Response To The Light

John 1:4: In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Because of His nature as God, our Lord has life in Him, and those looking upon Him will either see that life that enlightens every man (v. 9) as illuminating them, or blinding them (v. 10); it may also be said that, since the light of our Lord shines upon them in revealing fashion, it shows that which is true of them – whether they are of the darkness that hates the light or of God, and so rejoice to be seen and made manifest by the shining of the light.  The fact that He has life in Himself does not mean that everyone who looks upon Him will receive that life – they must look upon Him in a certain way, and to do that, they must have the eyes which will see, the ears that will hear, and the heart that will turn and be healed. That not all see Him as being the Life-giver is due to the nature which looks upon Him – the nature which is of the darkness – of the world that does not know Him – cannot overcome the Light, and so cannot see the light – it is trying to overcome the Light, and cannot, resulting in spiritual blindness.

 

Unregenerate eyes cannot look upon the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; it takes eyes that have been made anew to view the brilliance of  that Son.

 

This is not a general grace given to all men which is only effective as they empower it by faith common to that of trusting in a chair to hold one when they sit down, for all mankind has this type of faith, which believes in that which it can see, experience, taste, touch - in fact, though our Lord shines upon everyone, the very next verses show that the world does not know Him and His own do not receive Him, which shows the mishandling of this text by some who try to make it seek to mean a generic type of grace that can be resisted or accepted by the natural man.

In truth, this light is that which, as said above, reveals that which is already true in those it penetrates - grace has occurred for some of these, for they are, as John 3:21 tells us, those who do what is true and rejoice to have it clearly shown by the light; in this same chapter, however, this same light is shunned by those who love darkness  and evil, thus hating God and His truth (John 3:19-20).

So, this light is that which either reveals that the grace of God has been given by Him, or that darkness and corruption and hatred of God resides in the vessel it is shining upon. Jesus Christ is the Light of the World, who Himself is the grace of God (John 1:14, 15), and whose radiance shines upon each person to reveal what sort they are of: light which loves God, for it has been formed of Him, or darkness which hates God, for it has yet to be formed by that grace that redeems unto faith and repentance. Our Lord is light, and life, but that He shines upon all is not an indication that all have the potential for life everlasting, for in both these contexts, we see those upon whom the Lord shines who remain in darkness and love evil, rather than coming to that Light who is the Life-giver.

Thus, we preach that gospel  of grace to all who will listen, trusting God to give the revelation of His light to show those whom He has given life to in His Son.

Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift (2 Corinthians 9:15)!

Weekly Dose Of Lloyd-Jones (Unity)

You do not start with fellowship, you must start with doctrine. There is no fellowship apart from the doctrine. The order is absolutely vital...*

It is the age of ecumenicity, with endless talk and writing about unity, union and re-union. How important it is therefore that we should consider what the Apostle has to say concerning this theme. There is much loose talk with regard to it; but our concern should always be scriptural; we must get to know exactly what the New Testament teaches about this matter.

The first thing, therefore, which we must look at is the character, or the nature, of the unity. We start by observing that the Apostle is not merely appealing for some general spirit of friendship, brotherliness, or camaraderie. Neither is he appealing only for some common aim or a series of common aims as against something which is a common enemy. These negatives are important because so much of the modern talk about unity is entirely in such terms. It is all very vague and nebulous. Frequently the call to unity is stated in terms of the fact that the world of today is sadly divided. As on the one hand there are atheistic powers, Communism and Humanism, so on the other hand, we are told, it is the business of all who in any way believe in God to come together and to act together. We must not be too particular in regard to what we believe, but we must have the spirit of fellowship and of friendship and of working together against the common enemy.

Clearly we must examine this attitude, and must keep this modern idea of unity in our minds as we follow the Apostle’s teaching in this chapter. We must stress at once one thing which is of the utmost importance. Whatever be the unity of which the Apostle speaks, it is a unity that results directly from all he has been saying in the first three chapters of the Epistle. You must not start in chapter 4 of the Epistle to the Ephesians. To do so is to violate the context and to ignore the word ‘Therefore’. In other words you cannot have Christian unity unless it is based upon the great doctrines outlined in chapters 1 to 3. ‘Therefore’! So if anyone comes to you and says, ‘It does not much matter what you believe; if we call ourselves Christians, or if we believe in God in any sense, come, let us all work together’, you should say in reply, ‘But, my dear Sir, what about chapters 1 to 3 of the Epistle to the Ephesians? I know of no unity except that which is the outcome of, and the offspring of, all the great doctrines which the Apostle lays down in those chapters’. Whatever this unity may be, we are compelled to say that it must be theological, it must be doctrinal, it must be based upon an understanding of the truth.

 *Sargent, T. (2007). Gems from Martyn Lloyd-Jones: An Anthology of Quotations from 'the Doctor' (305). Milton Keynes, England; Colorado Springs, CO; Hyderabad, AP: Paternoster.


*Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (1972). Christian Unity: An Exposition of Ephesians 4:1–16 (36–37). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

A.A. Hodge On The Public School System

The prevalent superstition that men can be educated for good citizenship or for any other use under heaven without religion is as unscientific and unphilosophical as it is irreligious. It deliberately leaves out of view the most essential and controlling elements of human character: that man is constitutionally as religious (i. e. loyally or disloyally) as he is rational; that morals are impossible when dissociated from the religious basis out of which they grow; that, as a matter of fact, human liberty and stable republican institutions, and every practically successful scheme of universal education in all past history, have originated in the active ministries of the Christian religion, and in these alone. This miserable superstition rests upon no facts of experience, and, on the contrary, is maintained on purely theoretical grounds in opposition to all the lessons which the past history of our race furnishes on the subject.

It is no answer to say that the deficiency of the national system of education in this regard will be adequately supplied by the activities of the Christian churches. No court would admit in excuse for the diffusion of poison the plea that the poisoner knew of another agent actively employed in diffusing an antidote. Moreover, the churches, divided and without national recognition, would be able very inadequately to counteract the deadly evil done by the public schools of the State with all the resources and prestige of the government. But, more than all, Atheism taught in the school cannot be counteracted by Theism taught in the Church. Theism and Atheism cannot coalesce to make anything. All truth in all spheres is organically one and vitally inseparable. It is impossible for different agencies independently to discuss and inculcate the religious and the purely naturalistic sides of truth respectively. They cannot be separated; in some degree they must recognize each other and be taught together, as they are experienced in their natural relations.

I am as sure as I am of the fact of Christ’s reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education, separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed, will prove the most appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social nihilistic ethics, individual, social and political, which this sin-rent world has ever seen.

VI. The allegiance we owe is not to a doctrine, but to a Person, the God-man, our mediatorial King. We are bound to obey the Bible in all our actions and relations as citizens as well as church-members, because it is the law he has promulgated as the rule of our action, and because he is our supreme Lord and Master. The foundation of his authority is not our election, but the facts that he is absolutely perfect and worthy of absolute trust and obedience, and that he has created us, continues to uphold us in being, supplies us with all that makes existence desirable, and that he redeemed us from the wrath of God by his blood. His authority therefore does not depend upon our faith or our profession. It binds the atheist and the debauchee as much as the believer or the saint. No man can plead immunity because he is an unbeliever. Nor can we who are believers be excused from the consistent ordering of our whole lives according to his revealed will because the majority of our fellow-citizens disagree with us. Let others do as they will; as for us and for our houses, we will serve the Lord.*

 *Hodge, A. A. (1887). Popular lectures on theological themes. (282–284). Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication.

A Brief History Of "Christian" Liberalism

From the pen of Rolland McCune:

The new evangelicals were annoyed with certain fundamentalist characteristics that to them were quite objectionable, such as a supposed mean spirit that lacked the love of Christ, an intellectual inferiority that could only produce second-rate scholarship in Bible and theology, a majoring on minors, and the like...*

The Influence of the Social Gospel

Although the “social gospel” is primarily an American phenomenon arising during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, there were European precursors such as the Christian Socialist movement in Britain which began in 1848 (F. D. Maurice, Charles Kingsley, and J. M. Ludlow). The value-judgment theology of Albrecht Ritschl strongly influenced a concern for social betterment on the Continent.

Among the precursors of the social gospel in America was Horace Bushnell (1802–1876), a Congregationalist who stressed the corporate, social involvement of man in sin. He taught that if sin can be social in dimension, so can virtue. He is most famous for his book, Christian Nurture (1847), in which he taught that conversion should come by a process of education or nurture and not in a sudden, instantaneous manner. He also understood the atonement of Christ in terms of love rather than penal satisfaction. Josiah Strong, a Congregational minister who wrote Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (1885), said that money, greed, immigration, Roman Catholicism, and Mormonism were corrupting America. Strong was the executive secretary of the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance (formed in England in 1846) from 1886 to 1898. The American branch became the Federal Council of Churches in 1908. Other precursors of the social gospel were William D. P. Bliss, George Herron, and Graham Taylor.

Charles M. Sheldon (1857–1946) was a Congregationalist who did the most to popularize the social gospel. He wrote In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do?, a social gospel novel that sold over 100,000 copies within a few months, 23 million within a generation. Washington Gladden (1836–1918) has become known as “the father of the social gospel.” He was also a Congregational minister and was influenced by Bushnell. He believed that a competitive basis of economics was unchristian. He stressed love and moral persuasion as the means of achieving a more ideal society. His hymn, “O Master Let Me Walk With Thee,” was a statement of the social gospel. His books included Working People and Their Employers (1876), Applied Christianity (1887), and Social Salvation (1902).

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) also led in the development and spread of the social gospel in America. He taught church history at the Rochester Theological Seminary after having been a pastor for eleven years among immigrant workers in a difficult section of New York City. His major publications were Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Christianizing the Social Order (1912), and A Theology For the Social Gospel (1917). Rauschenbusch maintained that social sins were more devastating to morality than personal sins. He followed Bushnell’s idea that personal existence is social in nature, i.e., that society was an organization and not just a collection of individuals. There existed a solidarity to society. Rauschenbusch’s ideas for social betterment rose chiefly from his concept of the kingdom of God. The kingdom would emerge from the existing social order and redeem it without destroying it. This feat would be accomplished by God working immanently in society, not merely by the efforts of people. Through moral, economic, and social reform a new order, not based on competition, would emerge. Rauschenbusch understood that the realms of education and democratic principles had already made great social advancement, but the kingdom of God needed advancement in the economic realm. Although definitely a liberal, his theology was not characterized by the “sentimental optimism” that marked much of the social gospel; “many of his deepest convictions ran counter to the prevailing liberal theology.”31

The social gospel in America achieved notable status when the Federal Council of Churches began in 1908, partly for the purpose of centralizing Protestant concern for social problems. The Council drew up a Social Creed of the Churches which called for equal rights for all, child labor laws, old age benefits, a shorter work week, and labor arbitration. The theoretical underpinnings (philosophical and theological) for the social gospel are patently Enlightenment-liberal in origin and content.

* McCune, R. (2004). Promise Unfulfilled: The Failed Strategy of Modern Evangelicalism (xv). Greenville, SC: Ambassador International.


Ibid, p. 9-11

J.I. Packer On Preaching

The Puritan lists of the parts and constituent activities of worship normally include the following: praise (especially the singing of psalms), prayer (confession, adoration, intercession), preaching, the sacraments (‘ordinances’), and also catechising and the exercise of church discipline. In all these activities, the Puritans maintained, God comes to meet his people met together in his Son’s name, but most of all in preaching. Preaching is the most solemn and exalted action, and therefore the supreme test, of a man’s ministry: they [Puritans] hold that the highest and supreme office and authority of the Pastor is to preach the gospel solemnly and publicly to the Congregation by interpreting the written Word of God, and applying the same by exhortation and reproof unto them.’ For preaching in the church is supremely the ministration of the Spirit, in a way that (pace Richard Hooker) the mere reading of the word to the Puritans’ minds never could be; therefore it is the supreme means of grace. So Thomas Goodwin writes:

 ' It is not the letter of the Word that ordinarily doth convert, but the spiritual meaning of it, as revealed and expounded.… There is the letter, the husk; and there is the spirit, the kernel, and when we by expounding the Word do open the husk, out drops the kernel. It is the meaning of the word which is the word indeed, it is the sense of it which is the soul.… Now, preaching in a more special manner reveals God’s word. When an ointment box is once opened, then it casts its saviour about; and when the juice of a medicinal herb is once strained out and applied, then it heals. And so it is the spiritual meaning of the Word let into the heart which converts it and turns it to God. 

 For congregations, therefore, the hearing of sermons is the most momentous event of their lives, and the Puritans pleaded with worshippers to appreciate this fact, and listen to the word preached with awe, attention, and expectancy. Baxter put the point thus, in the course of his ‘Directions for Profitably Hearing the Word Preached’ in the Christian Directory:

  Come not to hear with a careless heart, as if you were to hear a matter that little concerned you, but come with a sense of the unspeakable weight, necessity, and consequence of the holy word which you are to hear; and when you understand how much you are concerned in it, it will greatly help your understanding of every particular truth.… 

  Make it your work with diligence to apply the word as you are hearing it.… Cast not all upon the minister, as those that will go no further than they are carried as by force.… You have work to do as well as the preacher, and should all the time be as busy as he … you must open your mouths, and digest it, for another cannot digest it for you … therefore be all the while at work, and abhor an idle heart in hearing, as well as an idle minister.

  Chew the cud, and call up all when you come home in secret, and by meditation preach it over to yourselves. If it were coldly delivered by the preacher, do you … preach it more earnestly over to your own hearts.… 

 We complain today that ministers do not know how to preach; but is it not equally true that our congregations do not know how to hear? An instruction to remedy the first deficiency will surely be labour lost unless the second is remedied too.


Not, however, that the hearing of sermons is an end in itself, or that ardent sermon-tasting and preacher-hunting is the height of Christian devotion. Thomas Adams speaks sternly against the assumption that listening to sermons is all that matters, reminding us that preaching must lead on to prayer and praise:

  Many come to these holy places, and are so transported with a desire of hearing, that they forget the fervency of praying and praising God … all our preaching is but to beget your praying; to instruct you to praise and worship God.… I complain not that our churches are auditories, but that they are not oratories; not that you come to sermons (for God’s sake, come faster), but that you neglect public prayer: as if it were only God’s part to bless you, not yours to bless God.… Beloved, mistake not. It is not the only exercise of a Christian to hear a sermon; nor is that Sabbath well spent that despatcheth no other business for heaven.… God’s service is not to be narrowed up in hearing, it hath greater latitude; there must be prayer, praise, adoration.… 

 Here, too, surely is a word for Christian people today.*

 *Packer, J. I. (1990). A quest for godliness: The Puritan vision of the Christian life (253–255). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

ALL THAT GOD IS FOR YOU IN CHRIST (A Meditation)

This is a meditation on All That God is for You in Christ, which could also be rendered “all that Christ is for you in God.”

This is a deep study – that is to say, not necessarily an in-depth, scholarly paper, but a very serious meditation of that which is revealed, as to what God accomplished for His elect, in the atonement and resurrection of Christ. I approach it with great trepidation; there is a genuine fear that I will misrepresent these great truths and promises of God for the believer; yet I also approach it with great anticipation, for to properly praise and worship God in truth and spirit, it is necessary to know that which is accomplished for us – each and every saint – by God in Christ, that we may have that joy and peace which is gained by our communion with our Lord and Father through the everlasting Spirit, whom He has given to those who love Him.

Certain sections of Scripture will present themselves throughout this meditation on the particular section we are in; I will simply mention them, without citation, or any emphasis upon them by italics of bolding or other emphasis – it is my hope that those who read this will find the same, by God’s Spirit working, to be impressed upon their hearts, and seek the allusions to these sections of Scripture by looking them up, or at least having them brought to their remembrance; in this way, I will seek to only consider that context of which we are in by direct mention, for the sake of clarity.

This study will not be chronological – it is not a systematic theology, but rather, a series of meditations on various of God’s promises to His people to share that which gives us a heart of worship gladdened by His grace.

I – we – need such reminders; we need the sure foundation of God’s Word regarding these things in order to have that which is objective truth energized by the Holy Spirit to live practically in line with these great and precious promises. Practical Christianity is just that – practical – yet it is so with what we call a supernatural power, and that power is as objective and personal as God, for He is God, the Holy Spirit, who gives us that communion with God, and so all the saints, both in the local congregation of the covenant community and, on a universal scale, all those who are His by the work of our Lord Jesus Christ and the regeneration of the Holy Spirit; as this is a series of meditations, I will simply begin.

Matthew10:32: “So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven…”

This is priceless, as are all of God’s promises. In this we see that the fact of acknowledgment of our Lord Jesus Christ before men is a guarantee of His acknowledgment of us before His Father in heaven, who, by divine fiat, through the adoption that is in Christ Jesus, is our Father. So, for us, this is acceptance before our Father in His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.

This acknowledgment of our Lord before our Father in heaven is based upon the work of the Father transferring us from our former way of life, in the darkness of the Godless worldview we once lived in according to the passions of our flesh, which our thoughts echoed and followed along after in thralldom, to the true worldview and eternal reality of being in the kingdom of His light in His beloved Son.

This Scripture does not occur in a vacuum, and while there are definitive promises of what God is in Jesus Christ for us that can be cited without reference to the context in which they occur, it is better, most often, to expand to the specific context to understand what is intended; so we will do such here.

In order to be accepted – to be acknowledged before our Father in heaven – certain things have to take place. First and foremost, we know that the new birth, or regeneration, has taken place, or we would not be able to acknowledge our Lord before men – we would not only have no desire to do so, but we would be hostile to the things of God, of which Jesus Christ is the visible epitome; however, the new birth is for another mediation, so let us look at the context in which this verse occurs (Matthew 10:1-42).

Our Lord is sending the twelve out, to perform the signs that show not only that the kingdom of God is among men, but that it is specifically among men in our Lord Jesus Christ. As He is sending them out, He tells them what will happen:

They will be welcomed by some, but others will hate them – this is plain in the context (vs. 21-22); so, to acknowledge our Lord before men is a guarantee that we will be hated by those called “unworthy” in the context (vs. 11-14). Being accepted of our Father in heaven is very often being rejected by those who hate Him, and carries with it persecutions of various kinds. The statement of our Lord that “I am sending you out as sheep among wolves” (v. 16a) is a very vivid declaration of the mindset of the world in view of the glorious holiness of God; rending and tearing of their victims is what wolves do, so acceptance with God carries with it this promise of being victimized by those whom we carry the message of reconciliation too, even as our Lord was persecuted and ultimately killed, after torture, by those evil men who hated Him. We are His servants and those who learn of Him from Him, so we will never be above Him; however, we are like Him in the sense that we carry His message, and the secular worldview of those who hate God will result in our being equated with the very one Christ destroyed the power of by His crucifixion (vs. 24-25). In proclaiming our Lord and the gospel of the grace of God in Him to those who do not know Him, we will encounter rejection and worse, even among those of our own families and Godless governments; this will be because of the strong adherence to the Word of Truth which we proclaim, even though it cost us all, for we have found life in our Lord, and it is that Life we proclaim (vs. 34-39).

The twelve are sent out with nothing, and the expectation that those who receive them (and so receive the Lord Jesus Christ) will provide for them. This is indicative of the fact that our Lord became poor so that we might become rich in Him, and illustrates the attitude of we who share the gospel towards those we share it with, which is the humility that is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, yet a stern humility that goes away from those who reject the gospel of the kingdom with no regrets, trusting in our sovereign Lord and God to accomplish that which He always accomplishes by the Holy Spirit empowered sharing of His truth, knowing that He rewards them according to His gracious mercy, or just wrath (vs. 9-20).

It is not wise to proclaim our Lord before all at all times; sharing that with those who will turn and rend us with no profit to them is sometimes not that which He wills us to do, and therefore He gives us guidance as we are acknowledging Him before men who are yet unsaved (and I daresay, even among those who are of the household of faith), where the light that He is to the world shines through us, as we preserve His truth by our behavior and words, and refusal to take part in those things the world loves, and which we formerly were eagerly and unknowingly enslaved by, for although none are saved without the gospel proclamation, our Lord knows that, at times, we are among those who are set against Him because they value the glory of men more than that solitary glory that comes from Him, and love the things of the world and their lives so much that they would crucify Him afresh if He were before them – since we represent Him in this world, we must use that discretion that only comes from being in Him and having His mind (v. 16b).

As a sleight aside, it is to be noted that although our Lord sent the twelve “only to the lost sheep of Israel,” the promise of salvation to the Gentiles is hinted at in the declaration of their being told that they will “bear witness to the Gentiles” (vs. 5-6; 18). Bearing witness always has a dual purpose, as the context plainly shows: it is to bring those God makes worthy through the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to salvation, according to His eternal plan of redemption, and to show forth His righteous wrath and judgment against those who, unredeemed, remain in disobedient rebellion against His holiness (v. 15).

There is a fearlessness that is a determined mindset which is included in acknowledging our Lord before men – not a lack of emotional response to persecution, but a resolve to go through it as the Lord did for our sakes. Even our Lord had emotional responses to suffering as a man, as the scene in Gethsemane plainly shows us, yet He resolved to complete the work which the Father had given Him to do, and it is by the same Spirit of grace that we, despite the opposition to the message of the gospel of the kingdom, are to go forth, knowing that the reward that awaits us far outweighs any emotional and physical suffering we experience in this present life, and this is coupled with the joy of knowing that those who are given the right to receive Christ Jesus as their Lord and Savior will share in such eternal reward (vs. 26-31; 40-42).

So, to sum up: We find that because we are accepted in the Beloved, our Lord Jesus Christ, we freely and confidently proclaim Him among the congregation and among those who are yet perishing, regardless of consequences; this is a work that does not procure our salvation, but is a result of it. We are His servants, and do not merit anything we gain from Him, but acknowledge Him before men because of the standing in Him we have been given by God, who gave us to be born of His will, not our own or any man’s, and so gave us the right, the privilege, and yes, the power, to receive His Son as our Lord and Savior. We do this whether we are slandered or well spoken of, and we will find more of the latter than the former, but how sweet it is after myriad rejections when we find that one lost sheep that hears their Savior’s voice and comes back to pasture with His flock.

We do this bare of any merit or righteousness of our own, yet fully covered and equipped by that righteousness of God in Jesus Christ procured by that faith He gifted us with, and as our Lord set His face to go to Jerusalem, so we steel ourselves to go forth in that which He has, and is, making us, not holding any former ideologies or desires of the flesh dear, but only that which lays before us.

We are able to do such because we have been born again by the will of God of His imperishable seed, the engrafted Word, and we are empowered by His Spirit who gave that regeneration to our dead in sin nature, so that we can firmly carry on with our duty of sharing the word of reconciliation in the joy set before us, knowing that which awaits us, and having no need to fear those who cannot take our reward from us.

We confidently proclaim the Son before men because we know He has destroyed the power of the evil one, and that by His death, then triumphed over that which He destroyed, and it is in this triumph that we acknowledge Him before men, whether believers or unbelievers, regardless of the social setting or circumstances we find ourselves in; however, we do such as He gives opportunity, not seeking to share with those who repeatedly yet say, “Away with Him! We will not have this Man to be King over us!”

As we have nothing, and only do that which is of the unprofitable servant simply obeying their Master, so we expect nothing of ourselves, but everything of Him – the foundation of our acknowledging our Lord before men is in who God is, and what He has done for us, and all who are His, in our Lord Jesus Christ, and we look at and consider this reward we have not earned with joy, even as we may suffer and experience extreme sorrow, for we know He has given us life, wills that we share this hope with others, and nothing which they can do to us will change that which He has accomplished for the glory of His Father by which we undeservedly have attained to that life more abundant.

This is a part of what it means to acknowledge our Lord before men, and this concluded this particular meditation of all that God is for us in Jesus Christ, and our joyous wonderment and worshipful thankfulness of such a marvelous fact.

Dr. John MacArthur On Preaching

 

There is certainly no shortage of preachers today who are all emotion and no content...


 I have often said that if a man is unable to be passionate about the Word of God, he has no business preaching. If someone can stand in the pulpit and manage to make the Word of the living God sound dry and dull, that person ought to sit down and let someone else preach.

This is true even if he possesses top academic credentials; one's educational achievements alone cannot qualify that person to preach. Mere logic without the fire of passion is far from the biblical ideal for preaching.

In fact, I'm convinced that even in the most sound and solid Bible churches today, much of what is labeled preaching is not that at all. Turn off the overhead, eliminate the Power-Point presentation, stop passing out the fill-in-the-blank outlines, and let the man of God proclaim the truth with genuine, heartfelt fervor, energized by the Spirit's unction. That is preaching.

This is no argument against training or preparation. Good preaching occurs when the well-trained mind-filled with knowledge, skilled at clarity, motivated by love for the truth, and energized by the Holy Spirit-speaks powerfully to people. The true preacher is never content with informing his people about a few academic matters. He wants to overwhelm them with clear and powerful exposition of the Word so that they feel the impact of God's truth at the most fundamental level.*

 *Alex Montoya. Preaching with Passion (Kindle Locations 16-24). Kindle Edition.