To Tim: “If faith only comes to those who can hear, then my deaf friends are lost for ever.” – ha! I laughed out loud on this one. Props to you for the witty humour found in this pointless debate.

And now I quote the words of Yeshua as written by Mattityahu: “Woe to you, hypocritical Torah-teachers and P’rushim! For you are shutting the Kingdom of heaven in people’s faces, neither entering yourselves nor allowing those who wish to enter do so. Woe to you hypocritical Torah-teachers and P’rushim! You go about over land and sea to make one proselyte; and when you succeed, you make him twice as fit for Gey-Hinnom as you are! Woe to you hypocritical Torah-teachers and P’rushim! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look fine on the outside but inside are full of dead people’s bones and all kinds of rottenness. Likewise, you appear to people from the outside to be good and honest, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and far from Torah.”

Congratulations to all the idiotic “Christians” out there who sit and debate over stupid things like whether or not to play a video as part of a sermon.
And congratulations on being just like the Torah-teachers and P’rushim (you might know them as Pharisees and Sadducees)… parading about trying to make “intelligent” arguments and debate the “law” and point out everyone else’s faults. I want nothing to do with you.

Most of the time the videos on Youtube are not high enough quality. I’ve noticed that some sites have started putting their previews on youtube, which I think is helpful.

http://www.Bluefishtv.com has the best value by far. We’ve used the most videos from them.

I don’t really agree with the debate either. I think videos are great in sermons.

“I refuse to debate it, but…”

If you refuse to debate… why finish this sentence?
…Just kidding Armen.

How can we really debate the effective use of video illustrations using biblical references when such methods were not even thought of?

I think videos are an effective way to grasp people’s attention before you deliver the word. I don’t know about you guys, but I preach to a room full of people who are easily distracted. Perhaps in a room full of mature Christians, such coercions are not necessary… But show me a room full of mature Christians. I say that lovingly… being the affable smart-alec that I am!

Peace out…

Anyway, cool little test Tim, I’ve found all four of those sites [not so much YouTube] useful for illustrations. Although I do find it ridiculous that they want $20 per video!

Speak the truth (Gods Word) in love. When you have too, use words.

If you’re going to defend a ’system’ which is the ruination of millions of souls, then I know that further dialogue is pointless.

(P.S. I’m not bashing individual catholic people and the tongues of fire were not seen by those that were converted that day)

Oh, and according to my Hebrew bible Ezra stood on a high platform or tower of wood. If you are so interested in accuracy in your translation, it is highly presumptuous to read into this text the later contemporary word “pulpit”. But heh, I don’t think Peter needed one when thousands came to Christ upon seeing his firework display.

If you are going start bashing the catholics and questioning my intelligence then this conversation is finished and I’ll shake the dust off my feet (I wonder if there is an emoticon for that one).

If you can’t see God’s desire for His instruments just to preach Christ, then I’m at a loss. Did Peter have images on the day of Pentecost? Did Paul have them when preaching to the Athenians? Do people with images see people understanding the gospel more than they did?

I think you’ll find Ezra preaching in a “pulpit” by the way.

And until a Bible comes out that is as accurate (I’m not saying it’s perfect) as the Authorised Version, then I’ll continue to use it, and continue to see people saved when it’s preached. I don’t know what your intelligence level is, but the children I teach from ungodly homes understand the vocabulary of the Authorised Version as much as they would any other version.

As I side note, I recommend you tune into the Ligonier National Conference Live Webcast on at the moment, featuring John Piper, John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul and others.

We are reading the same chapter and it speaks of the power of the gospel and the need to communicate it. But we read the whole bible where there are loads of examples of visual communication. God himself uses fire and clouds in the OT to indicate his presence. He even uses silence to speak to Elijah. Every week we are reminded of all God’s promises through visual symbols of invisible grace. God has not communicated in history exclusively by spoken word only. People have even “cometh” to faith simply by reading the bible in their own language too, without any preacher.

Nobody is saying that we don’t believe in preaching anymore. I think our main problem Armen, is how you construct your arguments reading the bible this way. To read the text in black and white without thought for historical or contemporary context, ignoring common experience and the rest of the bible gets you in all sorts of trouble.

Since Jesus did “use nature to make deeper truths, easier to understand”. This is precisely what we are saying. Our task is to make things understandable and in our modern culture showing the odd video clip can be one way in which we make a point clearer. Admittedly our illustrations spoken or visual actually sometimes can do the opposite.

The need is for clear communication of the message and it is the Holy Spirit that makes your people listen and induces faith, not the preacher, anoitned or otherwise, whether you are “in the pulpit” or not ( if I use your way of reading the bible I shouldn’t be in a pulpit because nowhere in my bible does it tell me that the place to preach is in a pulpit).

And while we are on the subject of communication. It helps to use the language of the people too and not seventeenth century English. People died for the right to use the common language of the people to communicate the message of the bible. “Cometh” is not a word in the vocabulary of people who live here and probably isn’t where you live either. My google spell checker even underlines words like that.

How will they hear if they don’t understand what you are saying?