The Sufficiency of Christ Considered: Promises Made, Promises Kept - Expository Devotional on Hebrews 11:39-40

All Urban Puritano explorations in expository preaching have been preached in a Spanish congregation and have been translated by yours truly to exemplify a hybrid Puritan approach to preaching for today. There is a simple style that presents the fruits of textual analysis and translates it into homiletical synthesis for the glory of God and the good of the congregation.

There is an Intro/Exordium that introduces the theme of the sermon broadly and narrowing it to the text on which the theme is based. The second portion of the sermon is the theme of the text being exposited. This theme or topic is its doctrinal substance and what is predicated about the subjecht matter. Next, there are reasons and arguments proving the doctrinal substance is rightly divided. Once the truth has been explained, the uses of the doctrinal theme must be spelled out. Just as there is no compunction in judiciously formulating the sermon's doctrinal theme in a homiletically appropriate way, neither is there any compunction in pastorally and judiciously deriving warranted implications from the text to apply to the hearers' hearts and lives. Lastly the conclusion/epilogue serves to summarize the exposition and call hearers to worship God in Christ through the Spirit.

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Who is sufficient unto these things?

Certain circles in Evangelical and Reformed academia are giving the Quadriga a pass when it comes to Biblical hermeneutics. It’s toleration and eventual acceptance and advocacy may be under the guise of an apostolic or Christocentric method of interpretation. Soon, there will be a full court press to a full throated embrace of the Quadriga by Evangelicals and some Reformed scholars may fall under this spell themselves.

It’s one thing to appreciate the Quadriga’s general openness to the Bible’s polyvalence. It’s quite another thing to locate the Bible’s polyvalence, as the Quadriga does, in four distinct senses of Scripture. The Bible student in the pew must go beyond faddish academic deliverances found in history to critically assessing them according to Scripture itself. This is the Berean way.

What interpretive virtues must we be guided by as we read and interpret the Bible in the church?
Gird your loins as we weigh the Quadriga and find it wanting!

The literal sense of Scripture gives way to no other sense of Scripture because there is no other sense than the literal sense of Scripture. Sorry, not sorry, Quadrigans! It's time for Evangelicals and Confessional Protestants to retrieve its rejection!

Some things are so fundamentally flawed, coming up with alternatives should be easy. Some things are so fundamentally flawless, coming up with refutations should be impossible. The Quadriga is not hermeneutically viable. Never was. Never shall be. That's what makes its treatment with kid gloves by some academics, pastors, and their young seminarian acolytes a contra-confessional anomaly. Soon, there will be a full court press hailing its hermeneutical virtues as simply expressions of Biblical assumptions and sensibilities.

Litera gesta docet,
quid credas allegoria;
moralis quid agas;
quo tenda anagogia

But the question is simple: is the pre-critical quadriga drawn from or imposed on the Scriptures? If the former, it is legitimate. If the latter, it is eisegesis. These two are not the same. These two possibilities are not compatible. Neither is confessing Scripture's single sense and its manifold sense. Our Lord Himself states that His words are spirit and life, thus refuting the dualistic bifurcation between the literal and spiritual senses. The Quadriga must be terminated with extreme prejudice by all true believers for Biblical, rational, and confessional reasons.

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Bryant Rueda, writer and preacher extraordinaire joins us to discuss his life, writing, and preaching ministry since leaving the concrete jungle in Chicago for greener pastures in Texas. Bryant is keenly interested in hermeneutics, homiletics, lay preaching, pastoral ministry, church planting, and Spanish ministry. What life experiences led Bryant to develop a love for preaching? From Five-Fold Pentecostalism to High Confessional Calvinism of the Reformed Baptist variety, Bryant cares about preachers and their training. We stir the pot on lay preaching and the spiritual formation through formal and informal education within the life of the local church. Take up and listen!

Amazon.com: Bryant Rueda: books, biography, latest update

Preaching: Discipleship One Sermon at a Time

Dear Preacher

Catechism

Previous conversations with Bryant Rueda:

Cross-Eyed Biblicism

Christ-Centered Homiletics

Straight Outta Chicago! The only Reformed Baptist rapper I know of: Regenerit! Who wudda thunk it? From writing rhymes as a young kid to a quiver full of kids, we discuss the art of rap, conversion, discipleship, church membership, family, theology, and 4 songs that showcase the artistic creativity possible when you have a passion for Christocentric expressions of faith combined with a boom bap sound! We are all about Christocentrism at Urban Puritano. Don't forget your wallet in El Segundo and enjoy!

This episode is affectionately dedicated to Carlos (last name rhymes with gorgeous)!

Dreams, visions, promptings may not be spiritual gifts, but what is their ongoing spiritual significance? Are they inherently authoritative?

Is their content veridical? How can we assess them? Do they provide infallible guidance as lesser rules of faith and practice?

Must confessional calvinists be against hyper-cessationism? Our guest, Ryan Denton, says:
“Yes!” I tend to demur and say: “If loving hyper-cessationism is wrong, then I don’t wanna be right!”

Is there divine communicative intent to dreams? Did His revelation end in the New Testament or is He still speaking to us today through our dreams, visions, and promptings?

Beginning with the premise that dreams, visions, and promptings are facts in the sense that they exist—the host explores how he assesses testimonies from the past and present of dreams, visions, promptings to the Christian life in the here and now. Join us as we scratch the surface on a disagreement on a secondary issue among brothers concerning an aspect of cessationism. If your anger and frustration levels rise, touch grass!

What does deconstruction mean in the context of faith, Christianity, and the Church? On today's episode, we scratch the surface on the phenomena of deconstruction, deconversion, and apostasy. We've all heard of professing believers fall away from the faith. Sometimes, we've even known them. What does the confession (2LBC or WCF) say about such people and their faith in flux? Is there hope for the backslider or must deconstruction win the day? Take up and listen as I talk to Pastor of Christ the King Reformed Baptist Church about Deconstruction from a Pastoral perspective.

Pastor Mike Neglia invited me to The Expositor's Collective to discuss my recently published book:

Christ's Scope and Scepter: His Word, His World

With his permission, I've slightly edited it and chopped it up in a good way...not like the way the Quadriga chops up the Word of God.
Speaking of chopping things up that shouldn't be chopped up, we discuss the continuity between a Christocentric interpretation of the Word and a Christocentric interpretation of the world. For me that has taken me on an adventure in Christian Education, Spanish lay preaching in church, and healthcare chaplaincy.

This conversation scratches the surface on issues covered more in depth in my book. Don't just take up and listen for my spicy, confessional take on the pre-critical Quadriga. Stay for the encouragement to join the ranks of lay ministers in church and chaplains in healthcare. The harvest is ripe and the Christocentric laborers are few!