For my first homiletics class at Westminster, called “Gospel Communication,” we were all put in different groups, each dealing with a certain type of text. Everyone was to write up a sermon on their text and one person from each group actually preached their sermon to the class.
Well, I preached my first real sermon ever this past Thursday. It was recorded, so I’ve decided to share it along with the manuscript. It’s on “The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant” in Matthew 18 and deals with forgiveness. It’s about 30 minutes long. Personally, being my own worst critic, I see many flaws in it (the structure was somewhat muddled, I talked too fast, and I somewhat went against the traditional interpretation of the text), but overall I was pretty happy with it. It seemed like the class was as well.
If you don’t have 30 minutes to spare, just listen to the last 8 minutes or so. I think that’s the point I hit my most significant “flow.”
Two more personal notes: first, I know I haven’t blogging much recently. Things have been nuts and Seminary’s been kicking the trash out of me. As the semester gets closer and closer to finishing, you’ll see more posts again. Secondly, I have no idea how the pictures below will look on facebook. They will either not show up, be really big, or be fine. I don’t know, so I apologize for any formatting issues.
Here’s the audio and manuscript:
Click for Audio: Faithful Forgiveness.mp3
Click for Manuscript: Faithful Forgiveness.pdf
