What happened to expository preaching

I am not sure you even knew Harry Emerson Fosdick. Did you? Or just read about him.

Cheers,

Jim

 

The Bible says to focus on Jesus the auther and finisher of our faith. My goal is to follow Him as he set the example for ministry and discipleship.

There was a time when I heard the same thing you wrote until I really thought about what Jesus did and then I could no longer ignore it. When I had a close friend go to a country with a famine and tell me about people dying because they did not have enough to eat and realize the ministry he has had for about 25 years among them. He has won many to Christ, started churches, preached everywhere he went, and educated people. Some have masters degrees and are in government leadership positions today winning people to Christ. He was in a communist country at the time and now they have more freedom than here.

There is the gospel according to Matthew. Mark, Luke, and John but then there is the gospel according to you.

Luke 14:13 "But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,
Luke 18:22 When Jesus heard this, He said to him, "One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."
Luke 19:8 Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, "Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much."
James 2:5, “Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?”

 

Perhaps sometime you should get your feet wet and be a part of World Changers and see what actually happens when you truly serve people expecting nothing. Students lives change and the homeowners are given the gospel. Every home I worked on was able to give out the gospel because the owners asked why, and God opened the door. I quickly learned the power of God's love and serving in His name.

 

I'll echo the sentiments of others here...

The version choice, IMO, has little to do with whether or not expository preaching is the mode used.

There are two KJVO churches in our area that I'm somewhat familiar with. Neither do expository preaching. The scripture used is a "jumping off spot," and little more.

For one of those churches, I truly think it's an experience issue. The young pastor simply doesn't know any other way to preach. The second...well, his methodology best accomodates ranting, which is what he pretty much does.

Having said all that...my point is, it's not a function of one's preferred version of Scripture.

 

Replying to the original question about expository preaching, I offer this -

I preach verse-by-verse (expositionally) through the Bible (yes, the KJV) in our service - on Sunday mornings, we're in Ephesians right now, Colossians on Sunday evenings, and Genesis on Wednesday nights. The emphasis I try to make is- "What does it say and how can God apply it to our daily lives?"

We even have recordings of these studies on our website for people to listen to:

http://www.southheightsbaptist.com/mediaministry.html

And, yes, as someone said, there is a price to pay for this -

1. Where we live, your church doesn't grow very fast. Most people 'round here want entertainment, not practical, solid food from the Word.

2. You offend people sometimes. By going v-b-v, you can't honestly sidestep passages that you know will stick in somebody's craw.

3. You have a hard time keeping some folks - when you get to a passage that deals with a particular area in their life that God wants them to deal with, they often would rather shoot the messenger than get right with God.

4. It takes LOTS of time to properly prepare, and, in small churches, that means the pastor does more than study, visit, marry, and bury folks, so expositional preaching adds to that burden.

That said, it's still THE way to go, in my opinion! I wouldn't even be in church at all had I not stumbled into a church where the pastor actually TAUGHT me something from the pulpit. Thinking he made a mistake (I was used to lots of screaming, yelling, meddling, and judging, but very little "meat"- baptists did a lot of that kind of preaching back then), I went back the next week.

Within a couple of weeks, I was hooked - I really WANTED to LEARN the Word of God!

Incidentally, no one else in our town or immediate area preaches expositionally...most are caught up in the Emergent Church, entertainment (aka "worship & praise"), and other such nonsense. The people here do no hunger and thirst after righteousness - only that which is temporal.

 

As the old saying goes, "To thine own self be true."

Some can preach expository style, some can preach textual style, and some combine the two. One cannot say the other is better.

I used to preach to a group of WWII veterans who met each year since 1946. I preach a topical sermon. It is fitting for that group.

In my own church, I preached expositionally in evening and textually in morning, but I wouldn't dream of going through an entire book week after week after week.

By the way, I find expositional preaching to take less study time than any of my topical or textual sermons. I am sure a computer back then would have cut study time down by at least 20 hours a week.

Cheers, and to each his own, we cannot all be Spurgeons. Besides, we would prolly only copy his errors.

Jim

 

Hi annsi,

You said,

I didn't say that - I am talking about the people around here. I wasn't commenting on what you folks do where you live. The folks here, mostly because of the charismaniac movement, which is BIG TIME ACTIVE around these parts, are substituting what they think is true praise and worship for true praise and worship, but, in reality, it's nothing more than entertainment.

As a former Minister of Music, the problem, from my perspective, with attempting to use worship (I presume you mean music) to preach the Word is that you're trying to do something that with music that music was not deigned by God to do. Nowhere in Scripture will you find God condoning or commanding we use music to reach the uncoverted, nor is music for the purpose of preaching the Word: that is, and has always been, reserved for the verbal, ie, spoken, presentation of the Word.

One of the big problems with the current generation of church pastors and musicians is NOT the fact that the music they are using is "modern" (except in the case of rhythm-based music). The real problem is they are substituting the world's standard for music in an attempt to bootleg the Gospel to those who are lost. But, the same people who would never use prostitutes to reach the immoral, nor cocaine or heroin to reach the drug addicts, will advocate using that which speaks to the flesh in music to reach out to the lost and/or attempt to minister to the saved.

Just because the words come straight out of the Bible, if the music itself violates biblical principles, it actually renders the effect of the words ineffectual.

The idea of tongues as a "sign" of the filling of the Holy Spirit goes hand-in-hand with the idea that music is a tool to reach the lost and/or speak the Word to the saved.

Neither viewpoint is biblical.

 

Someone needs to truly define what worship means. I quote Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones from his book on Preaching & Preachers:

However, there has been this tendency; as preaching has waned,,,,,,,they have introduced responsive reading, and more and more music and singing and chanting....all these thing as preaching waned....still worse has been the increase in the element of entertainment in public worship - the use of films and the introduction of more and more singing; the reading of the word and prayer shortened drastically, but more and more time given to singing. You have a song leader as a new kind of official in the church, and he conducts the singing and is supposed to produce the atmosphere! This is a part of the whole depreciation of the message....."

He offers much more, but I can't type the whole chapter.

Cheers, Dr. Lloyd-Jones, rest in peace, mate,

Jim