Fred Craddock

You know, I got to tell you this story.

Fred Craddock is a famous preacher.

He's now in heaven.

back in the south, he overheard a conversation one time in a restaurant between a 75-year-old waitress and an older man.

You know, I gotta tell you this story.

Fred Craddock is a famous preacher.

He's now in heaven back in the South.

He overheard a conversation one time in a restaurant between a 75-year-old waitress and an older man.

I have, uh, shared this illustration a number of times here, I'm sure, uh, because it, I just think it's so good and I, I read it thinking about it for my own life often.

It comes from Fred Craddock, the great, um, uh, professor of homiletics at Emory at Candler School of Theology, uh, and a great preacher.

He, he says this, "To give my life for Christ appears glorious.

To pour myself out for others, to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom, I'll do it.

Listen to the words.

We're actually going to read three from him today, brief ones, of the late and, in my humble opinion, great New Testament scholar and homiletician Fred Craddock.

He says, Jesus' acceptance of publican and sinners is total as evidenced by his eating with them.

In the cultures and subcultures of that time and place, table customs were identifying marks of a group, whether philosophical, literary, or religious.

Now, here's what's interesting.

Not just in the Gospels, but in the entire New Testament, there is no book that talks more about repentance than Luke.

Fred Craddock, second time.

No other writer in the New Testament approaches Luke's frequency of reference to repentance.

She said, "What a joke." You know, I gotta tell you this story.

Fred Craddock is a famous, uh, preacher.

He's now in heaven, uh, back in the South.

He overheard a conversation one time, uh, in a restaurant between a 75-year-old, uh, waitress and, and an older man.

And I got to tell you this story.

Fred Craddock is a famous preacher.

He's now in heaven.

back in the South.