Bedhead Theology

One of the greatest struggles for preachers today is preaching that transcends time. Yes, difficulties abound in preaching. There is difficulty contextualizing for a modern audience, the opaqueness of seeking to meet the congregation’s needs, and even struggles in captivating the fleeting attention spans of modern audiences. Nevertheless, pride is one of the greatest perils preachers face in the pulpit. This struggle is two-fold. First, let me address the obvious. The tendency to conflate the greatness of God’s Word with our oratory genius is a common temptation among all preachers. As far as I can tell, this has been that way since the beginning. John the Baptist asserted, “He must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:30). He was acutely aware that he must exalt Christ above all else. This necessity has followed the church throughout history. Gregory the Great (540-604) astutely drew attention to the source of the problem. He wrote, “Since it is often the case that when a sermon is deli...

  The Long Defeat I recently learned of J. R. R. Tolkien’s concept called “the long defeat.” I have been researching this concept for a couple of weeks. I am, by no means, proficient in the study of philosophy. I often read philosophy and scratch my head, saying, “Those certainly are words.” But the long defeat struck a chord with me. It just made sense. The long defeat stands as a philosophical thought that captures Tolkien’s view of history: a slow, inevitable decline in which evil continually re-emerges, beauty fades, and human efforts inside worldly history ultimately end in loss. However, this view is far from a message of despair; the long defeat underpins the philosophy of heroic duty, perseverance, and hope. The question arises: in the face of inevitable defeat, we must decide why we fight. We do not fight for immediate victory; we fight for what is good, true, and holy. We stand as bulwarks against the evil of this age, knowing that we may very well be scarred by the b...

A quarter of a century sounds like a long time, and in fact, for the limited time we have on this planet, it is a significant milestone. Yet, as I reflect on everything that has transpired since that fateful day in 2001, I can see a world that is topsy-turvy. In some respects, our culture has advanced in leaps and bounds. The technological differences between 2001 and today show a fundamental transition. Society went from localized, physical, and highly fragmented devices to hyper-connected, cloud-based, and AI-driven platforms. Never before have people had access to the world’s wealth of information together, at the same time. On the other hand, we have lost some important aspects of our collective “soul.” As we remember the tragedy of 9/11, we must also recognize the tragedy that befalls us today—the death of civil discourse, the celebration of murder on the premise of ideology, the rabid acceleration of the death machine we call Planned Parenthood, and so much more. Given our cult...

  The church is in desperate need of gospel clarity. Rampant on every social media platform is a barrage of claims about Christianity rife with compromise. Gospel clarity must be anchored in biblical and theological consistency. Ultimately, that clarity must begin in the pulpit. An old preaching adage I first heard in my expositional preaching class asserts, “If there is a mist in the pulpit, then there will be a fog in the pew.” [1] The lack of gospel clarity among Christians stems from a lack of clarity within the local churches’ leadership. A church devoid of conversions is, plainly speaking, a dying church. A church with no gospel conviction—no evangelistic vision, passion for reaching the lost, nor any fervor for the Great Commission—has succumbed to apathy and complacency. Too often, local churches look to secular business models for church growth tactics and lose sight of their missional mandate—make disciples. Business models become transfixed on numerical growth that ...

  Another gospel preacher that we can glean from is Benajah H. Carroll (1843–1915).  Carroll was born near Carrollton, Mississippi, into a large family led by his father, a Baptist minister and farmer. The family moved to Arkansas and later to Burleson County, Texas, where Carroll spent most of his youth. He entered Baylor University as a teenager, showing strong intellectual gifts, especially in debate. His studies were interrupted by the Civil War, during which he served first with the Texas Rangers and later in the 17th Texas Infantry of the Confederate Army. Carroll significantly impacted preaching in the twentieth century through his evangelistic fervor and focus. B. H. Carroll spurred the thrust of evangelism by creating the Department of Evangelism within the Home Mission Board and within Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. [1] His evangelistic focus gave rise to the Southern Baptist commitment to evangelistic preaching. I offer three observations of the preachi...

  Another preacher who stands among the giants of the nineteenth century is Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910). Maclaren was committed to the ministry of the pulpit and studied to equip himself for the role. [1] Where Spurgeon held the title of “Prince of Preachers,” Maclaren held the title of “Prince of Expositors.” He proved the title’s truthfulness through his commitment to exegeting Scripture with his sermons—he stayed with the text. His preaching held to the power of the text, so he required nothing else for his sermons. [2] While describing Maclaren, Dargan stated, “[He had] a keen, trained, disciplined intellect, accurate knowledge of the original languages, easy acquaintance with the best Biblical scholarship, and, above all, an ardent love for the Bible, made him an incomparable explorer into its storehouse of truth and a wonderful expounder of that truth to others.” [3] He was not negligent of the necessity of the appeal to his congregation. In fact, he held the primary ...

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892) was undoubtedly evangelistic in his preaching. He was known as the “Prince of Preachers” because he arranged his sermons around the text and was only occasionally textual-topical and highly typological.  Within his Lectures to My Students resides a treasure trove of wisdom that illuminates the man and his unwavering confidence in Christ. Spurgeon noted in his journal that someone tricked him into preaching his first sermon. Despite his lack of formal education, he was ahead of his time and emphatically Christ-centered in his preaching. What is more, the humanity of Spurgeon shone through in his openness about his bouts with depression. I want to offer three observations about the preaching of Charles Spurgeon. Persuasive Exposition Spurgeon sought to persuade the unrepentant in his sermons and his writing. In All of Grace, he demonstrated the significance of his desire for the lost. Specifically, he did not conceal his intentions toward the lost....