Ted Esler

@JeffVanderstelt Sermons are fine, but limited. If we learned to teach like Jesus, using all the tools available, we would be much better off.

@JeffVanderstelt Teach like Jesus: he asked and answered questions. His lectures were interactive and spontaneous, not the one-way preplanned sermons that we have today. Nothing wrong with sermons but they leave a lot on the table.

I received no small amount of pushback from a recent Tweet. A few questioned the validity of the statement. I decided to do some research and discovered there is reason to question the 5% retention from lecture claim.

@JeffVanderstelt When our methodology becomes our theology our ecclesiology becomes a pathology.

@JeffVanderstelt Nah

@pauldmulner @JeffVanderstelt I have spreadsheets!!

@pauldmulner @JeffVanderstelt The majority of what we have is the Gospels is not Jesus preaching. Did he? A few examples, yes. But he was interactive in most of the accounts. From the Gospels, we see him teach more than we see him preach.

@pauldmulner @JeffVanderstelt Who was the biggest question asker in the Gospels? Jesus. Jesus himself asked just under 160 unique questions.

@pauldmulner @JeffVanderstelt Now you got me going. There are over 500 questions asked of Jesus in the gospels and the beginning of Acts. If you toss out the duplicates from the list, you end with about 265 to 270 questions in total.

In an interview in 1974, Richard Wurmbrand, a Romanian pastor once imprisoned for 14 years, shared an important insight on the reason he experienced such intense persecution under Communist leaders: Pat Robertson: "That was your only crime, that you said, I want to bring men to eternal life, tell them they have an immortal soul, tell them about Jesus?" Wurmbrand: "Well, I would not say that this is the only thing. So much they would have allowed. Nothing would have happened to St. John the Baptist if he would have said only, 'Repent. The Kingdom of Heaven is near,' but when he said, 'You, Herod, are bad,' then he was beheaded. Jesus could have delivered hundreds of sermons on the mount and parables. Nothing would have happened to Him, but when He said, 'Woe unto you, hypocrite Pharisees,' then He was lost. And in preaching the Gospel, you have to do two things: to proclaim the Kingdom, but also to denounce sin. And we did this side, and the greatest sin committed in humanity today is Communism, not only that it has killed 60 million people in Red China and 30 million in Russia, but it poisons youth and children with atheism. It uses brainwashing. It puts Christians in psychiatric exams, not only in prisons where simply they break their will and their mind, and they try to subvert the whole world with Communism. So I preached both sides of the Gospel. I denounced the sin, and at the same time, I extended to them the invitation to come to the Kingdom."

@JoshDaws I made my own todo and project dashboard yesterday. We use Microsoft products, which can be a bit disjointed. To-do, Email, Loops, Project. Me & Google AI Studio built something that puts into one screen. Took about twenty minutes. Still resides where it was, just organized.

I sat down to record a video and kept fighting with my teleprompter software, so I had Claude Code write a replacement that worked the way I wanted. Five minutes later I was in business and had vastly improved my workflow.

@jaysonyork Discipleship does not Scale tedesler.substack.com/p/discipleship…

Unpopular pastoral opinion: Until the evangelical pastors and their congregations learn that a 30 min, 3 bullet point sermon, one morning a week is not enough Bible teaching to help us walk in a manner worthy of our call, the church will continue to foster biblically illiteracy

@AdamPage85 tedesler.substack.com/p/discipleship…

This is a combination of two things: The epic rise of non denominational multi site streaming megachurch. Hundreds of thousands all over the country. The second factor? Our constant capitulating to DEI and ChurchToo movements. We need BACKBONE.

Super cool

@brentearwicker @TGC Yep. I wonder how many minutes of podcasts are listened to versus just about anything else these days. I know I found myself listening too much and had to put up some boundaries.

@tedstur @TGC Political podcasts are taking over that job.

Last year, a study found that the percentage of regular churchgoers identifying as pro-life plummeted from 63 percent (in 2023) to 43 percent (in 2025). But wait, it gets worse.

Also, check out my colleagues book on Patrick: amazon.com/Gods-Missionar…

Happy, "Raise a Beer and Salute a Missionary Day." All day we will see tweets and posts about Patrick's missionary service. And well we should! But I would also point out to you his incredible - very evangelical - conversion story. Search for "confessio English Patrick" for more.

I did not expect eschatology to dominate US political discourse in the way that it is, but here we are.

For example, the law of Moses says, "Do not commit adultery." Jesus said, "Don't even think about it." How can an emphasis on the Law of Christ fall under the category of being antinomian?

I have an honest question about this. My reading of the New Testament suggests that the Law of Christ is more strict than the Law of Moses. Would it not be more antinomian to lean on the Law of Moses instead of the Law of Christ?

I hear a lot of folks on the reformed side of the church toss around the word antinomian. With the rise of progressive covenantalism, we see accusation more often - that others are antinomian because they say the Law of Christ is in effect (versus the Law of Moses).