Welcome to the second part of my interview with biblical counselor and author Dr. David Powlison (part one here).

David, apart from Scripture, what book do you most frequently re-read and why?

Two books are nearly as marked up as my Bible: Valley of Vision and Luther’s Prayers. I don’t read them straight through, but I frequently return to them, dipping in here and there, returning to favorite places. Why? They freshly express how faith lives, thinks, feels, talks. They struggle, they delight, they need God, they see God.

I extensively annotate, add, reword, update, personalize VoV prayers to make them my own. For example, simply turning “thee/thou” into “You” makes a prayer sing more pointedly and personally. I find that I often add two strands to VoV prayers:

[1] a brighter note of joy, gratitude and meditation on the mercies of Christ (so the prayers don’t turn introspective regarding a sense of sinfulness);

[2] a more candid awareness of and expression of our experience of sufferings (so the prayers don’t turn stoic, as if spirituality rises “above” our life situation). To my ears, the Puritans can have a slight drift towards sin-centricity and stoicism, somewhat slipping from the grace-centricity and humanity of Scripture. But that said, these prayers are a gold mine of living wisdom.

Luther’s way of engaging God and Scripture has deeply shaped me. He takes Scripture (and the Creeds) and puts it to work in a “four-stranded wreath”:

[1] as a textbook, revealing God and His will, wisdom and work;

[2] as a hymnbook, giving reasons that call forth gratitude and joy;

[3] as a book of confession, teaching me where to repent, where I need forgiveness, mercy, and awakening;

[4] as a prayerbook, guiding intercession into rich paths, rather than the “list” mentality that can make prayer so dull and man-centered.

When you finish a book, what system have you developed in order to remember and reference that book in the future?

For many years I used the EndNote bibliography program to track what I read. I’d make summaries, take notes, and write out key quotations. I’ve not been as diligent with it in recent years, as I’ve tended to re-read choice books more often than read new books. I mark up books extensively with highlighting and marginal notes, and I write notes in the front pages that direct me to the page numbers of significant quotes and discussions.

If you could study under any theologian in church history (excluding those men in Scripture), who would it be and why?

I can’t decide on only one! But I can settle on two: Augustine and Calvin. These men lived, breathed, prayed, thought, felt, and communicated so very well all that they understood of Jesus Christ and the Word of God. Both men were mastered by the Psalms, and so their humanity and their ministries flourished in the ways of God.

What single piece of counsel (or constructive criticism) has most improved your preaching?

Live your message for a day, a week, a month, a lifetime. Then aim low, and you’re sure to hit something.

What books on preaching, or examples of it, have you found most influential in your own preaching?

I don’t preach very often, but THE influence has been the model of how Scripture brings truth to bear. The Lord and His prophets and apostles always speak TO human beings and what they were facing, and they always speak personally, rather than speaking ABOUT topics and speaking impersonally. Jay Adams calls such I-you directness and relevance in communicating God’s truth “the preacher’s stance.” The Bible is not just “normative” truth about God, but enters into the “situational” realities and “existential” choices of the people to whom God speaks. (That way of putting it comes from John Frame.) Ministry must do the same, afresh, entering people’s experience of troubles (external) and struggles (internal).

Please join me next time for part three of my interview with David.