Expository Preaching Blog #27 – “Frozen Food vs Fresh Cuisine!”

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Pardon me for using a food analogy again but Peter started it in I Peter 2:2. “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby.”

I listen to sermons on line trying to find true expository preaching in the Charlotte area. Last week while traveling I listened to a sermon on line from a church I know. I had never heard the preacher so I decided to check it out.
It was a sermon from James 4:13-17. A good text I thought for New Year’s Eve Sunday. It was frozen food and not fresh at all. Let me explain. I love to eat. I love pasta and especially lasagna. Now I can go to the store any day of the week, get a frozen Stouffer’s lasagna, bring it home, heat it up and eat it. Anyone can do that. OR, I have skilled chef at home who can make it totally from scratch. She can make her own pasta, tomato sauces, cheeses, meats etc. And it is seasoned just right with no additives or preservatives or who knows what they put in it. You get the picture. It is Tricia’s home cooked meal, hands down, every day of the week.

The sermon I heard was something frozen just heated up. He quoted John MacArthur, John Piper, Charles Spurgeon, and some other person I had never heard of. He brought in a lot of other scripture which may or may not have related to James 4. I did not think that it did. My point is that nothing that he said was fresh that he had dug out of the passage, studied it, exegeted it on his own. He simply copied and repeated what other people said. In modern terms he basically copied and pasted and read the sermon. Nothing was original with him.

Anyone can heat up a frozen meal. Do you remember TV dinners? All you have to do is follow the instructions and stick it in the oven at the right temperature for the right amount of time. Anyone can do that. It does not take any skill, ability or training.

When preachers spend anywhere from 8-10 years in Bible college and seminary shouldn’t we get fresh food? I am not talking about new revelation, I am talking about the fresh exegesis of the Word of God and preaching it in their own words. Peter did that in Acts 2. Philip did it from Isaiah with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:35. If they could do it in the 1st century why can’t we do it today? Why are we getting frozen food instead of fresh?

This is why the people in the pews are starving spiritually and they don’t even realize it. They are getting the same frozen reheated crap week after week. There is fresh cuisine out there and available. But you have to work for it. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes work. Why do men with a master’s degree or even a doctorate only serve frozen food? God’s Word is a living book. Let’s treat it, preach it, speak it, serve it and deliver it that way!

 

Rev. David Johnson

Former Pastor

First Baptist Church of Austin, MN

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