Verse By Verse Bible Exposition

From time to time I get asked, why do churches, church leaders and even pastors not recognize and want expository preaching. I use this analogy. Very few, and I mean very, very few churches, pastors and congregations have heard expository preaching. They hear “sermons” on subjects. They hear talks on whatever the preacher happens to want to say that Sunday. It will have one or more Bible verses mixed in with it and the preacher may even read from his Bible. But it is what he/she wants to say not what God has to say. They will read John 3:16 and spend 20-30 minutes pontificating on love and maybe even God’s love. They will not open up that verse and go word by word and thought by thought to bring out what that verse and the verses in its context teach. It will be what they think not what God thinks. This is what equates to having fast food hamburgers for dinner every day. If you go to McDonalds and order a cheeseburger, you will get the same sandwich every single time. No matter wha...

There are a lot of discussions about church growth. There are a lot of books about church growth. There are a lot of seminars, conferences and classes about church grow. Most of these are about strategies, methods and tools that you should use. There are a lot of how to do it ideas out there. Please understand I am not against church growth. Actually I am 1,000% in favor of church growth. I believe that every church should be growing numerically as well as spiritually. I don’t believe it is good for any church to be stagnant in these areas. I don’t believe any church should be “we four and no more.” I knew of a church a few years ago that was in a metropolitan area of about 7 million people. They actually had in their constitution that would never grow to be a church of more than 200 people. That is absolute disobedience to the Word of God. Matthew 28:19&20 tell us to make disciples of all nations without any cap of the number of people to be reached. Mark 16:15 Tells us to “Go i...

In the churches that I have attended in the last 5 years in the Charlotte, NC area I have seen a very distinct trend. Almost every preacher is a manuscript preacher. That is they write out their sermon word for word during the week and basically read it for the congregation on Sunday. They only read the manuscript and there is no impromptu speaking in the sermon. I fundamentally do not have a problem with manuscript preaching. Some do it very well and some do it very poorly. Some need it and cannot preach any other way. I am an outline preacher. I have usually a one page outline that I preach from. My week of study from the previous week fills my mind, heart and soul during my study. My outline keeps me on track and also helps me time the sermon to be neither to short nor too long. Here are the two things I do have a problem with. One, I seen many preachers never take their Bible into the pulpit. Secondly some take their Bible into the pulpit but never open it. When we preach, we a...

W hen I preach the Bible (which is the only thing I have ever preached for the past 50 years by the way) I am preaching what God says. I am not preaching to make anyone feel guilty. I am not preaching to make application to your life or to my life. Now the passage that I preach may make direct application to our lives. For example the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20 are direct commands and we can make direct application. These directly tell us what we should do. Well at least they told Moses and the Israelites what they should do. Jesus Christ repeats 9 of the Ten Commandments in the gospels. He leaves out the Sabbath Day one. He talks about it but He does not command us to follow it in the New Testament. I have some Seventh Day Adventists who disagree with me on that point and that is fine. I have my beliefs, they have theirs. Recently I was attending a Sunday school class where we were studying the Book of James. One Sunday to start the class the teacher asked, “What have you l...

Every preacher is human. Every preacher is fallible. Every expository preacher is fallible. Every manuscript or non-expository preacher is fallible. Every apostle was fallible. They were only infallible when they were writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Only one infallible preacher ever walked the earth and that was Jesus Christ Himself. Recently a supply preacher in the church we attended said things about Jesus Christ which I with no doubt or reservation consider to be heresy. I do not believe he could say the things he did and at the same time truly believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. The church currently has no pastor(s). So we spoke to two of deacons about it. We got the following response from one deacon, “Well so and so recommended him to us so we see no problem with him.” Really? One person’s recommendation is infallible? Years ago I had an issue with a pastor of a sister church in town. They were in the same association as our church. The man was caught hav...

I never have or would I ever use this blog or any of my blog posts for a sermon. Each of these blog posts are only opinion and only my opinion. None of these blog posts are worthy to be a sermon. They are my words and not God’s Word. I would not die for my opinion. I would die for the Bible. I would die for preaching the Bible. I would die for the Jesus of the Bible. I might preach on this subject in a sermon but I would never preach the way this blog is written. I will tell you later how I would do that. The Bible speaks a lot about preaching. In the Old Testament it uses the word preach, preacher or preaching 16 times. In the New Testament it is used 148 times for a total of 164 times. That is a pretty significant number of times. It is not just a few. Sometimes is it a command to preach. Sometimes it is a narrative about preaching. And sometimes it is about someone being a preacher. The Bible uses the word “preach” 62 times, “preached” 59 times, “preacher”13 time and “preaching”...