Bryan ChapellBesprekingen

First sentence: In recent years much of my time has been spent helping different generations of church leaders understand each other.

What does a Christ-centered approach to Daniel look like? Well. I'm not the best judge even though I read the book. I can tell you what it does not look like. It is not a commentary or at the very least not a traditional commentary. It won't really focus on the context and cultures in which Daniel lived. It won't go into various views of what any of the visions mean. It won't go into anything remotely-remotely related to "end times" prophecy. It won't focus necessarily on how Daniel has been read and interpreted throughout the centuries. It will focus almost exclusively in making Daniel "relevant" with applications for how to better live for Christ in a compromising culture.

I have always found Daniel a confusing book. I've never really tried to find ways to apply it, to make comparisons between Babylon's culture and our own, to look for ways to correlate our times with his. I remember liking the earlier chapters. It had me thinking about the pressures that Daniel and his three companions [among other captives] faced daily. They had lost literally almost everything--but were clinging to their faith in God.

I read the book over too many months to keep a big picture. I wish I'd been able to read it within a week or two instead of six weeks.

First sentence (from the introduction): Though it happened several years ago, I could take you to the precise location where a dear woman, who loved me and wanted to protect me, whispered a warning. As I passed her pew to greet early arrivers for the worship service, she caught my arm and pulled me down close enough that no one else could hear her say, "My friends say you don't believe that Jesus is coming back."

Bryan Chapell takes readers on a journey through four views of the 'end days' in his newest book. The views are Dispensational Premillennial (with a side dose of Progressive Dispensational Premillennial), Historic Premillennial, Amillennial, and Postmillennial. He shares what makes each unique and different. He references the history of these positions in the church throughout the centuries. Some views are relatively 'new' and others are more ancient. He gives an overview of each and mentions "famous" theologians/pastors who've held those views and are associated with those views. After walking readers through what makes each view different from one another--in an organized and logical way--he then shares what all views have in common. He focuses on things that unite believers instead of dividing them. Much of the book is spent on two issues: how do believers interpret Old Testament prophecy in regards to Israel and in regards to the church? where does Israel fit into God's future plans? Each of the four views (five views really) has answers on these points.

It's not fair, of course, to say it is spent on two issues...it's just that that is the root of all the other issues, topics, and subjects. Much time is spent on the rapture, the second coming, the millennial reign, judgment, new heavens and new earth, etc. But why the views differ comes back to the root issues--the Israel question, if you will.

It is meant to be an introduction to a subject. He is not trying to bring all the depth and substance. He wants to cover the basics of each in a reader-friendly way. To be honest, if he went into more depth I'm not sure I could have gone with him without drowning.

The book does offer discussion questions for each chapter and summaries. I definitely appreciated the "Digging Deeper" appendix.

One thing that I want to mention is that this was my first time hearing that there were three premillennial views to choose from. I'd never heard of progressive dispensationalism OR historic premillennialism.

This one has given me much to think about.

In the book The Promises of Grace, Bryan Chapell offers a careful look at the beauty of grace and all it brings to believers--not "more money and fewer headaches" but "confidence of our relationship with" God. Chapell helps believers focus on the promises they can expect God to fulfill--promises of assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Spirit, and perseverance in trial. These blessings come with the understanding that because we cannot hang on to God, he hangs on to us.

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10/10 (exceptional): An excellent textbook for any serious preacher. It's occasionally a little wooden, but page after page is filled with helpful, sage advice with just the right balance of freedom and direction. I will return to this again and again.

Vines and Shaddix’s book caught my eye by their front cover, but Dr. Bryan Chapell’s Christ-Centered Preaching caught it by the back. With recommendations from Dr. R. C. Sproul and Dr. J. I. Packer, two of my favorite pastor-theologians, I knew I was going to be in for a treat. Dr. Chapell is the pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Peoria, Illinois, but has also played a prominent role in areas of preaching and theology at Covenant Theological Seminary. He also authored Christ-Centered Worship, which I read during my time as a worship pastor. He has also authored books on prayer, marriage, and several robust volumes on reformed theology. I truly believe he will go down as one of the most exceptional pastor-theologians of our day, with several books I believe will benefit many of the future generations of pastors and Christians.

Book Synopsis
Similar to some of the other volumes we have reviewed, Christ-Centered Preaching is separated into three main parts where Dr. Chapell covered the principles of expository preaching, the preparation of expository sermons, and a theology of Christ-centered messages. Each is poignant, timely, and filled with vivid theology and clear application as Dr. Chapell seeks to offer techniques for serve faithful pastors for years of gospel ministry. As a pastor, Dr. Chapell knows the work it takes to delivery sermons and this book seeks to provide a method for pastors to do so faithfully as we seek to equip, edify, and feed our flocks faithfully with expository sermons centered on our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The first section on the principles of expository preaching is focused primarily on the priority or importance of God’s Word. I especially appreciated his caution against using Scripture to mean “whatever our imaginations suggest rather than what Scripture determines,” because when we do we elevate our opinions and “make the Bible say anything we want” (77). This is dangerous, of course, so we should be sure and “use Scripture alone as the basis for [our] exhortations” (78).

The second section on the preparation of expository sermons seems to be where Dr. Chapell has the most fun or is right at home. After selecting a text, we are to begin to ask the text questions to shed light on its meaning to shed light on “where we are going” (104). When we are clear on the questions, we are able to move along in the study process to fine tune our exegesis to form our sermon structures which are grounded in the text, driving home the text’s main point. He also highlights illustrations and applications in chapters seven and eight, respectively, where illustrations help to illumine the texts and applications bring the text home to roost in the hearts of our hearers. It would seem that Dr. Chapell finds the application of utmost importance, for he shares without it “a preacher has no reason to preach” (210).

The final section on Christ-centered on a theology of Christ-centered messages is vitally important. Christ is at the heart of Scripture and is the only answer for the fallen human condition Dr. Chapell addresses in the first chapter on a redemptive approach to preaching. However, this chapter also has the warning to be wary of non-redemptive messages centered in the “deadly Be’s,” such as “Be Like”, “Be Good”, and “Be Disciplined” messages. Using a diagram, Dr. Chapell points out Christ-centered exposition is where “a preacher explains the role of an epoch, event, person, and passage within the divine crusade of redemption” (304).”

Another characteristic of Dr. Chapell’s book are the discussion questions following each chapter, which help to give the reader some further things to consider. Also, there is an appendix in the back, which covers topics of style, methods, length, and virtually every other sermon issue imaginable. Christ-Centered Preaching is clearly laid out, easy to follow, and not too technical. Also, with bits of help on weddings and funerals, it seems to cover every sermon occasion imaginable in an expositional, Christ-centered manner.

Personal Interaction
Since I am running out of space, a few of my highlights from Dr. Chapell’s book involve the path of preparation and his chapter on the application, as these are my current areas of need. I found the six critical questions beginning chapter five to be helpful, especially to show any areas of weakness or misunderstanding of the text I need to study deeper in order to clearly preach the text. Answering the questions will allow one to preach faithfully, clearly, and expositional.

We are not in the pulpit to simply proclaim the Word, but also to apply the Word we proclaim, and chapter eight offers incredibly helpful insights on how to do so. We have to be sure we cover the what (214-216), the where (216-219), the why (219-220), and the how (220-222), as smoothly as possible, and Dr. Chapell seeks to keep us from falling into various breaking points. In fact, he says, “When listeners conclude that a pastor as ‘stopped preachin’ and gone to meddlin’, the sermon fails.”

Conclusion
To conclude, Dr. Chapell’s Christ-Centered Preaching has been my favorite book to read and review for our class. It is timely, helpful, clear, and filled helpful tools to guide me in my beginnings of expositional preaching. Further, I would highly recommend this book to any pastor seeking help in making Christ the central focus of his preaching.

Bryan Chapell has authored some of my favorite books. Christ-Centered Preaching is a must read! His collaboration with Kent Hughes in the "Preach The Word Series" on the pastoral epistles is phenomenal. I was thrilled to find that he had published on Daniel. This is the first Old Testament work of his that I have read. I found it to be (wildly?) inconsistent. His chapters swung between extremely helpful on one extreme and quite unhelpful on the other. I tended to find his commentary on chapters 1-6 to be bland. He cranked up the insight when you come to "the dangerous part" of Daniel in chapter 7. His vivid imagery and understanding of the apocalyptic portions was extremely helpful to me.

I recommend this book. But don't read it alone. Pick another more technical commentary to read alongside this. This work would be more devotional or pastoral in nature.½

This is one of the best books on marriage (and parenting) that I have read in a long time. Biblically based, clearly explained, and gracefully lived out would be how I would describe this book. I would highly recommend this to any couple at any stage in their relationship.

Very practical survey of worship styles over time and a plea and pattern to make worship gospel driven and gospel centered. Chapell argues that our liturgy should be shaped by the gospel and our liturgy should proclaim the gospel. Full of resources and examples of what that might look like in various settings.

This is one of the best books on marriage (and parenting) that I have read in a long time. Biblically based, clearly explained, and gracefully lived out would be how I would describe this book. I would highly recommend this to any couple at any stage in their relationship.

Very practical survey of worship styles over time and a plea and pattern to make worship gospel driven and gospel centered. Chapell argues that our liturgy should be shaped by the gospel and our liturgy should proclaim the gospel. Full of resources and examples of what that might look like in various settings.

Bryan Chapell continually reminds us through his book “Christ-centered Preaching” that in order to be effective we have to keep our focus on Christ. We need to take time to prepare, we have to try to understand what the text means, we need to be organized, we need to present the material so that it is interesting and understandable; but above all these things, we need to focus the attention of the congregation on Christ and His work. If the people listening to a sermon leave thinking about how organized the sermon was, or how nice the preacher looked, or how nicely he read the scripture, then the sermon was ineffective. The work is not complete unless the congregation leaves thinking God and his grace.
Bryan then also covers the other things involved in preparing and delivering a sermon. He talks about taking the message from a particular text in the Bible and expounding on that text. He also talks about how to organize a sermon. Even though there is no prescribed order in which these components need to appear in a sermon he says that every sermon should, “present the Word, explain what it says, and exhort based on what it means. This is expository preaching.” He especially emphasized the need for exhortation, or application in a sermon. He writes, “The application of the sermon is not merely an appendage to the discussion or a subordinate part of it, but is the main thing to be done.” A sermon without application leaves people where they started. They may understand a little more about culture in Bible times, or about tenses in Greek or Hebrew, they might even have a better understanding of how the text fits into the whole scheme of the Bible, but if there is no application to their personal life then the sermon was pointless. It didn't help them grow and it left their life completely unaffected.
He also goes over the importance of using illustrations and how to format introductions and conclusions. But in the end I believe that the most important thing that he stressed was the need for the sermon to be Christ focused. He wrote a lot of things in the book, and though I wrote a lot of notes, there is no way that I am going to remember even one third of all that he said, but if there are two things that he stressed that I will take with me, one will be, “Even if your words barely crawl over the edge of the pulpit, love of God's Word, will, and people ensures an effective spiritual ministry.” It is important to try hard to prepare a good sermon and to have good delivery, but in the end I have to put it in God's hands, because He is the only one that knows exactly what is going on in people's hearts and that can touch them where they need to be touched. And the other thing is, “God called you to this situation. He wanted no one else in the universe to prepare this message for this moment other than you.” It's easy to think of oneself as being inadequate for preaching a sermon, or delivering any message from God for that matter, and in truth we are, but even though we don't deserve to be His messengers he has chosen us and we have to trust that He knows what he's doing. However I do any time I get up in the pulpit, I can rest in the fact that whatever happens, it's what God wanted to happen, and he'll use it for his glory.

In Christ-Centered Preaching, Bryan Chapell (Chancellor of Covenant Seminary in St. Louis) provides a unique and important contribution to the study of preaching. In much the same manner as Robinson’s Biblical Preaching and Vines’ Power in the Pulpit, Chapell strives to recover the importance and beauty of the expository sermon for his readers. Expository preaching, “puts people in immediate contact with the power of the Word” (31). Chapell is quick to dispel any notion, however, that his is just another text on preaching.

In chapter one, the author reveals his theological cards when it comes to the preached Word and writes, “preaching accomplishes its spiritual purposes not because of the skills or the wisdom of the preacher but because of the power of the Scripture proclaimed” (26). The preacher, then, is responsible to present the Word, explain the Word, and make exhortations based upon the Word (86). “The efficacy of the truths in God’s message rather than any virtue in the messenger,” he writes, “transforms hearts” (26).

This conviction – that God is the active agent in the preaching event – is woven throughout the entire book, and comes to full fruition in Chapell’s instruction that every sermon must have Christ at its most foundational point. It is this aspect of his instruction on preaching – “to disclose where every text stands in relation to Christ” – that seems to be noticeably absent from other preaching textbooks (279).
Critique

One major contribution of his text is his instruction to discover the Fallen Condition Focus of a text during sermon preparation. The preacher must search for, “the human concern that caused the Holy Spirit to inspire this aspect of Scripture,” and once discovered, the preacher is given the key to discovering the importance of the passage in the lives of his congregation (48). Once he discovers the Fallen Condition Focus (FCF), the preacher can search for a contemporary parallel in the life of his hearers that helps them realize the modern-day application of the ancient text. This emphasis on the FCF provides a biblical means of discerning God’s intended application of a text, whereas other methods that instruct the preacher to study culture and keep abreast of current movies and books places the authority that governs application outside of Scripture.

Another major contribution of Chapell’s book is that it is noticeably theological in nature. Rather than follow a portion of a chapter of theology with seven chapters of exegetical method and six chapters of the importance of water for a healthy throat, Chapell finds a much healthier balance between theology and practice. He maintains great insight into sermon preparation, yet never loses sight of the goal, “to sweep listeners up into the glory and the power of the Spirit’s revelation” (139).

His greatest contribution to the conversation lies in the final chapters of the book. In these chapters, he lays out a case for redemptive preaching. Such preaching comes about when it “specifies an FCF indicated by a text and addresses this aspect of our fallenness with the grace revealed by the text” (270). Christ-centered preaching is not searching for Jesus behind every rock and crag in the text in the hope that he will appear if one only look hard enough. Nor is Christ-centered preaching the type of allegory that permeated the medieval period. Christ-centered preaching strives to reveal each passage’s relation to the work of Christ. Every text is either predictive of Christ’s work, preparation for Christ’s work, reflective of Christ’s work, or the result of Christ’s work (282). The duty of the preacher is to discern this relationship between written Word and living Word and communicate that to the congregation.

Chapell’s instruction as to discover the intended meaning and application of the text as it relates to the work of Christ Jesus provides the student with the means to follow Spurgeon’s “bee-line to the cross” without making assumptions and impositions upon the text that simply do not belong. That provision stands as the greatest highlight of this text, and the greatest gift of this book to this preacher.

教會對福音的理解總是塑造著教會的崇拜。柴培爾博士在此介紹「以基督為中心的敬拜」，幫助教會超越傳統形式與現代形式崇拜上的爭議，進而在事奉上與宣教上合一。教會可以學習如何讓福音塑造集體敬拜的每一個要素。
《以基督為中心的敬拜》從歷史及聖經的角度討論敬拜，說明福音過去塑造了傳統崇拜禮儀，也應當塑造現代的崇拜。這本書接著討論實際的議題，放眼教會宣教，提供崇拜設計的參考資料，鼓勵讀者辨認自己教會在福音上獨特的呼召，作為決定崇拜事宜的基礎。在敬拜與事奉上，這本書對神學院的師生、牧師、崇拜主領者、崇拜事宜委員會、宣教士，都會有實際的幫助。

Can i really achieve holiness in this life?

Chapter one is off to a great start! Bryan informs us how even the architecture of the church displays and reveals something about your church. Something I haven't thought much about honestly. Chapell moves us to think about the liturgy of the church (defined on page 17-18)and how does it reflect the gospel of Jesus Christ. He provides helpful chart of comparing rome, luther, calvin, westminster and rayburn as liturgy has evolved. he concludes chapter one with the statement "No church true to the gospel will fail to have echoes of these historic liturgies."

What a wonderful book exploring the gospel and what it should mean to God's people. I really cannot commend this book high enough.

Praying Backwards is all about praying in Jesus' name--you know, that little phrase that we like to tack on to the end or our prayers as an afterthought--and what praying in Jesus' name really means. It's a devotional sort of book, but devotional in the best sense. This book's got substance, not only encouraging and instructing us to pray boldly and persistently, for instance, but giving us the biblical reasons that we ought to.

One of my favorite books on marriage I have ever read. It is the book I always use when counseling engaged couples.

If someone were only able to buy one book on preaching I think this should be the one. Bryan Chapell champions the importance of preaching Christ from ever text, but he also reminds us of the importance of preaching the specific text rather than just embarking on some redemptive historical rant. His discussion of the Fallen Condition Focus is also very helpful.

this is the best preaching textbook out there. if you want to know how to do it, start here (and return often).

In this introductory preaching text, Chapell offers rich insights into the theology, mechanics, and philosophy of expository preaching. Theologically, the text emphasizes the Fallen Condition Focus (FCF) and centrality of grace in each sermon. A good foundational text… A-

Best book on exegetical preaching that i've ever read.

The first question I asked when I saw this book was, “What does that title mean?�€? Many of us close our prayers with the phrase, “In Jesus’ Nameâ€?, but how does one go about “praying backwardsâ€?? Chapell pleads for Christians to build our prayer life on the meaning of that phrase. He says:

“The message of this book is to put first in our hearts what those words are supposed to mean: ‘I offer this prayer for Jesus’ sake.’ When Jesus’ priorities come first, our prayers will change. They will be less self-oriented, more Christ-directed, more blessed, and ultimately most satisfying to our hearts.â€?

So, “praying backwardsâ€? is a shorthand way of saying our prayer should be built on the desire to accomplish God’s purpose in our life. And His purpose for us is that we would bring Him glory by being conformed to His image.

In ten quick chapters, Chapell moves through familiar terrain, highlighting key texts and principles relating to prayer. However, even when stating a principle we have heard before, such as “Pray Boldlyâ€? (Chapter 5), he explains it with fresh insight and a contagious passion for the subject. You come to the end of the chapter with the desire to close the book immediately and begin to put this “bold prayingâ€? into practice. Such writing comes only from the pen of one who has walked this path of prayer in his own life.

One of the strengths of Praying Backwards is how Chapell uses Scripture. As he handles a text relating to prayer, he does not pull the verses out of context to make them fit what he needs them to say. Instead, he employs sound hermeneutical principles. As a result, our confidence is built on the Scripture rather than on the inventiveness of the author.

By continually referencing the attributes and actions of God, Chapell writes theologically-loaded paragraphs. With God at the center of our thoughts, He becomes the center of our prayers. And the Trinitarian language is so meaty, showing how the Father, Son, and Spirit each relate to the prayer of the saints. In a culture that likens prayer to yoga or transcendental meditation, it is refreshing to find a God-centered book on the subject.

One of the great strengths of the book is how Chapell anticipates possible extreme application of some of his material. In wisdom, he gives his counsel in balance. For example, a grieving family should know that God’s purposes are fulfilled even in the midst of pain, but it is presumptuous for us to guess what those purposes are. Chapell writes with the wisdom gained from having spent time in the trenches of pastoral ministry.

Chapell is an excellent communicator, employing a multitude of personal anecdotes and illustrations drawn from his everyday life. Preachers would do well to read this book if just for the example Chapell gives in how to find illustrations directly from your own life experiences.

Because prayer is such a vital part of the Christian life, I heartily recommend this book to you. It soars far above the level of many other books on prayer crowding the shelves. If you read Praying Backwards, you are sure to find your prayer life strengthened. Priced at $12.99, this is certainly money well spent.