Comments on: Owen on Preaching http://theologyforum.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/owen-on-preaching/ Serving the joyful cultivation of the theological craft for the life of the church: inquiring honestly, deliberating wisely, acting faithfully Wed, 15 May 2013 06:00:16 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Brettongarcia http://theologyforum.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/owen-on-preaching/#comment-24800 Sun, 08 May 2011 17:10:32 +0000 http://theologyforum.wordpress.com/?p=4350#comment-24800 On a commonsense level, before teaching any given doctrine or theological theory, we should “test” it, against our a) experience, b) intuition, c) reason, and d) our understanding of the Bible. To to see if they make rational and emotional and biblical sense, to us. And if they seem to work in real life.

But that does not mean just being satisfied with a given doctrine, if it just makes us “feel good” over the short run. There are many things that make us feel good short term – eating too much rich food; dangerous sex practices; drugs -but that are bad for us in the long term.

We should use our own intuition or insight to some extent. But our insight includes not just feeling of pleasure, not just going not going just with our emotional “desires” and feelings; but also our Reason and experience.

Too many people, especially religious women, go just with raw feelings: the heart. Never noticing that the Bible itself warned over and over, that the heart is often bad, and deceptive.

Raw feelings are not enough; also part of our valuable personal intuitions, are our reasonings, hunches, ideas. And probably even, Reason itself; as a personal/human attribute (as well as a divine one).

]]> By: Flotsam and jetsam (5/6) « scientia et sapientia http://theologyforum.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/owen-on-preaching/#comment-24785 Fri, 06 May 2011 13:35:38 +0000 http://theologyforum.wordpress.com/?p=4350#comment-24785 [...] John Owen on preaching. If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us….The want of this experience of the power of gospel truth on their own souls is that which gives us so many lifeless, sapless orations, quaint in words and dead as to power, instead of preaching the gospel in the demonstration of the Spirit. [...]

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