Expository Preaching Blog #49 – “The Theme of the Book”

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Every book of the Bible has a theme. In expository preaching you must preach God’s Word as God wrote it. You must say what God wants to say not what you want to say. Therefore you must understand each book in its entirety first and what God is trying to say through that entire book. I have heard too many sermons lately where men are just pulling what they want out of a few verses in a book without considering at all the context of the paragraph, the context of the whole chapter and especially the content of the whole book.

God did not write the Bible in a compilation of a lot of random thoughts. He wrote the books with a main thought or main theme for each book. Then each chapter builds or explains on that theme. And the verses in that chapter build or explain the thought of the whole chapter. If you don’t preach this way you are not preaching God’s word the way He intended it and you are usually therefore misinterpreting God Word and you are not saying what He said. You are only saying what you want to say. Let me illustrate.

The word “Genesis” in the Hebrew means “beginnings.” In the Book of Genesis you will find the beginning of the world, the beginning of man and the beginning of sin. That is only in chapters 1-3. You will find the beginning of Israel, the beginning of languages and the beginning of God’s judgement on the earth. Each chapter should be preached with that book theme in mind.

A couple of weeks ago I heard a sermon from John 3:22-26. The whole sermon was on the sin of covetousness. The preacher assumed from the question about Jesus from John’s disciples that they were coveting the “success” of Jesus. At first glance that might be assumed. BUT if you take it in the context of the whole chapter, nothing could be further from the truth. Take the context of John Chapter 3. John 3 introduces the idea of being born again with the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. Salvation through faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ on the cross is presented. John 3:15 and following continues that theme. When you get to verse 22 it starts a narrative about the dispute between the disciples of John and the Jews. John begins in verse 27 not to scold them about covetousness or competition between him and Jesus, but to point his disciples to Jesus Christ and to saving faith in Him. From verse 1 to verse 36 it is all about Jesus Christ and salvation through Him. Check it out!

John 20:30&31 clearly give you the theme of the Gospel of John. You cannot really and fully understand the Gospel of John without reading and understanding those two verses.

You must understand, preach and teach the Word of God, God’s way. To do anything else to me is false teaching. It is God’s Word not my words so therefore I must preach, teach and understand it the way He has written it. I have no right to put my own spin or interpretation in it. Preach God’s Word, God’s way and see God work!

 

 

Rev. David Johnson

Former Pastor

First Baptist Church of Austin, MN

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