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May 23, 2024 | 
preachingtoday.com | Gregory Hollifield |Mark Mitchell |Dan Meyer
Author’s Introduction: If Mark 9:30-50 defies interpretation, as commentator Eugene Boring claims, the verses that immediately precede are only slightly less difficult for the preacher to navigate.
Jesus’ exorcism of a demonized boy at the foot of the mountain where he was moments earlier transfigured appears in all three Synoptic Gospels (Matt. 17:14-21; Mark 9:14-29; Luke 9:37-43). Only Matthew includes the line about a faith capable of moving mountains. Mark’s record is the longest.
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May 16, 2024 | 
preachingtoday.com | Scott Gibson |Gregory Hollifield
I write this article from the perspective of someone who was in many ways fatherless and from someone who is childless.
My father was an absentee father who was swept up into a world of alcoholism. His absenteeism was palpable. From not spending time with his children to ignoring their safety while driving drunk, my father was not physically nor emotionally present. When he was around, he was angry or a raging drunk. I confess that I don’t remember a pleasant moment with him.
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Apr 24, 2024 | 
preachingtoday.com | Jeffrey Arthurs |Gregory Hollifield |Steve Mathewson
One of the preachers’ roles is persuader. Under our sovereign God we want to produce change in the listeners—strengthening existing belief, overturning wrong belief, rebuking sinful action, or coaching new habits. “Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others” (2 Cor. 5:11).
One of the best ways to persuade is with story.
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Apr 11, 2024 | 
preachingtoday.com | Gregory Hollifield |Scott Gibson |Joel Gregory
Ed Murphy was the father of my high school principal Ellis and father-in-law to Ellis’s wife Doris, who happened to be my high school art teacher. Ed was as faithful as the sunrise at the church we attended throughout my teen years—the church where I answered the call to preach and delivered some of my earliest sermons.
Ed listened graciously to more than his fair share of my meager homilies. (God bless him!) Every time afterwards on his way out the door, he paused long enough to thank me.
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Feb 29, 2024 | 
preachingtoday.com | Mandy Smith |John Casey |Gregory Hollifield |Joel Gregory
I love words, but they’re not my first language.
Before we know one word, we know the world through instincts and emotions, memories and urges. We wince at sour, we giggle in the bath. Our first language is human experience.
As preachers, we always begin with the Word of Scripture. Thankfully it’s been translated into our spoken languages.
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Feb 15, 2024 | 
preachingtoday.com | Gregory Hollifield |John Casey
Author’s disclaimer: Mine is a baptistic tradition that does not observe the Lenten season. Admittedly, I view its traditions and rituals as one peering through a dusty window. Sometimes, though, I find that an outsider’s perspective is helpful, drawing attention to things that insiders take for granted and otherwise overlook. For that reason, I offer the following observations in the hope that they may serve as the basis for a sermon or series this holy season.
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Dec 4, 2023 | 
preachingtoday.com | Gregory Hollifield |Scott Gibson |Lenny Luchetti |Alison Gerber
We may look on our time as the moment civilization was transformed, as it was by agriculture, fire, and electricity. In 2023 we learned that a machine taught itself how to speak to humans like a peer, which is to say, with creativity, truth, error, and lies. The technology, known as a chatbot, is only one of the recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence—machines that can teach themselves superhuman skills.
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Jul 14, 2023 | 
journal.ehomiletics.org | Gregory Hollifield
ArticleReflections on the Future of the Evangelical Homiletics SocietyWalter C. Kaiser, Jr., former president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary used to quip, “I’m not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I work for a non-profit organization.” I stand before you today not as a prophet, but more as a prompter, someone who’s at the side or even out of sight reminding people of things they already know.
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Mar 16, 2023 | 
preachingtoday.com | Matthew Kim |Gregory Hollifield |John Casey
Palm Sunday is one of those awkward “holy days” in the Christian calendar. Growing up in Sunday school, I recall reaching for the prickly palm branches with elongated, green, skinny leaves awaiting us in the children’s sanctuary on Palm Sunday morning. Some mischievous kids would poke and prod each other with them in the stomach or back (and thankfully not in the eyes). Others would proudly wave them around like a school or favorite sports team banner or shake them vigorously like a pom-pom.
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Mar 9, 2023 | 
preachingtoday.com | Gregory Hollifield |John Casey |Scott Gibson
All four of the New Testament’s Gospels recount Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matt. 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-40; John 12:12-19). The details recorded in each account, and the events surrounding them, differ based on their respective writer’s pastoral and theological concerns. In these details and immediate contexts, the preacher finds insight on how to proclaim each text in a way that respects that author’s intent.
