Chalmers' Blog

Want to Preach Better? Learn to Write Better

Over the past year, I’ve received more positive feedback on my writing and, perhaps more significantly, on my preaching.

That has made me wonder: what changed?

I don’t think I suddenly became more theological. I don’t think I discovered some hidden preaching technique. I haven’t spent hours crafting clever sound bites or trying to manufacture memorable quotes.

But I have changed the way I write.

For years, I wrote sermons and articles largely the way I spoke. I put thoughts onto the page as they came into my head. Sentences were often long. Grammar was occasionally negotiable. Illustrations could become elaborate. Paragraphs could wander. The point might eventually arrive, but sometimes it had to fight its way through a lot of words to get there.

Over the last year, I’ve increasingly tried to write like a writer.

And I think it has made me a better writer, and a better preacher.

Saturday Snippets (August 22)

As well as reading a lot of books, I also read a ton of articles every week. Here are some of the articles that I’ve read recently and have found interesting, helpful, challenging and encouraging. I hope that they will be the same for you, my dear readers.

Will Christians Really Judge the World?

There are some verses in the Bible that we can read dozens of times without really stopping to think about what they mean. Then, suddenly, one phrase catches our attention and refuses to let us move on.

For me, one of those phrases came up recently in a sermon I was listening to and it is found in 1 Corinthians 6 “Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?” (1 Corinthians 6:2)

It is a remarkable statement, Christians will judge the world.

But almost immediately, questions begin to pile up. Aren’t Christians themselves going to be judged? Doesn’t Paul elsewhere say that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:10)? If God alone is the Judge, what exactly are believers doing judging the world? And perhaps most puzzling of all – how could ordinary Christians possibly possess the wisdom necessary for such a task?

The more we think about Paul’s words, the stranger they can initially seem.

Yet this little phrase opens up something glorious about the Christian’s future, and something deeply challenging about the Christian’s life now.

Rebuilding Trust in Church Leadership: Biblical Models for Integrity and Transparency After a Season of Scandals

Trust is slowly earned and quickly lost.

That is true in families, workplaces, friendships and churches. Yet when trust is broken by a Christian leader, the damage can feel especially deep. Pastors and elders preach the truth, call others to holiness, offer spiritual guidance and are often welcomed into the most vulnerable moments of people’s lives. When a leader abuses that position, conceals serious sin or protects the institution rather than the wounded, the effects can be devastating.

In recent years, Christians have watched a painful stream of leadership scandals become public. Some have involved sexual immorality. Others have involved bullying, financial dishonesty, spiritual abuse, intimidation or long-standing patterns of deception. In several cases, the initial wrongdoing was compounded by secrecy, defensive statements and efforts to preserve reputations.

A Heart Aflame for God

The phrase spiritual formation can make some conservative evangelicals slightly uneasy. It can sometimes be associated with mystical practices, vague spirituality or disciplines borrowed uncritically from Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. Yet the Bible clearly calls Christians to pursue spiritual maturity – to keep our hearts diligently, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ.

The question, therefore, is not whether Christians should be spiritually formed, but what should form us, and how that formation takes place.

Chosen by Grace – Why Predestination Should Give You Confidence, Not Fear

Predestination. For some Christians, the very word brings comfort. For others, it brings confusion. And for many, it raises questions they have wrestled with for years.

“Did God really choose people before the foundation of the world?”

“If that’s true, do our choices matter?”

“Can I know that I’m one of the elect?”

And perhaps the question that comes up more than any other:

“If God chooses people to be saved, why didn’t He simply choose everyone?”

These are not merely academic questions. They touch our understanding of God, the gospel, assurance, evangelism and worship. They affect how we pray, how we share our faith and how we rest in Christ.

Saturday Snippets (July 11)

Could Your Devotional Material Be Hindering Your Spiritual Growth?

There is a quiet irony in much of modern Christian publishing. We have more devotional material available to us than almost any generation in church history, and yet many Christians know their Bibles less well than previous generations did.

That is not because devotional books are bad. Far from it. Many are rich, faithful, Christ-centred, pastorally wise, and spiritually nourishing. The Lord has used daily reading notes, devotional commentaries, Bible-in-a-year helps, prayer guides, and short reflections to encourage countless believers. Many Christians can testify that a particular devotional book helped them through suffering, rekindled their prayer life, or opened up a Bible passage they had previously struggled to understand.

So this is not an argument against devotional material. It is a plea to use it well.

Taught in the Valley: Why God Often Uses Suffering to Make Us Depend on Him

There are lessons God teaches us in the valley that we rarely learn on the mountain top.

I wish that were not true. I wish there were easier ways to learn dependence, humility, endurance, compassion and prayer. I wish sanctification could happen without tears, weakness, sleepless nights, hospital appointments, unanswered questions and bodies that do not work as we want them to. But many of us know, not merely in theory but in experience, that suffering has a way of exposing what we really believe about God.

For me, this is not an abstract theological issue.

Since October 2013, I have lived with chronic pain. What began as a severe migraine that would not go away became a condition called new daily persistent headache. In simple terms, that means constant, unrelenting head pain. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. No day off. No real escape. It affects sleep, energy, concentration, noise, light, ministry, family life and the ordinary rhythms most people rightly take for granted.

I would love to be healed. I still pray for healing. I do not want to pretend that suffering is easy, romantic or somehow less painful if you have good theology. It is not. Pain hurts. Weakness frustrates. Limitations grieve us. Some days the valley feels very dark indeed.

But I can also say this: God has used suffering to teach me lessons I do not think I would have learned otherwise. He has used it to show me my weakness, deepen my dependence, expose my idols, enlarge my compassion, sharpen my hope and drive me again and again to Christ.

The Quiet Crisis of Prayerless Orthodoxy

There is a danger that can creep into conservative evangelical churches quietly, almost respectably. It does not usually arrive with scandal. It does not always look like compromise. It can sit under faithful preaching, sing doctrinally rich hymns, affirm historic confessions, defend biblical truth online, and recommend excellent books.

It is the danger of prayerless orthodoxy.

By prayerless orthodoxy I do not mean that doctrine is the problem. Far from it. Truth matters. Doctrine matters. God has revealed himself in words. The Christian faith is not built on vague religious feeling but on the once-for-all gospel of Jesus Christ, revealed in Scripture, confessed by the church, and entrusted to God’s people.