1. We can’t predict the harvest. We can only sow.
  2. Nothing moves or drives Paul more than preaching about “Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).
  3. We don't make Church "happen." Only Christ can do so. It's his happening.
  4. Some explanations are better than others, but they remain our explanations—except if we had some perspective from outside, above, and behind nature.
  5. When I finished this book, I loved the Bible, and the Bible’s author, even more. And I can’t imagine a better endorsement than that.
  6. Even if the numbers are bad, the news about Jesus crucified for sinners and raised to new life hasn’t become any less good.
  7. There is a revival, no less real and even more definitive, taking place in every church, every weekend, where God’s people gather around his gifts.
  8. Reading includes, on some level, striving. Hearing, on the other hand, remains passive.
  9. Jesus stands before the disciples as the bridge between heaven and earth, and between Old Testament and New Testament.
  10. Zephaniah has given us something more visceral to help us understand the love of God: the sound of salvation.
  11. This week we will take a closer look at God's love in Scripture.
  12. This sermon was originally given at Luther Seminary chapel on May 20, 1986.