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Scripture In Charlotte Perkins's The Art Of Prophesying

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One of Perkins most well known work is his manual for preaching, The Art of Prophesying . He believed homiletics to be the greatest duty in the church: “A tremendous responsibility and by no means easy. In fact it is doubtful if there is a more difficult challenge in the theological disciplines.” Perkins wrote The Art as a response to the shortage of “able preachers,” poor training, and distaste for the Anglican sermons. He desired to provide rules and principles, which he had derived from the writings of other theologians, for those preparing for ministry: “The Arte of Prophecying, gave ministers practical advice about exegesis and sermon construction and made a very important contribution to the dissemination of puritan ideas on both subjects.” …show more content…

Its sufficiency is such that as the Word of God it is so complete that nothing may be either added to it or taken away from it which belongs to its proper purpose. . . . The purity of Scripture lies in the fact that it stands complete in itself, without either deceit or error. . . . The eternity of the Word is its quality of remaining inviolable. It cannot pass away until everything it commands has been fully accomplished.

Because of Scripture’s nature, preachers are able to “penetrate into the spirit of man” arrest the conscience before God. Perkins affirmed the traditional division of Scripture into the Old and New Testaments. Each book of the Old Testament Perkins considered as historical, doctrinal, or prophetic. Historical books “record stories of things which took place, which illustrate and confirm the doctrine which is expounded in other books. . . . Doctrinal books . . . teach and prescribe the doctrines of our theology. . . .The prophetic books contain predictions, either of God’s Judgements [sic] or deliverance;” Perkins added, “These predictions of the prophets are interspersed with calls to repentance. They almost always point to the consolation which would be found in Christ by those who repent.” The Old Testament, Perkins taught, unfolds the ‘old covenant’ of works, whereas The New Testament contains the apostle’s teachings that “expounded” the new

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