Mark Preus

I grew up learning theology around the dinner table and in church. Wherever God has brought me, He has kept the hymns I was taught and His Word with me. I married a woman who still loves the Gospel, and I teach this same Gospel to her and to my children. My favorite conversation is a theological one. Everything is theological! I approach the pulpit with fear of Him to whom I must give an account. I must please Him and not men. God has taught me through study, through trial, through prayer, and through faith in His Word how to be a pastor. My sufficiency is from God, who has made me a competent minister of the New Testament, of the Spirit, who gives life to the penitent in the blood of Christ, my Savior.

I always study for my sermons, unless they are the short five minute sermons I preach for Matins, where I look over the text and pray, and then preach on the basis of the analogy of faith. I read the Greek, and as much of the Hebrew as a I can. I look through Walther's Law and Gospel when I have a question about the application of doctrine; I search the Scriptures. My studies for sermon preparation have led me through Luther, Augustine, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Aquinas's Catena, John Gerhard, John Arndt, Walther, Brenz, Chemnitz, Dietrich, Reinhold Pieper, Neumeister, Rolf Preus, Robert Preus, and many others. I believe that imitation of faithful fathers before me is very effective for both comprehension and application of the Scriptures, as well as for rhetorical logos and pathos.

In my teaching I attempt not only to summarize the gist of the material, but to ask questions which apply the main points to other topics of theology, history, philosophy, morality, and culture.