Volume 1, Number 4
The Gospel of Sanctification
This business of being a Christian affects two areas – justification and sanctification. Time and again, I not only see the gospel twisted into a third-use-of-the-law sanctifying motivator, but I repeatedly hear the law presented as something to cajole, nudge, and modify the behavior of our people toward piety – hence pietism. Our sanctification appeal , therefore, is not, “Try harder,” “You ought to do better.” Listen instead to Paul, “Ï can do everything through him who gives me strength.”
The Emotional Message of Your Sermon
Every time you preach, you speak in two different languages at the same time, the language of your mind and the language of your feelings. The intellectual message and the emotional message. These two simultaneous communications don’t necessarily say the same thing. As your hearers listen to your sermon, they’re listening not only to your words, but to your tone of voice.
Back to the Sources
Remember that everything God has told us- about himself and about us, about his plans for us and about his gifts to us – is contained in the vocabulary and the syntax of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Luther: “As dear to us as is the gospel, so diligently must we hold on to the languages. We will not retain the gospel long without them.”
Body Language
It’s pretty generally agreed that a speaker’s non-verbal behavior has more bearing on communicating his feelings and attitudes than do his words. People only half listen to you; the other half is watching. There are three possible relationships of a speaker’s body to his overall message.