I'm away at the moment at the Spring Wives Conference at Hothorpe Hall at the moment and we're having a great time. Well, the wives are having a great time. Vaughan, Jonathan Carswell and I are the only boys so we asserting our manliness by talking in deep voices and going off to hit a few balls on the driving range during a break.

Which reminds me to say what a great joy these conferences should be and are. Many of the wives testify that coming away and learning together is a key part of their ministry year. It's the same for the ministers conferences too, though many of us tend to think in terms of "who's speaking" or "what are the workshop subjects" rather than, "I'll make that a regular part of my year." I think the wives are much more liberated about this than us men!

Our spring younger ministers conference is now full, but there is space on our senior ministers conference. I'm not going to tell you who's speaking; be more like your wife!! You can book online here. 

Well, you might not agree with Dr Peter Masters of the Metropolitan Tabernacle on everything. I'm pretty sure he doens't agree with everything about us. Nevertheless, there are some important points he makes in this article on expository preaching. The first half is the strongest and well worth a read. After promoting the cause of expository preaching, and rightly so in our opinion, he sounds an important negative warning:

Another disadvantage that often accompanies expository preaching (whether consecutive or not) is that the method of the preacher somehow steamrollers down the method of the Holy Spirit. The preacher comes at the text in a certain logical way, examines it, and then lays out his points, his applications, scarcely noticing what the style of the text is. He treats it as a didactic passage even if it is an historical narrative or a parable, or a graphic miracle. The preacher puts everything through his ­expos­itory ‘mincing machine’ regardless, and his presentation is exactly the same in every sermon. He has failed to follow or adjust to the method of communication employed by God. Expository preaching can easily degenerate into a bullying, mechanical process, even a clinical procedure, stripping out the story-form or other diversity of presentation featured in the text.

God save us from the mincing machine. BTW, a very helpful book on this subject is Preaching with Variety. 

There's a lot of nonsense written (and spoken at conferences) about what PT believes about preaching. Generally speaking, we don't respond to it. But for those who are a little doubtful and for all who are not, here's an excerpt from Christopher's forthcoming book about how the Spirit continues the work of Jesus in making the Father known. It's his conclusion about prayerful dependence in preaching – and every preacher should be convicted:

A prayerful dependence upon the Spirit is bound to affect the way we preach and teach. There will be about our preaching something of the spirit of one who has been listening and who is praying as he preaches. There will be an earnestness and passion. He will be doing much more than just a cold explaining of the Bible text. But we must not mistake an apparently passionate style with the ministry of the Spirit. For the Spirit is Sovereign. We cannot enlist his support by preaching in a particular style, just as we cannot guarantee his work in our hearts by listening with a particular technique or in a particular place or manner. He blows where and when he wills and we cannot constrain him. Our prayer is not a kind of magic wand to bring the Spirit. Magic, after all, is a way of using supernatural power with me in charge; I wave the wand. But I am never in charge of the Spirit. Our prayer is to be a genuine expression of heartfelt and utter dependence upon him to work, for until and unless he opens blind eyes and softens hard hearts, the Father will not be made known. Charles Spurgeon used to advise his students to prepare as though it all depended upon them, and then to do what he did as he ascended the pulpit steps, saying under his breath the words, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life.”

Christopher's new book will be published in the summer.

More like this:

• Don't be afraid to preach to the affections

Just reading through and studying Hebrews at the moment. It's amazing stuff. Moreover, Peter O'Brien's excellent Pillar commentary is a good guide through. I've got to the end of chapter 4 and O'Brien reminds that "Jesus is able to….." is a key idea in Hebrews. Nothing to do with preaching, perhaps, but good for our souls to reflect on the supreme and superb ability of Jesus:

• For since He Himself was tested and has suffered, He is able to help those who are tested (Heb 2.18) 

Here is the video of the preachers Q&A from the Preachers Weekend. The answers are particularly geared towards those with an occasional ministry, such as elders or lay people who preach from time to time. Vaughan Roberts and Adrian Reynolds answer.  Unfortunately, the still from the vimeo site makes it look like I've got constipation. I can assure you – it gets better!!

The Preachers Weekend 2011 from The Proclamation Trust on Vimeo.

Both Christopher and I have recently taken our wives on hot dates to go and see dead girls – not as odd as it sounds, I'm talking about the Book of the Dead exhibition at the British Museum. It's almost over (sadly) and there are no more tickets on sale (although there is a free iPhone app which is pretty neat). It's a very well thought out exhibition; well narrated and incredibly informative – and all stuff from Bible times and, sometimes, directly applicable to Bible people.

But, independently, what struck us both was the moment of judgement when the heart of the dead man or woman is weighed in the balance. In particular:

1. it's a deceptive process. The Book of the Dead inherently recognises that the heart will not pass the test. The weighing is not good vs bad with the victor the one whose heart weighs more good than bad. The weighing is more accurately a measuring against the measure of absolute truth and justice (represented by a feather in this picture). No less than perfect will do. So, the Book of the Dead provides spells which the dead person can use to fool the gods into thinking the heart is purer than it really is. There's a lot that's biblical about that in an unintentional way. Unlike the thinking of some religious optimists, judgement is not a good vs bad weigh-up. It's a measure up against an impossible standard. But it's sadly unbiblical too – there's no spell will get us past our creator Judge. 
2. it's a graceless process. There's no grace. Period. It's alarmingly numbing. I looked at the beautiful pictures which the curator told me through headphones were beautifully drawn etc. But it's bleak. Thank God for Jesus and thank God for grace.

There's still time to book up for our London Preachers Day this Saturday. Focused towards the ministry of occasional or lay preachers, we've already run this day in Bath and Colchester (above) where it has been very well received. It's a low cost, high impact training day here at our offices in Willcox House. You can book online here. 

We've just had our Preachers Weekend where Vaughan Roberts and I each spent a day taking delegates (occasional preachers and teachers) through their prep on two passages then preached those sermons before doing some work together on what worked and what didn't. It worked really well as an approach and we thought you might like to see the two example sermons from our guys. Neither was the finished article, but they give some idea of what we got up to.

The Preachers Weekend 2011 Vaughan Roberts from The Proclamation Trust on Vimeo.

The Preachers Weekend 2011 Adrian Reynolds from The Proclamation Trust on Vimeo.

Mrs R and I have just finished watching BBC's new sitcom made by the creator of Friends. It's called Episodes and it's been showing on BBC Two on Monday evenings. It had one or two funny moments, but on the whole it's fairly crude with far too much bad language. Don't know if there's going to be a second series, but I don't think we'll be watching. However, it did teach me something. 

Although supposedly happily married, the characters played by Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan are easily tempted. In fact, Tamsin Greig ends up having a one night stand with the character played by Matt Leblanc. It's all very sad and casual. But here's what I learnt – marital unfaithfulness is an easy path. Those of us who are in ministry must never think it could never happen to us and we must be very careful of ourselves.

In particular, we must not underestimate the sexual allure of leadership to others. I remember a fat ugly pastor once telling me that though he was the ugliest pastor in the world, women still found him attractive because he was at the front. I concur – there's truth in that bald statement (take it from a fat ugly pastor). Sin is crouching at our doors because of our sinful nature. Pray that God will give you strength to keep the door shut. 

At our preachers weekend conference this weekend just past, I picked up a copy of the tribute book for John Piper: For the fame of God's name edited by Sam Storms and Justin Taylor. I'd held off getting this book for sometime because (a) it's not cheap and (b) being a good Brit, festschrifts make me feel a little uncomfortable, I just squirm in my seat a little. However, reading through the contents I realise that this is actually a series of essays on really important subjects, not least Wayne Grudem's contribution: "pleasing God in our obedience."

It seems to me that there is a great danger that we get so excited about grace that we completely misunderstand it. According to Ezekiel 36 the new covenant gives us hearts which delight to obey – this is grace at work, something that is echoed in Titus 2.12. It explaina why the New Testament is full of commands. These commands could be legalism or justification by works if taken in the wrong heart, but the regenerate heart where the Spirit is at work makes these commands part of our living for Christ.

Wayne Grudem explains this carefully and thoughtfully – as well as the reason why we don't talk enough about obedience:

I suspect the main reason for the neglect of this doctrine in evangelical circles today is that pastors and teachers and writers are afraid of compromising the great doctrine of justification by faith alone. If we can please God by works, doesn't that sound like justification by works? No, it does not, or else the New Testament authors would not put so much emphasis on telling Christians to please God by their obedience! The key to understanding this is to distinguish clearly between justification (on the one hand) and sanctification and our daily relationship to God as Christians (on the other hand).