Preaching

Pastor Martin completes the witness of the Gospels to Christ's true human soul by tracing the actings of his human mind and emotions. Using the analogy of assembling a model from every piece in the box, he insists evangelicals must include the Gospel data showing Jesus learned, reasoned, was ignorant of certain things, and felt the full sinless range of joy, sorrow, anger, zeal, agitation, indignation, and grief. He then applies this with reference to Christ as our sinless Savior and our perfect emotional and mental pattern, urging believers to abandon both stoic restraint and unbridled passion in favor of Christ-shaped humanness.

Pastor Martin opens up the corporate implications of Christ's prophetic office, focusing on the first of two great dangers: undervaluing the ministry of the Word. Building on Ephesians 4 he argues that the pastor-teachers Christ gives to His church are nothing less than the appointed instruments through whom Christ Himself, as great Prophet, continues to speak to His people. To despise or trivialize the preaching of those whom He sends is to reject Christ Himself, while to recognize them as His gifts is to encounter the living Christ in the proclamation of His Word.