Utumishi Blog

Sammy recently posted this on the Watumishi Youtube channel:

John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury from 1522 to 1572, wrote this: ‘Despise not… to hear God’s Word declared. As you tender your own souls, be diligent to come to sermons, for that is the ordinary place where men’s hearts be moved, and God’s secrets be revealed. For, be the preacher never so weak, yet it is the Word of God as mighty and puissant as ever it was.’ (C. Ash, The Priority of Preaching, p. 43)

Isn’t that great?

A few questions then:

• What, in our church contexts, are the ways in which we regularly try to move people’s hearts? What parts of the service would people normally say were the most ‘moving’?
• Where do we expect God’s secrets to be revealed? What are the words that people get most excited about hearing?
• Do we come out of church meetings saying/thinking, ‘Wow that preacher was a very powerful speaker’ or ‘Wow the Word really is very powerful’?
• Are we subtly losing our confidence in the awesome, moving, revealing power of the pure Word of God? Are we losing that anticipation and hunger that we would meet with the risen Jesus and have our hearts burn as we open the Bible? (Luke 24)