Equipping Faith Lectures

In this lecture, John Piper reflects on the apparent tension between worship in a comfortable setting and the harsh realities of ministry in Scotland’s most difficult neighborhoods. Using 2 Chronicles 20, he shows that God links the praise of His people with His power to defeat spiritual enemies. Piper illustrates this through a personal story of witnessing deliverance from demonic oppression thro...

Kevin McKay teaches that authority , when exercised biblically, is one of the clearest reflections of God’s character. Good authority blesses, protects, and gives life; abused authority destroys and lies about God. For this reason, leadership in the church matters deeply . Preaching from 2 Samuel 23 and Acts 6, McKay shows that biblical leadership is defined not by charisma, strategic skill, or in...

Matthias Lohmann teaches from 2 Peter 1, Peter’s final written testimony before his death. Peter’s goal is not to introduce new ideas but to remind believers of what they already know and must keep remembering until they enter God’s glory. Lohmann highlights Peter’s central point: Christian faith must rest not on experiences but on God’s authoritative Word. First, Peter recalls the transfiguration...

David R. Helm explains what an aspiring preacher or Bible teacher must understand: preaching always involves two pressures —handling the biblical text faithfully and speaking meaningfully to today’s world . Many assume these two pull in opposite directions, but Hebrews 3:7 shows the opposite: the Holy Spirit still speaks through Scripture today. Faithfulness to the text is therefore the gateway to...

In his final session on preparing to preach, David R. Helm focuses on the audience —the people in the pew—and how preachers must learn to appeal to the heart . Faithfulness in preaching depends on sound exegesis, but fruitfulness is diminished if a preacher does not understand how to speak persuasively to listeners. Scripture itself demonstrates this: Acts opens with hearts “cut” by Peter’s preach...

David R. Helm teaches that every biblical text has a God-given structure , and faithful preaching requires discovering that structure before crafting a sermon. Just as every human body has a skeleton, every passage has an internal organization—its “bones”—that carries the original author’s intended emphasis. Preachers err in two opposite directions: the jellyfish preacher (no structure, no clarity...

Kevin McKay begins by explaining the origins of 9Marks , a ministry that grew out of Mark Dever’s pastoral concern for a small local church. Dever identified nine essential marks of a healthy church—expositional preaching, biblical theology, the gospel, conversion, evangelism, membership, discipline, discipleship, and leadership. These marks emphasize that the local church is God’s primary instrum...

Matthias Lohmann teaches that discipleship is helping others follow Jesus by doing them deliberate spiritual good , ultimately aiming to help Christians grow in Christlikeness. Rooted in the Great Commission (Matthew 28), discipleship begins with evangelism, continues through incorporation into the church (baptism), and grows through teaching believers to obey all Jesus commanded. Lohmann stresses...

In this third instructional session on preaching, David R. Helm shifts from exegesis to theological reflection, focusing on how preachers move from a biblical text to the gospel. He argues that Scripture has a unifying interpretive center: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, according to the Scriptures . While not all scholars agree, Helm grounds his conviction in Jesus’ own teaching (Luke...

Matthias Lohmann, a pastor in Munich, explains how his commitment to expositional preaching, meaningful church membership, and church discipline initially drew criticism from those who preferred a more “cool” and modern style of church. He argues, however, that faithfulness—not popularity—is the true biblical priority. He highlights that throughout Scripture, God consistently distinguishes between...

The passage emphasizes that God reveals His grace through the gospel and displays it visibly through the unity of the church. Drawing from Ephesians 1–4, it explains that believers have received a multifaceted salvation: chosen, adopted, forgiven, redeemed, and given hope in Christ. God’s plan is to bring all things together in Christ, creating a new humanity from Jews and Gentiles. This supernatu...