Verse By Verse Bible Exposition

The reason I believe so strongly in expository preaching is so that I preach the Word of God accurately, honestly and precisely. When I dig for the exact meaning of each passage and literally each word that brings a responsibility to practice what I preach. I do not take that lightly. I would like to address music in the church. I love music. I listen to it constantly every day in my life. I have music at home, in the office, at work and in the car. I hate silence. I believe there are 4 vital ingredients to worship in the church. I find these in both the Old Testament and New Testament. They are music, scripture reading, prayer and preaching. In Ephesians 5:19 is says “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” I believe these are referring to (1) songs from scripture, (2) songs of worship, focused on the person and works of God, and (3) songs about our spiritual experience. I believe a worship service should have a balanced proportion of all 3 types. I believe ...

Today I am going to meddle. I will offend some people. I will step on some toes. That is ok because frankly I don’t care. I want to obey God. If you disagree with me that is fine I will still be your friend. I will still even do ministry with you! Let me also start and say I am not against counselling, Biblical counselling and pastoral counselling. You can use whatever title you prefer. I have done it from time to time. But I am against substituting counselling for expository preaching. I believe that the largest part of a pastor’s time should be spend in preparation for preaching and teaching. It takes time and an investment of time and effort to be a good expository preacher. I believe there is no substitute for expository preaching. I have seen pastors spend more time devoted to counselling than to the Word. It is easy to do. As a pastor I spent very little time in personal or couples counselling. I simply did not have time for it. I needed my time to “feed the flock.” (I Pete...

For those of you who read all these blogs you might recognize the “You Can’t” title. This is the 3 rd one. Sorry I guess I am on a roll. This should probably be the last one but no promises. A number of years ago we were attending a church in the DC area for a couple of months. Honesty the pastor was a pretty good expository preacher. But, he didn’t like anyone ever questioning him. I really didn’t have any issues with his preaching but I did have a couple of questions when his son preached when dad was away. My wife asked a question the first time he preached and that went OK. The second time I was the one who asked the question. I did not rebuke, argue with or correct him. I simply suggested that he go back in the passage that he had preached from that morning and take a second look at it to make sure he had it right and really preached what the passage said. The next morning I got an email from dad the senior pastor. He asked me not to return to “his” church.” No discussion. No...

Recently I wrote a blog titled “You Can’t Get Baptized In My Church!” If you read that one, consider this the sequel. I suppose I could also write on titled “You Can’t Take Communion In My Church!” They all fall along the same lines. In the last 40+ years I have seen many pastors put many restrictions on many things. Who can join their church? Who can serve in their church? Who can teach in their church? You get the idea. The list goes on and on. Pastors like to draw lines in the sand. You better not cross that line or they will have nothing to do with you. They may even speak out publically about you and against you. I have seen it done to others and I have experienced it myself many times. I am not talking about having convictions. Every Christian should develop and have convictions. Certainly every pastor should have their convictions. BUT having that conviction and living it out are two different things. I have beliefs and convictions about every spiritual subject. But how I li...