Ministering like the Master

Sermons like the Saviour's

MINISTERING LIKE THE MASTER
(Three messages for today's preachers)
By Stuart Olyott
Banner of Truth Trust
86 pages. £4.50
ISBN 0 85151 830 3

The pattern for our lives as Christians is Christ-likeness. We long for it, strive for it and rightly bemoan the lack of it. But what does it mean in practice?

In this small book, Stuart Olyott very helpfully brings out some key components of Christ-likeness for the Christian preacher. The three studies challenge the preacher by showing that: Jesus was not a boring preacher; was an evangelistic preacher, and that he was more than just a preacher. Though preachers are his intended readership, the third chapter in particular contains reminders and challenges to all Christians who seek to minister like Jesus.

Stuart Olyott's style (which isn't boring!) makes the book very easy to read. As many have come to expect from him, he handles the biblical material clearly and practically, though I wondered, at times, especially in the first chapter, whether the agenda was really being set by the biblical text. Does the Sermon on the Mount really reveal the 'state, illustrate, apply' method of preaching as clearly and methodically as is argued? I have to confess also to being puzzled by the insistence that preachers must develop a specific illustration for every point of a sermon when the writer had shown that Jesus relied far more on illustrative, imaginative, suggestive language rather than specific illustrations!

On the whole, though, the book is an excellent and timely reminder to preachers that we must work hard at all aspects of our ministry if we would be Christ-like: communicating as helpfully as possible to our hearers; preaching evangelistically in a way that reflects the severity and goodness of God and our dependence on him; living in a way that shows that there is so much more to ministry than preaching! The book concludes with the reminder that for Christ 'his whole life was his ministry and ministry his whole life'.

David Sprouse,
Pastor of Cuckfield Baptist Church,
West Sussex

© Evangelicals Now - May 2003
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Main Articles

• Faith on the front line
  Other stories about the war in Iraq
• Society figures?
  Some of the implications from the recent Census results
• The changing face of Christian engagement with Muslims
• WWII and Iraq
• The jogger and the gospel posters
• Real wisdom for dads
  A look at Judges 13
• Empire and Spurgeon
  Defending the preacher's honour
• The reality of wrath
  Towards a true understanding of God and the gospel
• Monthly column on the arts
  A brave new digital world
• Monthly column for youth leaders
  Tribalism
• Monthly column on student work
  With the National Union of Students
• Monthly column on hymns and songs
  The Lord's day

Other articles

• Walking with Cavemen
• The Pianist
• Forgiving Hitler - The Kathy Diosy story - first part
• The Guide to Revolutionary Forgiveness
• Access:d - Live worship in the key of D
• Children in the heart of God
• Anxious Christians - Psychological problems and Christian faith
• The only hope: Jesus yesterday, today, forever
• Worship in the melting pot
• Ministering like the Master - Three messages for today's preachers
• The 'What would Jesus eat?' Cookbook
• Bringing home the prodigals
• The next Christendom
• Mining for wisdom
• Walking with God
• A first class mob - Children in revival: 300 years of God's work in Scotland
• If I were God, I'd end all the PAIN - Struggling with evil, suffering and faith
• The art of preaching Old Testament narrative
• Deconstructing the Dutch Utopia - Sex education and teenage pregnancy in the Netherlands
• Leading a local church in the age of the Spirit
• A man's influence