guilty.

The court-room changes in an instant. Smiles everywhere. The judge steps down off the bench to congratulate you.  You are lost for words.

"How?  Why?  What...? 

Large doors are opened and great light comes in. The guards usher you through the doors and out into the light.

The scene has changed.

You find yourself in a first-century market-place. You are hungry. You have no shoes. Instead you stand in iron shackles - owned by a cruel master.  You have never known any different.  You stand in front of the mob and the bidding starts for you.  The price goes up and up and you dread the reasons why anyone would pay so much. 

"Sold!" you hear.  And you peer into the crowd to find out who.  Suddenly a man emerges.  He smiles, bends down and unlocks your shackles.  He stands up, looks you in the eye and says "You're mine now."  You reach for words but they don't really come...  "Why?  How?  What did you pay?"

"Let me show you" He says and takes you by the hand out of the market.

Immediately the scene changes again. You are at the temple, standing - like all the other sinners - in the queue for the altar.  You are carrying a young lamb in your arms just like the law tells you.  At the front of the queue someone lays their hand on the head of their lamb, confessing their sin.  Then, holding its wriggling form down on the altar, they slit its throat - the blood gushes out.  You see the blood and you know that's what you deserve as a sinner.  You shuffle forwards towards the altar.

Suddenly, from deep within the temple a voice booms out ‘Stop the sacrifices.' You drop your lamb in fright, as does everyone else.  They all scurry away. Then you see the most shocking sight of your life.  The LORD God Almghty emerges from within the innnermost sanctuary.  You are stunned.  But not half as stunned as you are about to be.  In His strength the LORD strides towards the altar. He lays down on it, and carrying the sins of all the people the LORD is slain and His blood is spilt.

And now you know - the verdict you didn't deserve, the freedom you didn't earn - it was purchased by the blood of the LORD Jesus Himself.  You look to the altar to see your God now become your Lamb and His blood now become your atonement.  Shaking your head in wonder you leave the temple, the weight of your sin gone - the weight of His glory upon you. 

Go back to the dock.  Remember your guilt.  Now feel the wonder of the verdict.

Go back to the slave-market.  Remember your bondage.  Now feel the joy of your freedom.

Go back to the temple.  Remember the queue for the altar and whose blood was really required.  Now feel the awe as you behold the Lamb of God bleeding for your sins.

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I should have just preached that don't you think?

Anyway - I went for a bit of a compromise.  Didactic with a touch of meditation thrown in.

Read it here

Listen here.

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Published on Leave a comment on Now that's good sermon crit

From a Tim Keller sermon on 'the first shall be last':

There was once a young seminary graduate eager to preach his first sermon.  He ascended the pulpit steps, sure his great learning would amaze the simple lay folk.  Halfway through the sermon he realized he was making a hash of it.  First the congregation lost what he was saying, then he lost what he was saying.  At the end he climbed down from the pulpit crestfallen.  An old Christian woman met him at the end and said "If you'd have gone up the way you came down, you'd have come down the way you went up."

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Published on 3 Comments on Now that’s good sermon crit

From a Tim Keller sermon on 'the first shall be last':

There was once a young seminary graduate eager to preach his first sermon.  He ascended the pulpit steps, sure his great learning would amaze the simple lay folk.  Halfway through the sermon he realized he was making a hash of it.  First the congregation lost what he was saying, then he lost what he was saying.  At the end he climbed down from the pulpit crestfallen.  An old Christian woman met him at the end and said "If you'd have gone up the way you came down, you'd have come down the way you went up."

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Published on Leave a comment on Preaching groups?

Adrian Warnock quotes Spurgeon (h/t Matt Finn):

...to win a soul, it is necessary, not only to instruct our hearer, and make him know the truth, but to impress him so that he may feel it. A purely didactic ministry, which should always appeal to the understanding, and should leave the emotions untouched, would certainly be a limping ministry...

I hate to hear the terrors of the Lord proclaimed by men whose hard visages, harsh tones, and unfeeling spirit betray a sort of doctrinal desiccation: all the milk of human kindness is dried out of them. Having no feeling himself, such a preacher creates none, and the people sit and listen while he keeps to dry, lifeless statements, until they come to value him for being "sound", and they themselves come to be sound, too; and I need not add, sound asleep also, or what life they have is spent in sniffing out heresy, and making earnest men offenders for a word. Into this spirit may we never be baptized!

Now I don't think I need to argue that such critique applies to the circles in which I move and which to some degree I represent.  In fact to defend against such critique could easily end up proving the accusation!  I take it on the chin and it hurts.

But why are we like this?

A thousand reasons - but let me point to something I've been thinking about lately.  This is by no means even a major cause of such 'desiccated' 'soundness' but I think it's emblematic of some of our larger problems.

I'll phrase it as a question:  Why do we have preaching groups?

By preaching groups I mean circles of preachers (whether professional or novice) who get together to critique one another's talks.  As of three weeks ago I'm in one.  In fact I lead one, and I've found it a great pleasure thus far, but we should never be afraid of questioning why we do what we do.  So why do we have preaching groups?

On one level, we have these groups because fanning into flame God's gifts is something best done within the body.  We do it because preaching, while being the word of God, is also a human act, and human acts can be practised and improved upon.  We do it because we care about preaching and want to test it against Scripture and its proper Focus in Christ. We do it because standing in the pulpit, 6 feet above contradiction, is a dangerous place for someone to be (especially a young male / recent convert - those who tend to populate the preaching groups I'm thinking about).

Well then, why have I never joined a preaching group until being asked to lead one recently?

One answer: pride.  Submitting myself voluntarily to the "pat, pat, stab" critique on a weekly basis was never my idea of fun.  I told myself "I'm not sure I fit the mould of what is expected of a sermon and I'm not sure I want to submit to that mould."  But perhaps that translates better as "I know best what a good sermon is and aint nobody gonna tell me how to do it."  There's definitely a good dollup of that going on.

But then, there are people I'd take critique from.  It's never easy I know, but there are some who I would welcome rifling through my sermons to shake 'em up good and proper.  But there's something I've never quite trusted about the preaching groups that have been available to me in the past.

Top of the list of things I mistrust has to be this: Preaching for the sake of critique is extremely dangerous ground.  (Note well the italicized phrase, I don't want to be misheard here).

I still remember the first time I learned that preaching groups existed in which people wrote talks not for the sake of public worship or their youth group but for the sake of critique within the group.  I can remember blinking in total disbelief and asking the person to clarify what he'd said at least 12 times.

The idea of a sermon written for the benefit of 9 other hot-prots with clip-boards and a 21 point check-list makes my head spin.  The thought that these groups, run according to this dynamic, would nurture a generation of such preachers gives me cold sweats.  Really it does.

Hear me on this.  Critique for the sake of preaching is a good and godly thing.  Preaching for the sake of critique is treacherous.

I've written elsewhere on preaching itself as the word of God, but if this is the case then there is a spirituality and an authority to preaching that means the forms of critique to which we submit it should be carefully considered.

Imagine, for instance, that the standard of public intercessory praying at your church was pretty poor. Imagine that you decided to do something about it.  You invite all those who pray publicly at your church to a few sessions that you're running.  Now imagine that these sessions consisted of asking each member to get up and pray out loud using prayers they'd written in advance.  We'd listen in, pen in hand, marking the prayers according to a pre-determined criteria.  Good idea?

But you say - preaching is not the same.  Well, perhaps not exactly.  But perhaps it's a lot closer to praying than you think.

I'm rambling really.  Let me just list ten dangers for preaching groups off the top of my head.  These are dangers mind - they are not inevitable:

  1. Preaching itself is not considered according to its proper nature - a divine encounter
  2. With this spiritual nature minimized, the preaching itself takes on a more cerebral tone (see Spurgoen quote)
  3. The preacher is sorely tempted to preach for critique rather than for the Lord and for the congregation
  4. The listeners are trained in standing over rather than sitting under the word
  5. Preachers are taught to pretend that they're communicating to real people (and actually that can be how a lot of live preaching sounds too - could there be a link?)
  6. Check-lists for critique become old wineskins that will only accommodate old wine
  7. Therefore we learn to preach according to the check-list
  8. The audience for the sermon becomes extremely narrow
  9. Not only is it possible to be unaffected by the word (as we concentrate on its delivery), we can even be trained in such an innoculation.  A skill that transfers beyond the preaching group.
  10. Praise for sermons becomes professionalized and tempered "Thanks, that was helpful."

Can you think of more?

Well what can be done?

Here are some pointers I've given to our group that I'm hoping to emphasize and re-emphasize as we go.

  1. Make sure you preach what you've prepared to real people.  It could be to your sunday school, your spouse, your best friend, I don't care - but preach it to someone who doesn't have a clip-board.  And prepare it with that audience in mind.  This is non-negotiable.  We are not preaching for the sake of critique.
  2. Let the preacher themselves tell you their criteria.  If they say for instance: 'I'm just wanting to highlight a single verse or a single word from this passage', then assess things according to that.  Now you can discuss what makes a good criterion at another point - but don't judge people according to check-lists that won't necessarily fit.
  3. First thing I ask after the sermon is delivered is addressed to the preacher: What spoke to you most from the word in preparation.
  4. Next thing I ask is to the listeners: what struck you most from the word that's just been proclaimed.
  5. At that point we discuss how the word has impacted us - we spend time being hearers and receivers of the word
  6. Only then do we discuss ways that the preacher has blessed us in the particular manner that they brought it home.
  7. Critique comes in the form of assessing the preacher against their own criteria.
  8. In the spirit of Spurgeon, both its didactic and its emotional aspects are up for discussion.
  9. We give praise to God for His word and for His preacher.
  10. We give praise to the preacher and thank them for how they've blessed us

In an ideal world we'd do all this by watching a video of the talk given in its true setting, but that's often unrealistic.

Now some of you will say - that's what all preaching groups are like, why are you so fearful of them.  I don't know.  Am I being too cautious about preaching groups?

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Published on Leave a comment on Do not worry about what you will say…

The post is about something else, but I liked this from NT professor Ben Witherington.

[A] student... came up to class one day frustrated and said "I don't know why I need to do all this research, and writing and studying of the NT. Why I can just get up into the pulpit and the Spirit will give me utterance." I rejoind: "Yes, you can do this, but it is a shame you are not giving the Holy Spirit more to work with."

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Published on Leave a comment on Love is the greatest thing… or is it?

Ok, another little example of engaging with non-Christian world-views.  This is from a wedding sermon I gave a few weeks ago.  The great majority of the congregation were not Christians. The couple asked me to speak from 1 John 4:7-12.  I'll quote a part of the sermon and then make some comments.  (Just so you know I've tweaked the last paragraph since giving the sermon.)

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Why is virtually every film, every TV show, every novel, every pop song obsessed with people falling in love and getting together?  If they're not obsessed with falling in love and getting together, they're obsessed with falling out of love and drifting apart.  You can't get around it: this kind of committed, mutually self-giving relationship consumes our culture and consumes our hearts.

Why?  Why do all the songs say ‘Love is the greatest thing'? 

Craig and Debbie know.  That's why they chose this reading from the bible.  Why does the world say ‘Love is the greatest thing.'??  Because God, the greatest thing, is love. 

That's the famous phrase from our reading.  Verse 8: "God is love."  Coming into church this afternooon you may not have known any verse of the bible - now you know one.  "God is love."

God's not just in a long-term relationship.  God is an eternal relationship of committed love.  God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit love one another, uphold one another, pour their life into one another from eternity past to eternity future.

The committed love of marriage is a faint picture of the incredible love that binds the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Whether you believe in Him or not, whatever concept of God you've brought to church this afternoon, allow it to be shaped by God's own word.  God is love.

God doesn't just do love.  God is love.  His very existence is an existence of love.  Love is the very stuff of His being.  The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are who they are because they are constantly giving and receiving love.

Why do the songs say love is the greatest thing?  Because the greatest thing, God, is love.  To put your finger on the ultimate pulse of reality you will find the committed love of these three Persons.  Of course the whole world sings of love.  How could it not?! 

But here's the terrible tragedy.  The world doesn't know why love's the greatest thing.  And so the world is left with this groundless, abstract thing called love.  It becomes a mere feeling for us to praise and magnify, and, in all probability, to watch slip through our fingers.  Love, without this grounding in God, becomes only a sentiment to be admired.  But if that is all that love is, then today is robbed of it's meaning.  If love is just a feeling, we may well smile at the happy couple, we will praise their participation in this grand myth called love.  But then we'll go home wondering if there's any real substance to it all.  But to all that, the bible says Perish the thought!!  Love has a grounding.  As verse 7 says "Love comes from God".  That's why Craig and Debbie want us to think about these verses.  The God who is love will breathe meaning back into that old cliche that 'love is the greatest thing'.  And in doing so He will provide a foundation not only for Craig and Debbie's marriage but for all of our lives.  So let's pay attention to these verses for the next couple of minutes...

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Four observations.

First, the Christian can take upon their lips non-Christian sentiments and use them truly.  But in doing so we commandeer those propositions and press them into a quite different service.  So 'love is the greatest thing' on the lips of a non-Christian means what?  Well it could mean many things but at the end of the day it effectively boils down to 'love is God.'  Love itself becomes the object of worship.  But what does 'love is the greatest thing' mean on the lips of a Christian?  Well in the kind of context I tried to give in the sermon, it becomes testimony to the entirely different truth 'God is love'.

Secondly, I really mean it when I wonder out loud How can the world not sing of love?  I am happy to draw attention to this universal sentiment that 'love is the greatest thing.'  But I will tell the non-Christian that he or she doesn't really know why it's their sentiment.  And that even the terms of that sentiment are distorted into falsehood.  'Love is God' seems a hairs-breadth from the truth, in fact it's idolatry.  And idolatry is not a stepping stone to true worship.

Thirdly, none of this depends on agreeing with a non-Christian definition of love.  It's not a case of saying 'Hey, you love love, I love love, everyone loves love.  Lemme show you the best love.'  We can't do that because verse 10 describes love in terms that are completely off our natural radar screen.  According to God's word, love is bloody, sacrificial, atoning death.  And that for enemies.  I've never found the non-Christian who will agree to that definition of love in advance!  We simply do not share a common understanding of love from which we can argue to divine reality. 

Fourth, I'm very fond of that kind of phrase: 'Allow yourself to be told...'  I don't know where I first picked it up but it's kind of my whole theology of revelation.  Preaching (but in fact all speaking of Christian truth) is declaring with divinely delegated authority: 'Allow yourself to be told something you do not know, could never anticipate and will never have under your belt...  Put yourself in the path of this meteor from above...  Receive something that you absolutely do not already have in your grasp.'  It is news that we tell.  Revelation.  I try to have my rhetoric shaped by that.

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Published on Leave a comment on Him we proclaim

I've promised Missy a post on engaging with non-Christian beliefs and I'll definitely get to that.  But Dan's recent post made me think again of this quote from Steve Holmes:

‘Our task is not to tell people that they must believe in Jesus, but so to tell them of Jesus that they must believe in Him.’

I've blogged it before and I'll blog it again.  I think those are words to live by for preachers.

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Published on Leave a comment on Bonhoeffer on Preaching

Check out this Bonhoeffer quote.  H/T Ben Myers. 

“It is wrong to assume that on the one hand there is a word, or a truth, and on the other hand there is a community existing as two separate entities, and that it would then be the task of the preacher to take this word, to manipulate and enliven it, in order to bring it within and apply it to the community. Rather, the Word moves along this path of its own accord. The preacher should and can do nothing more than be a servant of this movement inherent in the Word itself, and refrain from placing obstacles in its path.”

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship (Bonhoeffer Works Vol. 4; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), pp. 227-28.

Or as Barth would say (speaking of the Spirit), the Lord who speaks is the Lord who hears. 

Preachers are not bridge-builders bravely standing in the hermeneutical gap between then and now. (How much homiletics depends on exactly this assumption??)  The living word is indeed alive (not just capable of liveliness!).  The Spirit is at work making His word lively, relevant, applied or whatever other actions the modern preacher is encouraged to take into their own hands!

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Published on 20 Comments on Paul Blackham sermons and other links

No other preacher has had a bigger impact on me.  Not only theologically but also in terms of what preaching actually is.

The sermon invariably begins 'In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.'  The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God.

Immediately he states the passage.  It's the Scriptures that define the event.

The conclusion is always "Therefore to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit be ascribed all the glory, all the power, all the majesty, all the honour, all the praise and all our love, now and forever, Amen."  The whole thing is worship.

In between, the content is exposition (most often verse by verse) and the manner is strongly declarative, strongly devotional and strongly Christ focused.   Perhaps most refreshing of all, the over-riding tone of the sermon is a child-like enthusiasm for Christ and the Scriptures that is far removed from the world-weariness of many military-briefing-style preachers.

I've linked to some of my favourite Blackham sermons on my new "Other Sermons" page. (It's a tab at the top).  I've also put "My sermons" on a page, but do yourself a favour and work your way through these other sermons - awesome stuff.

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Paul's website.

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Sermons from All Souls, Langham Place

Sermons from Tarleton Farm Fellowship

Some Favourite sermons:

Genesis 3:1-15

"What of those who have never heard?" Colossians 1:15-23

"Why isn't good good enough?" Philippians 3:1-11

Luke 7:11-16

Daniel 3

2 Peter 3:11-18

Ephesians 3:14-21

Ephesians 6:10-24

Other talks and lectures:

"Faith in Christ in the Old Testament"

Five talks on the Cross

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Published on 11 Comments on Sin is not the problem

I was once in a preaching seminar with 15 other young guns.  We were being taught by someone you might call a living legend.  One session I remember was on how to preach Romans 3:21-30.  The point came when the living legend asked us what we thought the application should be.  Now aside from my various misgivings about application I reasoned to myself that if an application was there in the passage it was probably worth flagging that up.  I looked down and sure enough I saw what I thought was a pretty clear ""application"" of Paul's teaching:

Where then is boasting?  It is excluded. (v27)

So I stuck up my hand and suggested that the application might be humility.  More particularly it seemed that, since Christ had taken the work of salvation entirely into His own hands (and out of ours), we ought gladly to shut up about ourselves, our morality, etc etc. 

"Wrong!" said the preacher.  "The application should be 'Repent!'"

"Oh", I said. "Why?"

I immediately regretted asking 'why.'  Dagnammit we're evangelicals, we're supposed to preach repentance, it's union rules.  Besides, I don't want to appear soft in front of the 15 other young guns and this living legend!  The living legend was more than a little irked by my question and replied: "Because, dear boy, verse 23 says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Sin is the problem, therefore I would have thought that repentance would be a very good idea!!"

Those who know me may be surprised to learn that I didn't answer back to this one.  Oh I wanted to.  How I did want to!  But judging by the alarm in the preacher's voice and the mood of the room it felt wise not to imperil my standing any further among such sound folk.

But sometimes I fantasize about what would have happened if I'd said what I really thought.  The fantasy goes something like this:

I stand slowly, deliberately, with all the solemnity of the lone, faithful prophet.  All eyes are upon me as I bellow with righteous ardour:

"Sin is not the problem!   S i n   i s   n o t   t h e   p r o b l e m !!!"

All hell breaks loose.  Outrage.  Pained howls.  Torn garments.  Hurled stones.  I am immovable in the midst of the storm.

"... Sin is not the problem... God's wrath at sin is the problem!  No... better... God's wrath at us in our sin - that's the problem!" 

At once they are felled by Truth as by lightning.  Cut to the heart, the stones drop to the floor first, then the men.  One by one they slump to the ground, the hand of the LORD heavy upon them.  In breathless awe they ask: "Brave herald, what is this teaching you bring us?  It resounds from the very heights of Zion against our presumption and folly."

Sporting a fresh cut across my chiselled jawline, I am otherwise unruffled.  Ever magnanimous I continue:

"Dear friends" (the dust in the air has now leant a husky tone to my rich, commanding voice). "Dear friends, let us not define our predicament so anthropocentrically."

I leave this dread word hanging in the air.  The mere mention of 'anthropocentric' elicits groans from the already contrite gathering.  Here was their shibboleth used against them.  It stung.  Yet they could not deny that they were indeed guilty of this greatest of liberalisms.

"I commend you friends..."  They look up nervously - could there yet be grace for them?  "...While many have merely scratched the itch of the modern age, you have refused to pander to felt needs. You have proclaimed the problem of sin and for this I commend you."  I pause.  "And yet... and yet... you have defined the problem so poorly, so slightly.  You have defined the problem from below.  If we define the problem as something lying in our hands then aren't we at least suggesting that the solution is in our hands?  But in fact the problem is above us - just as the solution is.  The problem is not fundamentally our sin, the problem is the Lord's wrath upon us."

"What's the difference?!" cries out one of the younger preachers, "Our sin, God's wrath, it's all the same..."  He is hushed by the living legend who slowly shakes his head.  It is clear now how wrong he has been. 

He stands, still shaking his head, unable to look at me or the others.  Eventually he speaks, "Glen's right. He's always been right!"  The living legend looks like he's been hung from the ceiling on meat hooks.  As though in great pain he exclaims, "You must understand...  We faced such terrible dangers in preaching.  We still face such dangers.  I wanted, we all wanted, to resist the me-centred pulpit.  I was so sick of hearing about 'filling the Jesus-shaped hole in your life'.  I couldn't stand the invitations to 'let Jesus into the passenger seat of your life'.  I wanted people to turn.  I still want people to turn." 

I put a re-assuring hand on his shoulder. He meets my eye for the first time and continues.  "I just thought, if we can show them that 'fulfilment' isn't the issue - that sin is the issue, well then maybe they'd come to their senses.  Maybe they'd see their errors and turn from them."  I give a look to the living legend, he nods, "I know, I know, that's the problem."

"What's the problem?" asks one of the young guns.

The living legend sighs deeply and turns to the others.  "It puts the focus on us.  If we just preach sin and repentance the whole focus is on us."

"It's anthropocentric" mutters a young gun, latching onto his favourite word.  He looks around to see if anyone else has noticed his firm grasp of the issues.

"I don't get it" pipes up another, "I thought sin and repentance was God-centred preaching?  Isn't that what you taught us??"

The living legend is speechless.  I break the silence.  Crouching down to their level, I ask, "If we simply preach sin and repentance how exactly is God at the centre?  He may well be over and above our conceptions of sin and repentance - but how is He in the middle?  In such a sermon isn't God actually on the periphery?  He's hardly the principal Actor!"  At this stage the one who muttered 'anthropocentric' is nodding in the way failed quiz show contestants nod when they're told the right answer.

I go on, "It's like our passage from Romans 3.  Sin is certainly there!  Sin is certainly a problem.  I mean we've been told from verse 9 that all are under sin.  And we've been told in verse 20 that observing the law will never get us out from under this condition.  But given that this is the case, wouldn't it be strange if Paul then told us that 'repentance' was this new work that was better than the old Mosaic works?  Actually Paul doesn't mention any of our works in this passage, not our obedience, not our repentance.  No, what does Paul point us to?  Verse 25, the blood of Jesus - a propitiation for our sins.  Now we all know what propitiation means right?"

Young noddy blurts out "A sacrifice that turns away God's wrath!!"  I gesture with my hands, trying to calm his wild-eyed enthusiasm.

"Ok, yes. Well done.  It turns away God's wrath.  Because that's the real problem.  The problem is, chapter 1 verse 18, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against us.  It will culminate in, chapter 2 verse 5, a day of wrath.  And Paul is at pains to say we all deserve it, we are all unrighteous and there's nothing moral and nothing religious we can do to turn aside this wrath.  We are helpless.  BUT, a righteousness beyond us has come.  And He is the sacrifice who turns away God's wrath.  Through His redemption we are justified freely.  That's the gospel.  That's what we preach.  And who is at the centre of this story?  Not us.  Him."

"So we shouldn't preach sin and repentance?" asks another.

"Of course we should.  But those are comprehended within a much more profound perspective.  Wrath and redemption are the deeper truths.  You know I'll bet that all the sermons you hear are about committed sin and sanctification?  You know the kind.  'God says: Don't do X, we all do it, let's ask His help to stop.'  Where are the sermons that major on original sin and justification?  Why don't we plunge them to the depths and then take them to the heights?  Why all this middle of the road stuff that puts us at the centre?"

A couple of young guns knowingly mouthe 'anthropocentric' to one another. 

I continue "Take Islam.  It's a classic religion of repentance.  God remains far above, it's down to us to clean up our act.  In fact all human religion is man justifying man before a watching god.  But the Gospel is God justifying God before a watching humanity.  He takes centre-stage and we need to move off into the audience to watch Him work salvation for us.  Christianity is not a religion of repentance, it's a religion of redemption.  And that's quite a difference don't you see?"

As I speak, the young guns have been picking themselves off the floor one by one.  The room has been won to the side of Truth.  I look upon them with fatherly benevolence.

"So now friends - now that you know these things: What would be a good application of Romans 3?"

In unison they reply "Humility!"  And for a moment all is right with the world.

Until, that is, the harmony is shattered.  One of the young guns, no doubt provoked by my impossible smugness, speaks up:

"Hey, if humility is so important, how come you're so proud?" 

The mood of the room takes a decisive turn.  Another piles in "And how come you've been dreaming us up for the last 10 minutes to feed your ego."  Here's where the fantasy turns pretty nasty.

"What kind of egotist spends his time winning theological debates in his head??"

"Yeah, debates he never actually won in the real world!"

Another pipes up: "I think I know 'Where then is boasting?' - he's rstanding in the middle of the room!!"

At this point the fantasy is basically unsalvagable.  So then, I hate to do it, but sometimes you just have to pull rank. 

"Quiet all of you!  This is my fantasy.  Either you submit adoringly to my theological genius or you can get out now." 

Faced with those options they instantly choose non-existence.  One by one they vanish, though somehow their looks of betrayal and disgust seem to linger on.

"You'll be back" I say to the departed phantasms.  "Pretty soon I'll need to feel right about something else and you'll be right back in my imagination, bowing to my unquestioned brilliance.

"Ha!" I say.  The laughter echoes around my empty head.

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