Gospel

The Gospel & Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever

Kirk E. Miller

This is less of a review and more of a recommendation.

One of the ways I evaluate whether a book is really good is whether or not I will read it a second time. … A few weeks ago I finished this book for the second time.

As Mark Dever notes in the video below, his purpose for writing this book was to provide an excellent introductory level book (only 119 pages!) on evangelism written for the average Christian. But at the same time, although he speaks in common, easy-to-understand language, the instruction and insights in this book are deep and well-worth the meditations of any Christian.

Continue reading →

The Gospel & How to Present It

Kirk E. Miller

The following is an outline of my teaching notes for a course I taught at Lake Lundgren Bible Camp in the early summer of 2012. The course was a part of the summer staff’s pre-summer camp training.

This teaching material was later slightly developed and expanded upon for teaching the following year in the Sunday School at Lake Drive Baptist Church. It is this final form that is provided below.

Download – The Gospel & How to Present It.

Download Appendix – Acts ‘Gospeling’ Accounts Content Chart.

J.D. Greear on “Leading My Kids to Jesus”

Kirk E. Miller

In light of J.D. Greear’s helpful description of Faith as a Posture (see this previous post), he says the following about leading young children to Christ.

As a father of four young children, I have often reflected on the best way to lead them to faith. I want their decision to follow Jesus to be significant, but I also don’t want them to go through what I went through [continual doubt about salvation]. I know that when you present kids with a “Don’t you want to be a good girl and accept Jesus and not go to a fiery hell?” of course they say, “Yes.” “Praying the prayer” in such a situation may have little do with actual faith in Christ and have more to do with making Daddy happy.

For that reason, many parents don’t want to push their child to make a decision for Christ. What if we coerce them into praying a prayer they don’t understand, and that keeps them from really dealing with the issues later when they really understand it? Might having them pray the prayer too early on inoculate them from really coming to Jesus later, giving them false assurance that keeps them from dealing with their need to be saved?

Continue reading →

What is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert

Kirk E. Miller

What is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert is a great little book explaining the Gospel in an unintimidating 121 pages of colloquial language .

The book provides an accurate, concise, clear presentation of the Gospel in very a Pauline, protestant, evangelical, and Reformed fashion. He explains the Gospel in very “Romans’ road”-like terms and uses penal substitution as his foundational motif in explaining the Gospel (hence very Pauline, protestant, evangelical, and Reformed). Gilbert uses the well-known, often used, and quite excellent, “God, man, Christ, response” outline to explain the Gospel. This outline demonstrates a fantastic and simply model to help one get a solid grasp of what the Gospel is really all about. It also prompts one to ask important questions about what the Gospel message assumes (sometimes called the “bad news”), means, and implies.

Continue reading →

Are “Authorial Intent” and “Christ-Centered” Mutually Exclusive?

Kirk E. Miller 2 Comments

As interpreters, teachers, and preachers of God’s word we desire to be faithful to the Biblical text. We know that this entails interpreting Scripture according to the Biblical authors’ original intent, historical context, and literary context, among other things. We don’t want to be guilty of eisegesis–reading our own thoughts and ideas into the text rather than getting our conclusions from out of the text (exegesis).

But at the same time, we know that Christ said the entirety of Scripture speaks of Him (Luke 24:25-27; cf. 1 Pet 1:10-12; Rom 1:2). And so as Paul, we would love to say that even in our expositional preaching “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2).

But what about the majority of texts where Christ is not mentioned? How do we preach Christ then? Do we preach the authorial intent and then sort of arbitrarily jump to Christ at the end, tack on an altar call or two with some repeated “Just as I am” choruses?

We want to avoid moralism; so we want to preach Christ. We don’t simply want to draw conclusions like, “don’t be like Saul,” “don’t be like the Israelites,” or “be more like David,” as if this alternative is somehow more honest to the authorial intent. But how do we preach Christ-centered in passages that have seemingly little to do with Christ at all?

I think you get my drift.

Continue reading →