Tag: expository preaching
THOUGHTS ON PREACHING
Preachers and other Christians who know that, “the very best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying,” desire books to read in compliment to the Scriptures. As Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 4:13, “…bring with thee…the books, but especially the parchments. (Scriptures)” Spurgeon continues, “Some of our very ultra Calvinistic brethren think that a minister who reads books and studies his sermon must be a very deplorable specimen of a preacher. How rebuked are they by the apostle He is inspired, and yet he wants books He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a men to utter, yet he wants books He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, ‘Give thyself unto reading.’ You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master’s service. Paul cries, ‘Bring the books‘— join in the cry.”
Reading books is important but is more important to read the best books, because as the Book of Ecclesiastes says, “...of making many books there is no end…” and not every book is worth reading. But how do we know before we read it? The best way is to ask someone who has read it if it is any good. That’s why many preachers and Christian readers are always asking, ”What are you reading?” That is why I’m starting this section to say what books are on my desk.
I have discovered a great resource for older (and usually better) books is PDF files which can be found at places like www.archive.org or www.ccel.org . However I also suffer from what some folks call the Piccard syndrome. Piccard was the commander of the Enterprise in the 1980′s Star Trek tv show. In the age where everything is on the ship’s computer, Piccard could be found reading a hard bound book. Those PDF files are wonderful but there’s nothing like a real book. I even like them used and musky. Ahh, Bring the musky smelling books!
Always on my desk is the Bible. I still have the Bible I used in college back in the 80′s, a Cambridge turquoise center column reference, King James Version of course and a New Pilgrim Bible KJV, which is a study Bible like the old Scofield Reference Bible.
So what are you reading?
Pastor Ty
THOUGHTS ON PREACHING
Monday, December 19, 2011
posted by Ty Blake
Those who are called to preach (it’s not a vocation that we choose) know that our “charge” is given in the Scripture in the inspired writing of the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 4:2. Simply; “preach the word!”
PREACH: To proclaim, herald, teach with authority, pronounce, public discourse on a religious subject or from a text of scripture.
THE WORD: The word is used of two things in Scripture: 1. The LORD JESUS CHRIST the incarnate WORD. Which we are to proclaim. But the context supports here 2. the Scriptures. (2 Timothy 3:15-17).
So, then we see the preacher is to preach the Scriptures. Not opinions. politics, philosophy or psychology! Let us leave the political punditing to the political pundits. It does not belong in the Pulpit!
Expository preaching is preaching the word. Some preachers may preach a message and then try to build the Scripture around his message. However, in expository preaching the message comes from the text. That is, the text itself gives the message. As Haddon Robinson teaches it’s finding the “big idea” of the text of Scripture and that becomes the message.
EXPOSITION means the setting forth of the meaning or purpose; A discourse designed to convey information or explain what is difficult to understand; An explanation of something. As a verb TO EXPOSIT means to set forth, expound, elaborate, flesh out, to clarify the meaning of a subject (In our case the Bible).
To exposit also means TO EXPOUND (see above): To present or explain systematically and in detail or to explain the meaning of. The word expound is used several times in the New Testament:
But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples. (Mark 4:34)
And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. (Acts 18:26)
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:27)
Here notice the response: And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? (Luke 24:32)
Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures (Luke 24:45)
Maybe this is explained best in Nehemiah 8:8, So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.
Expository preaching gives GOD the voice not man. It gives the teaching authority because it’s “Thus saith the LORD”. Expository preaching increases the Biblical knowledge of the congregation and stirs in them a love for GOD’s word and promotes a desire in them to study it for themselves. Bible exposition puts forth HIS word to them and it’s the word of GOD that transforms lives (1 Thessalonians 2:13).
The preacher’s employ is THE BOOK (The Bible, The Scriptures, The Word)! He is to faithfully exposit/expound (teach) it. And he is to be the faithful steward of it’s mysteries. (2 Timothy 2:15, 1 Corinthians 4:1&2).
In expository preaching, GOD and HIS Word are exalted and not the man behind the pulpit! While, at times, the preacher as a “watchman on the wall” (the subject of another post), he must warn against current trends. But to step down from the pulpit into the world of politics is to put one’s hand to the plough and looking back (Luke 9:26).
Pastor Ty