Expository Preaching #2 - "The Passage"

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If it isn't in the passage it shouldn't be in the sermon! That has been my rule for the past 50 years since I preached my first sermon as a teenager. I believe every sermon should be a passage of Scripture, not just one verse and especially not just one word. When you take a word or verse out of context you can very quickly lose its correct meaning. When you stay in the context of the surrounding verses, chapter and book then you are much more likely to have the correct interpretation, meaning and preaching.

It takes work and effort to preach expository sermons. It is much easier just to make up what you want to say instead of searching out the correct meaning of the verse(s). In my pastoring days I often struggled with passages to make sure I had it right. A couple of times I even rewrote my sermon notes on Saturday evening to make sure I preached it correctly on Sunday morning. It is actually the passage of Scripture that preaches the sermon not me.

For the past 11 years of being out of full time ministry it has been extremely difficult and frustrating to listen to sermons Sunday after Sunday where the context and main point of the passage is discarded. Then some man can pontificate their own thoughts and ideas that they are always sure that they are correct about. I have seen the Bible diluted and actually massacred in pulpits across the country. Usually their sermons are blatantly wrong in some way and sometimes in the whole “sermon!”

God help us to come back to the Bible. Only His Word gives life!

In Bonds of Calvary 

Pastor David Johnson

II Timothy 2:15

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