Verse By Verse Bible Exposition

When I attend churches in my local area I hear a lot of things. I hear about having the right attitude. I hear about having enough faith. I hear about not being hateful and bitter. I hear about having the right Bible version. I hear about having the right music. I hear about not turning away from Jesus. I hear about listening to God. I could go on and on for hours but I think you get the point. I hear a lot about how to live your life. But there is something missing in our modern day preaching. I rarely hear about having a burden and reaching souls for Jesus Christ. We can have all the right actions and right behaviors in our life and still go straight to hell when we die. Good behavior never saved anyone. I am a great believer in the Great Commission found in Matthew 28:19&20. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo,...

Now I must start with a statement: I am brand loyal. I prefer Verizon over other cell phone carriers. I own Chevys and never Fords. I shop Home Depot and only Lowes when I absolutely have to. But I am not brand loyal when it comes to my faith, beliefs and churches. There I am loyal only to Jesus Christ and His Word. Our modern Christianity is quite brand loyal though. I am a Bible College graduate and have over 31 years of pastoral and preaching experience. I am not a novice and have been preaching for 50 years now. I am an ordained Baptist minister for over 35 years now. When I pastored in NY State a couple churches in our area called pastors who were graduates of Bob Jones University. They would no longer fellowship with our churches and our pastors. This was in spite of the fact that we were all part of the same Baptist Association and had been for many, many years. They had their own meetings together and only fellow-shipped with each other. That was until one of them decided t...

My wife and I have that statement told to us twice now in the last 8 years. Both times have been in SBC churches by SBC trained pastors. I am not against the SBC as a group but I have seen some disturbing trends by men coming out of their seminaries. I am just going to call it as I see it. Several years I was the Music Director in a SBC church. There was on pastor on staff besides myself. It was a smaller church but had some great potential. There were children Sunday School classes and one adult Sunday School class but no teenage class. There were about 5 teenagers regularly attending the Sunday morning service. So I spoke to the pastor and asked him if he would be interested in having a weekly teen Sunday School class. He said that he was. I went home and talked to my wife about it. She had been a pastor’s wife for over 31 years. She had taught every age from nursery to adults. She was very skilled in Bible Study and teaching others to study the Bible together and on their own. I t...

  Expository Preaching Blog #22 – “Do I Know More Than God?” Many of my blog posts are born out of frustration and negative experiences. This is another one of those blog posts. On a recent morning I sat in a Sunday service of a nearby church. It was the first time I had ever attended there. They were concluding a yearlong series from the Book of Hebrews. Great I thought, it is expository verse by verse through the Book of Hebrews. Maybe the rest of the year was expository but this morning sure wasn’t. Then the preacher took the last 5 verses of Hebrews and demolished them. I had listened to the senior pastor on line for a couple of sermons and he did pretty well. It truly was expository preaching. Not very dynamic but he kept to the text. The Sunday we attended the Student Pastor was finishing up the yearlong series on the Book of Hebrews. He did not preach what was in the passage. He did not preach God’s Word but he preached his own words. Instead of preaching on “Jesus Chris...

Many of my blog posts are born out of frustration and negative experiences. Such is this blog post. The Bible is God’s message for mankind. Hebrews 4:12 says “The Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of the soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” God wants to work in our hearts and souls through His Word. It is His plan, His purpose, His divine method so why don’t we use it? II Timothy 2:15 says “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth.” This is my life verse. This is the reason I only do expository preaching. It is God’s command. It is the way He wants it done. So why do we try to do it our way? Why do we stand in the way of God’s methods and purpose and come up with our own way? No I do not believe that you can stop God. You cannot prevent God from doing His perfect...