But I am not a Preacher

I know many of you that follow my blog are not pastors, church planters, or will never preach a sermon in a church may be wondering how this topic of preaching the Word applies to you. Go read 2 Timothy 4:1-5 before you continue reading....

no, seriously, read it......

don't skip down, read it.....

get you Bible out and read it.....

have you read it? check out verse 4

Does that describe you? see, if you have not read it you have no clue what I am talking about so better go and read it!

I believe this verse describes our "church" culture today. Churches are full of people who want the pastor to tell some good stories to motivate them to live a better life. As a pastor, it is hard not to tell the fun stories that motivate and encourage people - it feels good to get someone to tell you "Good Job". But if I am not careful, I will water down the Word by running out of time telling stories to give people what they want and never get to the Word.

So how does the average church member fight against this mentality? Be in the Word yourself apart from Sunday mornings. If you spend time in the Word during the week, then it will be familiar to you when the sermon comes around. But if you spend more time in the world, well, the Word will be unfamiliar, harsh, and not very encouraging to you. You will leave a service thinking the preacher is mad at something and it just did not do it for you!

If we are to be disciples that make disciples, we must hunger for the Teacher's Word! Use this rule of thumb before you criticize your preachers sermon: did you spend enough time in the Word during the week to give you a foundation to compare his sermon too?

PS: If you did not take time to look up the Scriptures I asked you to at the beginning of the blog, I wonder would you rather hear my Words or the Bibles? Just a question!

Why Preach the Word?

To get the full view of what I am talking about the next few days go ahead and read 2 Timothy 3:10-4:5.

In 2 Timothy 3:10-17 Paul is telling Timothy that impostors of the gospel of Jesus Christ would grow worse in the coming days. As a result of that Timothy was to stick close to the Scripture that was entrusted to him. Paul reminds Timothy that this Word has been given by God and was profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. I want to look at why using the Bible for correction is important.

If we preach our opinion then what do we have as the standard for our lives. You know the saying, "everyone has at least one opinion". What makes your opinion stand above everyone Else's'? Even when our opinions can be based in Scripture, it is our job to preach the Scripture not our opinions.

Let me give you an example. In three of the four sermons I watched Sunday, the pastors talked about tithing. They did not do this in the context of their sermons and seemed to be getting on their soap boxes. When they talked about tithing, they never used one Scripture just personal stories and opinions. Although I knew their opinions were based in Scripture, I wondered what the person who did not have a knowledge of Biblical tithing was thinking.

Paul states that the Scripture is profitable for correction. If people are not tithing and the Scripture points this out, then this is good for making a complete man of God. If opinions are used for correction, well that is what we accuse others of being too judgemental.

I know some of you think I am splitting hairs, but the truth is that too many sermons are void of Biblical preaching. Again I come back to the question: Are you using the Bible to make your points, or are your points coming from the context of the Scripture?

Preach the Word, Please!

So it's Sunday afternoon and I have been in bed all morning. My cross of Multiple Sclerosis has jumped up and made it very difficult for me to walk. Since I could not make it to church, I decided to catch a service on television. I have to say that I was thoroughly disappointed with what I observed.

Now I want to qualify what I observed with the fact that today was the first time I saw these churches on television and hopefully not every week is like this weeks service. I also want to make it clear that I am not bashing church, just bringing out a very serious point and try to explain how that affects each of us.

I watched four local church services from three different denominations and found the same results - the sermons were based on the Bible, but the Bible was not preached. Every church in an effort to connect with the audience the pastors told stories, jokes, illustrations, and even quoted the Bible, but the services were void of preaching the Word!

You might be wondering what I mean by this so let me quickly try to explain. Paul instructs Timothy to preach the Word which is done by viewing the text of Scripture through the eyes of language, context, unity with the rest of Scripture and letting the Scripture make the practical application. What I observed today were sermons full of man's application adding Scripture to make a point. Doesn't sound like a huge deal, but this greatly impacts our whole theology. I don't have time today to deal with this, but this will be our topic for the week.

Until then, if you have an opportunity - Just preach the Word, Please!