North Carolina preaching, Tom Nettles' lecturing

Today I am traveling to North Carolina with my wife, Donna. Tomorrow I will preach in chapel at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Tonight I will speak at the Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Mebane. I also hope to connect with those in the seminary family who are interested in church planting. If you are in the area, be sure to say hello. I will be the one dressed like a Floridian who has wandered into the frozen tundra with a beautiful lady at my side.

Tom Nettles will be delivering the faculty lecture today at 10 AM Eastern time at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's chapel service. I think Dr. Nettles' lecture will be livestreamed.

Isaiah 50:1-3, Rethinking God (in Wordle)

Yesterday was my first Sunday back in the pulpit at Grace. Six weeks ago, I was highly doubtful that I would ever be granted such a privilege again. God, in His rich grace, enabled me to preach from Isaiah 50 under the theme of "Rethinking God." The graphic above is my sermon in Wordle. If you are unfamiliar with Wordle you can check it out at their website. The original is found here.

John Broadus' advice on reading

John Broadus offers this excellent advice on the reading habits of ministers (from his Lectures on the History of Preaching, 230-31).

I think that young men should be specially exhorted to read old books. If you have a friend in the ministry who is growing old, urge him to read mainly new books, that he may freshen his mind and keep in sympathy with his surroundings. "But must not young men keep abreast of the age?" Certainly, only the first thing is to get abreast of the age, and in order to this, they must go back to where the age came from, and join there the great procession of its moving thought.