How Expository Preaching Changed Me. . . Part 2

I am continuing this series on some odd and end thoughts about how that expository preaching changed my thinking. Part 1 is available here.

It Forced a Change In How I Looked at Success

Success is no longer the size of the building, crowd, or offering total. For me success has had a huge shift toward hungering for excellence instead of “success.” All of this came about when I took a look at Paul’s approach to those he mentored.

“Timothy, you stay in Ephesus and pastor these 25,000 or so. Teach doctrine diligently and understand there are a few beasts you will have to confront but this is where real spiritual warfare will play into your advantage. Spiritual warfare comprises far more than just angels and demons, Timothy, it has much to do with your tools. Keep your belt of doctrine on. Make sure you have a breastplate of holiness secured to the belt of doctrine. Keep your shoes of peace on it is an amazing foundation to fight from. Peace in your heart is more important than chasing devils around, they will come to you and you won’t have to go find ‘em. Your shield of faith can extinguish a lot of lies and doubts that will try to consume you. Faith in your God and in His Book will help you in the long run. Put on your helmet because it is your hope, your salvation. Be savvy and bold with your Sword, which is the Word. It can get you out of some tenable and dangerous situations. Lastly, don’t forget that a praying preacher can do much harm in the hands of an awesome God.”

“Titus, while Timothy is shepherding the church in Ephesus. Boy what a dandy and a plum that she is! Everybody wants to pastor Ephesus! But anyways, Titus, I need for you to go down here to Crete. It is a hard and difficult spot in the road. They run 25 to 50 on Sundays and that is depending on the weather. They are a bunch on slow-bellies and liars and they need some things to be set straight. That is what I want you to do! Stay there and be faithful until I tell you to move or the Lord comes back, whichever comes first. See you sometime in the future, God bless you!” (Dalmatia would also be in his assignment as would Nicopolis.)

I was also arrested when it came to the fact that Paul told Timothy about how that Onesiphorus had to care for the chains of Paul. How is that for apostolic ministry? Managing a chain? You bet! I am coming to understand more and more something I heard someone say a few years ago, “If you are too big to do the little things, you are too little to do the big things!” It takes excellence to fulfill the ministry of a chain, not very successful but a whole lot of excellence!
Paul moved men around like chess pieces. What became prevalent to me as I sorted this out in moving through the Epistles was that God is more concerned with faithfulness and obedience than he is with the American trappings of success. As usual, I always feel like I have to qualify what I am saying/writing and I do so now, I am not for laziness in sort of fashion! Work diligently and faithfully and let God take care of the details. Worry with the depth of ministry and God will take care of breadth of ministry!

Far too much of modern Christianity is geared toward personal success and fulfillment. While this may be the cravings of our culture, it is not the message of Christianity. Scripture, especially the NT epistles, calls us as saints with a leaning toward service and even servant-hood. If you understand that the backdrop of church history and the role that many of those in the early Church who ended up dying for their faith, how can I reconcile that with a gospel of “self-fulfillment”? Try to tell a martyr about self-fulfillment here in this life and he will tell you that fulfillment only comes after we are released from this earthly body.

The success paradigm will lead you to many unrealistic expectations concerning ministry. However if you understand that to faithfully preach the Word year in and year out is the goal, church growth will take care of itself. I want to make sure that you as the reader understands the context in which I am stating this, personal evangelism and corporate evangelistic efforts of the church must continue. Strong preaching will allow you to speak the very mind of Jesus Christ.

Serve where you are. . . faithfully. . . diligently. . . until death or the Lord returns. . . .

Illustrations Are Not Good Foundations

I have to admit that this was a battle that I had to fight out in the trenches of my mind. One of the trends that “thought” preaching takes up is to take a nifty illustration and then create an entire sermon around it. I have to admit that I loved taking a story and then setting up the message around the illustration. I have heard some masterful sermons that totally stunned my senses because of the power of the illustration. However, what I found was that years later, I could not remember the sermon at all but could remember the story. Some would say this is beneficial but my lingering doubt about this process is that it detracts from the very power of the Scriptures we are attempting to preach.

A preacher who continually allows the illustration to outshine the Biblical message will cause a church to minimize the power of Scripture. Sermons that are heavy on illustration and light on Scripture will not encourage the church to dig into personal Bible study. I have found that the more a man attempts to open up the Scripture the more that people will suddenly begin to search out the Scriptures between Sundays.

This can lead to faulty theology because what happens is that the preacher will take Scripture and use it to fit his illustration. Sad to say but far too many illustrations turn God into a very sentimental and manageable deity that exists solely for my whims and an ends to my means. Many of the rags to riches stories that are used as illustrations may unwittingly exercise the idea that God is always there to make life “happier” and “fulfilling” when ultimately the sovereignty of God prevails in the advancement of His kingdom.

Another calamity that occurs with making the illustration the foundation is when the story overrides the message, it clearly detracts from Scripture. Subtly and even unconsciously what the speaker is saying is that the story is more important than the principle of Scripture. Whatever human effort it took to accomplish the task, God acquiesced to the man instead of the man seeking the guidance of God for His will and purpose. Honestly, we love those kinds of rags-to-riches stories of human perseverance.

It is important to put the message together first and then have a wide range of reading that will allow you to insert good illustrations without having to put the message together around the illustration. 2 Corinthians 10:3, Paul is stating that he is human but he is appealing to spiritual means as weaponry. In 10:4, there is an attempt to tear down strongholds (fortress, prison, or tomb is the Greek rendering). In 10:5, Paul speaks of destroying ideas of the modern day. Spiritual warfare is assaulting erroneous ideas and you do it with Scripture not cool illustrations.

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

How Expository Preaching Changed Me. . . Part 2

I am continuing this series on some odd and end thoughts about how that expository preaching changed my thinking. Part 1 is available here.

It Forced a Change In How I Looked at Success

Success is no longer the size of the building, crowd, or offering total. For me success has had a huge shift toward hungering for excellence instead of “success.” All of this came about when I took a look at Paul’s approach to those he mentored.

“Timothy, you stay in Ephesus and pastor these 25,000 or so. Teach doctrine diligently and understand there are a few beasts you will have to confront but this is where real spiritual warfare will play into your advantage. Spiritual warfare comprises far more than just angels and demons, Timothy, it has much to do with your tools. Keep your belt of doctrine on. Make sure you have a breastplate of holiness secured to the belt of doctrine. Keep your shoes of peace on it is an amazing foundation to fight from. Peace in your heart is more important than chasing devils around, they will come to you and you won’t have to go find ‘em. Your shield of faith can extinguish a lot of lies and doubts that will try to consume you. Faith in your God and in His Book will help you in the long run. Put on your helmet because it is your hope, your salvation. Be savvy and bold with your Sword, which is the Word. It can get you out of some tenable and dangerous situations. Lastly, don’t forget that a praying preacher can do much harm in the hands of an awesome God.”

“Titus, while Timothy is shepherding the church in Ephesus. Boy what a dandy and a plum that she is! Everybody wants to pastor Ephesus! But anyways, Titus, I need for you to go down here to Crete. It is a hard and difficult spot in the road. They run 25 to 50 on Sundays and that is depending on the weather. They are a bunch on slow-bellies and liars and they need some things to be set straight. That is what I want you to do! Stay there and be faithful until I tell you to move or the Lord comes back, whichever comes first. See you sometime in the future, God bless you!” (Dalmatia would also be in his assignment as would Nicopolis.)

I was also arrested when it came to the fact that Paul told Timothy about how that Onesiphorus had to care for the chains of Paul. How is that for apostolic ministry? Managing a chain? You bet! I am coming to understand more and more something I heard someone say a few years ago, “If you are too big to do the little things, you are too little to do the big things!” It takes excellence to fulfill the ministry of a chain, not very successful but a whole lot of excellence!
Paul moved men around like chess pieces. What became prevalent to me as I sorted this out in moving through the Epistles was that God is more concerned with faithfulness and obedience than he is with the American trappings of success. As usual, I always feel like I have to qualify what I am saying/writing and I do so now, I am not for laziness in sort of fashion! Work diligently and faithfully and let God take care of the details. Worry with the depth of ministry and God will take care of breadth of ministry!

Far too much of modern Christianity is geared toward personal success and fulfillment. While this may be the cravings of our culture, it is not the message of Christianity. Scripture, especially the NT epistles, calls us as saints with a leaning toward service and even servant-hood. If you understand that the backdrop of church history and the role that many of those in the early Church who ended up dying for their faith, how can I reconcile that with a gospel of “self-fulfillment”? Try to tell a martyr about self-fulfillment here in this life and he will tell you that fulfillment only comes after we are released from this earthly body.

The success paradigm will lead you to many unrealistic expectations concerning ministry. However if you understand that to faithfully preach the Word year in and year out is the goal, church growth will take care of itself. I want to make sure that you as the reader understands the context in which I am stating this, personal evangelism and corporate evangelistic efforts of the church must continue. Strong preaching will allow you to speak the very mind of Jesus Christ.

Serve where you are. . . faithfully. . . diligently. . . until death or the Lord returns. . . .

Illustrations Are Not Good Foundations

I have to admit that this was a battle that I had to fight out in the trenches of my mind. One of the trends that “thought” preaching takes up is to take a nifty illustration and then create an entire sermon around it. I have to admit that I loved taking a story and then setting up the message around the illustration. I have heard some masterful sermons that totally stunned my senses because of the power of the illustration. However, what I found was that years later, I could not remember the sermon at all but could remember the story. Some would say this is beneficial but my lingering doubt about this process is that it detracts from the very power of the Scriptures we are attempting to preach.

A preacher who continually allows the illustration to outshine the Biblical message will cause a church to minimize the power of Scripture. Sermons that are heavy on illustration and light on Scripture will not encourage the church to dig into personal Bible study. I have found that the more a man attempts to open up the Scripture the more that people will suddenly begin to search out the Scriptures between Sundays.

This can lead to faulty theology because what happens is that the preacher will take Scripture and use it to fit his illustration. Sad to say but far too many illustrations turn God into a very sentimental and manageable deity that exists solely for my whims and an ends to my means. Many of the rags to riches stories that are used as illustrations may unwittingly exercise the idea that God is always there to make life “happier” and “fulfilling” when ultimately the sovereignty of God prevails in the advancement of His kingdom.

Another calamity that occurs with making the illustration the foundation is when the story overrides the message, it clearly detracts from Scripture. Subtly and even unconsciously what the speaker is saying is that the story is more important than the principle of Scripture. Whatever human effort it took to accomplish the task, God acquiesced to the man instead of the man seeking the guidance of God for His will and purpose. Honestly, we love those kinds of rags-to-riches stories of human perseverance.

It is important to put the message together first and then have a wide range of reading that will allow you to insert good illustrations without having to put the message together around the illustration. 2 Corinthians 10:3, Paul is stating that he is human but he is appealing to spiritual means as weaponry. In 10:4, there is an attempt to tear down strongholds (fortress, prison, or tomb is the Greek rendering). In 10:5, Paul speaks of destroying ideas of the modern day. Spiritual warfare is assaulting erroneous ideas and you do it with Scripture not cool illustrations.

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

Book Recommendation — D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Two Volume Biography

It has been quite some time since I have spent a blog on a book recommendation. However, with Christmas right around the corner, this might be a good time for me to recommend some for you. While I take a brief break from the expository preaching genre, let me introduce to you a man who was an expositor.

When I was in Bible college, our textbook for homiletics was written by D ML-J. The book is actually a set of lectures that he delivered to a group of aspiring preachers on different aspects of the preaching act. This was the first book by D ML-J that I read. During that time, E. E. Jolley, continued to encourage me to buy everything that D ML-J had written. All of his books were actually nothing more than his sermons that had been transcribed from tapes by his daughter. Admittedly, in my early days of preaching, D ML-J’s stuff was “heavy” for me because I was always looking for the quick fix. However, as time progressed on, I saw the value of his material greatly increase.

Several months ago, I found a couple of online interviews from his daughter and son-in-law that Mark Dever had done. I listened to them in the late spring and early summer while I was riding my bike through some of the old rural roads that I ramble down. The interviews were pretty interesting and what I did not know was that D ML-J had followed G. Campbell Morgan in the Westminster Chapel in London at the outbreak of WW-II. I have had G. Campbell Morgan’s sermon notes for many years and have found them to be also good places of inspiration. D ML-J’s daughter spoke very highly of Campbell Morgan and it was particularly intriguing to me how the transition took place. Realizing his age was limiting him, Campbell Morgan began to allow his assistant to preach exclusively on Sunday nights. This is what gave rise to D ML-J’s lengthy series through books of the Bible.

The two interviews that I listened to put me on track to a couple more featuring Iain Murray. I had read Murray’s biography of Jonathon Edwards back in the late 80’s and found it to be a good one. So when I found out the Murray had been mentored by D ML-J and that they had worked together for a conference on the Puritans, I decided to buy the two-volume set on D ML-J.

The first book, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones—The First Forty Years, 1899-1939 was very historical as it told of the childhood and young adulthood of D ML-J. D ML-J was actually a physician who left his practice to preach and pastor a church. His colleagues, some of the tops in London in their day, were devastated and did their best to talk him out of leaving a life devoted to medicine. They recognized a very gifted and able mind in D ML-J and certainly felt that it would be a loss to the medical profession for him to leave. However, this did not deter D ML-J. He turned his back on success and a potentially lucrative salary to go to a pulpit.

The bio recounts how that he met some resistance in his early pastorates because he gave much time to study and to preaching. Although he did make rounds to visit the sick and shut-in, his involvement in ministry was not a social activity but a matter of getting the Word of God into the hearts and heads of his congregants. Having read many of the writings of Ravenhill and Tozer, I must tell you that where Ravenhill and Tozer motivated me toward revival and prayer, this biography motivated me highly in the area of preaching.

The second volume is, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones—The Fight of Faith, 1939-1981 is keyed into the war years and his travels throughout Europe in the 1950’s. Again, there is much encouragement toward preaching and diligent study that you will read about. What is somewhat amazing to me is that he built a church entirely on preaching. He did a Friday night “lecture” series on different aspects of Scripture and then on Sunday AM and Sunday PM, he would work through two different books of the Bible. I found much, much inspiration in this.

He did not have a staff. His secretary was his wife and she was very protective of his mornings and answered the phone in their small little home and planned out his afternoons. She bought into the concept that his preaching was the most important thing that he did and it took much preparation to be able to expound the Word as he did.

This two volume set is very lengthy. The first volume is around 325 pages and the second volume is over 800. To me the prices of the books are worth the appendices and bibliographies that accompany them. They are both heavily foot-noted which makes their value go up even more to me. Also, understand that because I am recommending them does not mean that I endorse his theology as a whole. I merely think that the aspect of this biography will be beneficial to you in understanding the most important thing a pastor does—preach.

This biography will be challenging for those times you are dragging and it will fire you higher when you are hitting on all eight!

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

Book Recommendation — D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Two Volume Biography

It has been quite some time since I have spent a blog on a book recommendation. However, with Christmas right around the corner, this might be a good time for me to recommend some for you. While I take a brief break from the expository preaching genre, let me introduce to you a man who was an expositor.

When I was in Bible college, our textbook for homiletics was written by D ML-J. The book is actually a set of lectures that he delivered to a group of aspiring preachers on different aspects of the preaching act. This was the first book by D ML-J that I read. During that time, E. E. Jolley, continued to encourage me to buy everything that D ML-J had written. All of his books were actually nothing more than his sermons that had been transcribed from tapes by his daughter. Admittedly, in my early days of preaching, D ML-J’s stuff was “heavy” for me because I was always looking for the quick fix. However, as time progressed on, I saw the value of his material greatly increase.

Several months ago, I found a couple of online interviews from his daughter and son-in-law that Mark Dever had done. I listened to them in the late spring and early summer while I was riding my bike through some of the old rural roads that I ramble down. The interviews were pretty interesting and what I did not know was that D ML-J had followed G. Campbell Morgan in the Westminster Chapel in London at the outbreak of WW-II. I have had G. Campbell Morgan’s sermon notes for many years and have found them to be also good places of inspiration. D ML-J’s daughter spoke very highly of Campbell Morgan and it was particularly intriguing to me how the transition took place. Realizing his age was limiting him, Campbell Morgan began to allow his assistant to preach exclusively on Sunday nights. This is what gave rise to D ML-J’s lengthy series through books of the Bible.

The two interviews that I listened to put me on track to a couple more featuring Iain Murray. I had read Murray’s biography of Jonathon Edwards back in the late 80’s and found it to be a good one. So when I found out the Murray had been mentored by D ML-J and that they had worked together for a conference on the Puritans, I decided to buy the two-volume set on D ML-J.

The first book, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones—The First Forty Years, 1899-1939 was very historical as it told of the childhood and young adulthood of D ML-J. D ML-J was actually a physician who left his practice to preach and pastor a church. His colleagues, some of the tops in London in their day, were devastated and did their best to talk him out of leaving a life devoted to medicine. They recognized a very gifted and able mind in D ML-J and certainly felt that it would be a loss to the medical profession for him to leave. However, this did not deter D ML-J. He turned his back on success and a potentially lucrative salary to go to a pulpit.

The bio recounts how that he met some resistance in his early pastorates because he gave much time to study and to preaching. Although he did make rounds to visit the sick and shut-in, his involvement in ministry was not a social activity but a matter of getting the Word of God into the hearts and heads of his congregants. Having read many of the writings of Ravenhill and Tozer, I must tell you that where Ravenhill and Tozer motivated me toward revival and prayer, this biography motivated me highly in the area of preaching.

The second volume is, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones—The Fight of Faith, 1939-1981 is keyed into the war years and his travels throughout Europe in the 1950’s. Again, there is much encouragement toward preaching and diligent study that you will read about. What is somewhat amazing to me is that he built a church entirely on preaching. He did a Friday night “lecture” series on different aspects of Scripture and then on Sunday AM and Sunday PM, he would work through two different books of the Bible. I found much, much inspiration in this.

He did not have a staff. His secretary was his wife and she was very protective of his mornings and answered the phone in their small little home and planned out his afternoons. She bought into the concept that his preaching was the most important thing that he did and it took much preparation to be able to expound the Word as he did.

This two volume set is very lengthy. The first volume is around 325 pages and the second volume is over 800. To me the prices of the books are worth the appendices and bibliographies that accompany them. They are both heavily foot-noted which makes their value go up even more to me. Also, understand that because I am recommending them does not mean that I endorse his theology as a whole. I merely think that the aspect of this biography will be beneficial to you in understanding the most important thing a pastor does—preach.

This biography will be challenging for those times you are dragging and it will fire you higher when you are hitting on all eight!

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

How Expository Preaching Changed Me. . . Part 1

Just for the record and for a summary, I am giving you the links on one page for those who might want to read them later.

Planned Preaching — Part 1 — An introduction to Expository Preaching and an example of some of my foolishness in preaching when I was a rookie.

Planned Preaching — Part 2 — The reasons we ought to give ourselves to the disciplines of Expository Preaching.

Planned Preaching — Part 3 — How to begin your initial efforts at Expository Preaching.

Planned Preaching — Part 4 — Some recommendations about exactly where to start as far as Biblical texts.

Planned Preaching — Part 5 — Some of the helpful tools that are necessary to get involved in Expository Preaching.

Planned Preaching — Part 6 — Some more of the helpful tools that are necessary to help in Expository Preaching.

Planned Preaching — Part 7 — The steps that I have used to work through a Biblical book in an expository manner.

I am going to write on some final thoughts of how that approaching Scripture in a verse-by-verse fashion caused some remarkable changes in my own thinking. My hope is that you will read these blog posts in the spirit of which I write it. Whatever provocations you may find here are not intended to be inflammatory to your spirit but rather to be insightful enough to make you think. That is all I ever ask with anything that I write. I have been very forthright and at times angry with my elaborations concerning the Emerging Church because I see the deadly danger of its influence. However, most of the ramblings you find here on the Barnabas Blog are written to encourage you toward a higher life. That is what I intend with this series of posts but they may burn a bit going down.

Once I got involved in verse-by-verse exposition and making sure that I was staying entirely within the context of Scripture, some glaring things began to happen to me. At first, I went through all of the antics of self-analysis about how my heart was wrong. But the prevailing thought that kept cropping up was the idea that I was “too smart for my own good.”

Much wrestling was done with this until I continued to let Scripture say over and over what it was going to say. I became so immersed in Scripture at the expense of some critics who said I was “Word” only and no Spirit. What I learned through that little trial was that those who violate the harmony and context of Scripture don’t have nearly as much “Spirit” as what they perceive they have. It was through this that I gravitated toward the understanding that a man was not a greater authority than what Scripture was or stood for. So through all of this process, I started holding myself to a higher level of ministry of the Word through the preparation process. In doing this some things began to prevail in my mind about preaching the Word.

Context Is Everything!

I came to understand that context of the passage is paramount. I begin to look at the way I preached and particularly how I listened to others preach through the lens of context. I became so radical about my own preaching and diligently worked to make sure I had the context correct. In fact I realized that if I was going to preach the context of the passage there were some of my own sermons I had to toss in the junk-pile. They did not hold true to Scripture! I had simply taken a Scripture reference and then leaped from a tall pulpit into the never-lands of frothdom.

These “sermons” were fantastic, brilliant, funny, exciting and “successful” messages but they were not from God because I had taken His Word and made it say something it wasn’t intended to say. I had to find a place of repentance because I had violated the last commandment in the Book. It clearly states, “don’t add anything to it or take anything away from it” (Rev. 22:19) because the man who does is in serious danger of missing Heaven. I know. . . I know. . . I can hear it now, “Stretching it a bit aren’t you, Philip?” That depends. . . . It all depends on how much you value Scripture and how much regard you hold for God. Frankly my thoughts troubled me in that I had violated the first of the Ten Commandments. I had not made God into a graven image I had just made Him something that He was not. Oh we shouted and had a big time but it was inaccurate preaching because the context was violated.

This is the danger in “thought” preaching or “thought” getting. I would hear a message and then I would get that magic “thought” and work it out without regard for the context or harmony of Scripture. For those who have been reading these blogs, I won’t you to understand that I will continue to preach topically (because it is not a mortal sin) but I will remember to give much regard to the context of the passage.

One day as I listened to someone preaching (interestingly at a conference level), I begin to have some lingering doubts about a passage that was being “preached.” Much enlightenment came to me when I understood that Matthew 18 had nothing to do with a holy huddle of two or three agreeing that God was going to rain fire down from Heaven (or the Holy Ghost, or revival, or healing, or money). This passage has everything to do with church discipline. It is literally illustrated by Paul in 1 Corinthians 5 when he removes an unrepentant, sinning “brother” from the Church. When one isolates Matthew 18:18-19 and lifts it out of its proper setting suddenly the sky is the limit for whatever you want God to be and do for you. Essentially what happens is the preacher has suddenly made God something He is not.

The next example I give was not so much something I heard preached but was used as a line of reasoning for ministers who had gotten into moral failure. I would be addressed in a manner like this, “Rev. A. has ‘fallen’ into sin. He is a good man and his pulpit ministry needs to be restored.” Then the line of reasoning would be “the gifts and callings of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29) they would smugly say and then continue on about restoring such an one who had had fallen (Galatians 6:1). Look deeper in the context of Romans 11 and you will find that this has nothing to do with ministry but with Israel’s final welfare in God’s plan. As for the Galatians passage, this has reference to a man being restored to a position of salvation but not leadership responsibilities. To garner the direction for ministry, the patterns of the book of Acts and the Pastoral epistles have to serve as guidance. Where Scripture apparently makes no assertions, it is my thoughts that his is a mortal mistake to make in the general and overall welfare of the Church.

These are the two prevailing examples of many that came to mind. It just does not fare well in the long run to constantly violate the principles of context. Again, please don’t get the idea that I am opposed to topical preaching because I am not and will continue to do it most likely on a regular basis. However, I am entirely opposed to preaching that is out of context of what the real intent of the Biblical writer is stating.

Personality Can Trump the Bible

Another thing that I discovered is that the personality of the preacher can trump the Bible. One day a little book came in the mail that was written by a man who had experienced much success (i.e., miracles, signs, wonders, evangelism, sacrifice, etc.). Comparatively speaking, his ministry was like a 10,000 lumen candle power to my little two double-A battery penlight. The light off of his ministry was overwhelming. In fact, there were times that I had sat and heard stories about his sacrifice and success and then in response drug my miserable, much-loathed soul to an altar and wept, snotted, and cried in much repentance about how little I had done.
But as I read the little book, I begin to pick up on some unsettling things. At the time, I had no idea what “divine flesh” was but I was familiar with Gnosticism because of some studies that I had been through in Colossians. As I read this book, it troubled me that a great personality was apparently aberrant in his theology. In my mind, it was more than just a quibbling about some personal conviction. His view was entirely changing the scope and practice of Jesus Christ, in fact his “Jesus” had not blood, merely an emanation from God. I wrestled up and down with this. I remembered the miracles et al and wondered privately and later aloud to some elder ministers about this. The great lesson in this was that a personality, no matter how seeming successful they may be cannot trump the Word of God. Miracles are not a seal of approval on false doctrine.

As time has passed, I came to the conclusion that good theology will put steel in your mind and in your backbone. The more theology you understand and know, you can say, “You’re preposterous claims have no Scriptural foundations.” Brothers, whether we realize it or not, we need this kind of mentality in our days. We need the gumption, as they say, to gently confront but deal with error in a very measured way.

I have written in the past about how that Hebrews 13:17 indicates that I will have to give a specific account for the church I am called to pastor. It will be very uncomfortable and chilling on that day for the Lord to ask me “What did you do with the Church I gave you to pastor?” if I have been negligent with doctrine. A pastor has the great responsibility to not allow his own personality or that of another “successful” minister to corrupt the flock with faulty theology. Brothers, expository preaching will open you up to a greater awareness of your responsibilities and it will increase your knowledge of the Bible exponentially.

More to come. . . thanks for reading. . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

How Expository Preaching Changed Me. . . Part 1

Just for the record and for a summary, I am giving you the links on one page for those who might want to read them later.

Planned Preaching — Part 1 — An introduction to Expository Preaching and an example of some of my foolishness in preaching when I was a rookie.

Planned Preaching — Part 2 — The reasons we ought to give ourselves to the disciplines of Expository Preaching.

Planned Preaching — Part 3 — How to begin your initial efforts at Expository Preaching.

Planned Preaching — Part 4 — Some recommendations about exactly where to start as far as Biblical texts.

Planned Preaching — Part 5 — Some of the helpful tools that are necessary to get involved in Expository Preaching.

Planned Preaching — Part 6 — Some more of the helpful tools that are necessary to help in Expository Preaching.

Planned Preaching — Part 7 — The steps that I have used to work through a Biblical book in an expository manner.

I am going to write on some final thoughts of how that approaching Scripture in a verse-by-verse fashion caused some remarkable changes in my own thinking. My hope is that you will read these blog posts in the spirit of which I write it. Whatever provocations you may find here are not intended to be inflammatory to your spirit but rather to be insightful enough to make you think. That is all I ever ask with anything that I write. I have been very forthright and at times angry with my elaborations concerning the Emerging Church because I see the deadly danger of its influence. However, most of the ramblings you find here on the Barnabas Blog are written to encourage you toward a higher life. That is what I intend with this series of posts but they may burn a bit going down.

Once I got involved in verse-by-verse exposition and making sure that I was staying entirely within the context of Scripture, some glaring things began to happen to me. At first, I went through all of the antics of self-analysis about how my heart was wrong. But the prevailing thought that kept cropping up was the idea that I was “too smart for my own good.”

Much wrestling was done with this until I continued to let Scripture say over and over what it was going to say. I became so immersed in Scripture at the expense of some critics who said I was “Word” only and no Spirit. What I learned through that little trial was that those who violate the harmony and context of Scripture don’t have nearly as much “Spirit” as what they perceive they have. It was through this that I gravitated toward the understanding that a man was not a greater authority than what Scripture was or stood for. So through all of this process, I started holding myself to a higher level of ministry of the Word through the preparation process. In doing this some things began to prevail in my mind about preaching the Word.

Context Is Everything!

I came to understand that context of the passage is paramount. I begin to look at the way I preached and particularly how I listened to others preach through the lens of context. I became so radical about my own preaching and diligently worked to make sure I had the context correct. In fact I realized that if I was going to preach the context of the passage there were some of my own sermons I had to toss in the junk-pile. They did not hold true to Scripture! I had simply taken a Scripture reference and then leaped from a tall pulpit into the never-lands of frothdom.

These “sermons” were fantastic, brilliant, funny, exciting and “successful” messages but they were not from God because I had taken His Word and made it say something it wasn’t intended to say. I had to find a place of repentance because I had violated the last commandment in the Book. It clearly states, “don’t add anything to it or take anything away from it” (Rev. 22:19) because the man who does is in serious danger of missing Heaven. I know. . . I know. . . I can hear it now, “Stretching it a bit aren’t you, Philip?” That depends. . . . It all depends on how much you value Scripture and how much regard you hold for God. Frankly my thoughts troubled me in that I had violated the first of the Ten Commandments. I had not made God into a graven image I had just made Him something that He was not. Oh we shouted and had a big time but it was inaccurate preaching because the context was violated.

This is the danger in “thought” preaching or “thought” getting. I would hear a message and then I would get that magic “thought” and work it out without regard for the context or harmony of Scripture. For those who have been reading these blogs, I won’t you to understand that I will continue to preach topically (because it is not a mortal sin) but I will remember to give much regard to the context of the passage.

One day as I listened to someone preaching (interestingly at a conference level), I begin to have some lingering doubts about a passage that was being “preached.” Much enlightenment came to me when I understood that Matthew 18 had nothing to do with a holy huddle of two or three agreeing that God was going to rain fire down from Heaven (or the Holy Ghost, or revival, or healing, or money). This passage has everything to do with church discipline. It is literally illustrated by Paul in 1 Corinthians 5 when he removes an unrepentant, sinning “brother” from the Church. When one isolates Matthew 18:18-19 and lifts it out of its proper setting suddenly the sky is the limit for whatever you want God to be and do for you. Essentially what happens is the preacher has suddenly made God something He is not.

The next example I give was not so much something I heard preached but was used as a line of reasoning for ministers who had gotten into moral failure. I would be addressed in a manner like this, “Rev. A. has ‘fallen’ into sin. He is a good man and his pulpit ministry needs to be restored.” Then the line of reasoning would be “the gifts and callings of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29) they would smugly say and then continue on about restoring such an one who had had fallen (Galatians 6:1). Look deeper in the context of Romans 11 and you will find that this has nothing to do with ministry but with Israel’s final welfare in God’s plan. As for the Galatians passage, this has reference to a man being restored to a position of salvation but not leadership responsibilities. To garner the direction for ministry, the patterns of the book of Acts and the Pastoral epistles have to serve as guidance. Where Scripture apparently makes no assertions, it is my thoughts that his is a mortal mistake to make in the general and overall welfare of the Church.

These are the two prevailing examples of many that came to mind. It just does not fare well in the long run to constantly violate the principles of context. Again, please don’t get the idea that I am opposed to topical preaching because I am not and will continue to do it most likely on a regular basis. However, I am entirely opposed to preaching that is out of context of what the real intent of the Biblical writer is stating.

Personality Can Trump the Bible

Another thing that I discovered is that the personality of the preacher can trump the Bible. One day a little book came in the mail that was written by a man who had experienced much success (i.e., miracles, signs, wonders, evangelism, sacrifice, etc.). Comparatively speaking, his ministry was like a 10,000 lumen candle power to my little two double-A battery penlight. The light off of his ministry was overwhelming. In fact, there were times that I had sat and heard stories about his sacrifice and success and then in response drug my miserable, much-loathed soul to an altar and wept, snotted, and cried in much repentance about how little I had done.
But as I read the little book, I begin to pick up on some unsettling things. At the time, I had no idea what “divine flesh” was but I was familiar with Gnosticism because of some studies that I had been through in Colossians. As I read this book, it troubled me that a great personality was apparently aberrant in his theology. In my mind, it was more than just a quibbling about some personal conviction. His view was entirely changing the scope and practice of Jesus Christ, in fact his “Jesus” had not blood, merely an emanation from God. I wrestled up and down with this. I remembered the miracles et al and wondered privately and later aloud to some elder ministers about this. The great lesson in this was that a personality, no matter how seeming successful they may be cannot trump the Word of God. Miracles are not a seal of approval on false doctrine.

As time has passed, I came to the conclusion that good theology will put steel in your mind and in your backbone. The more theology you understand and know, you can say, “You’re preposterous claims have no Scriptural foundations.” Brothers, whether we realize it or not, we need this kind of mentality in our days. We need the gumption, as they say, to gently confront but deal with error in a very measured way.

I have written in the past about how that Hebrews 13:17 indicates that I will have to give a specific account for the church I am called to pastor. It will be very uncomfortable and chilling on that day for the Lord to ask me “What did you do with the Church I gave you to pastor?” if I have been negligent with doctrine. A pastor has the great responsibility to not allow his own personality or that of another “successful” minister to corrupt the flock with faulty theology. Brothers, expository preaching will open you up to a greater awareness of your responsibilities and it will increase your knowledge of the Bible exponentially.

More to come. . . thanks for reading. . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

Planned Preaching????!!!!! — Part 7

With this next post I want to give you a few things that have been useful to me as far as the preparation process for actually putting a lengthy series together.

1. Read the Book!

First, read the Book! It is important for you to read the whole book of whatever you are working with. If you choose to begin with 1st John, you should read that epistle daily. It takes about 25 minutes to read through 1st John but as you read it repetitively there is an ability that you develop through the rote of it that helps you to cross-reference the chapters because you are familiar with Scripture.

On a side note concerning reading the Bible: You can break up the Bible into segments and read it through 30 times in about 2 ½ years. The way this works is you should take for instance 1st John and read its 5 chapters every day for 30 days. Then go to Philippians and read it entirely every day for 30 days. To alternate the shorter books with longer ones, then go to Matthew and read chapters 1-8 every day for 30 days. By breaking the NT up into segments like this, when you read it repetitively like this, you will be amazed at how much you can memorize actually through the daily process of it. As you move on through the NT, cross-referencing becomes very easily done. This is a great strength of the study method for expository preaching.

In addition to reading the book you have selected, it is very important to look into the historical background and allow that to develop a geographical picture in your mind. When I did this with Corinthians, the historical data that I gathered brought me to the idea that Corinth was apparently like Las Vegas or New Orleans with all of the flagrant sins in those places. When I did this with Ephesians, I came away with the idea that Ephesus was somewhat sophisticated but given to much idolatry. They were a society that was advanced financially because of the commercial trade routes (by sea and land) that ran through the city. While not exactly like Wall Street, you can see some similarities between the two. Interestingly, scoffers of preaching and the Bible say that neither is relevant for our day. But what could be more relevant to our society than solid instructions from the Word that will revive the heart into spiritual life?

In fact, for those who say that we have made technological advances that have outpaced the Bible, I would strongly disagree with you. Abortion is not new to our days. The Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and the Romans (among others) all practiced abortion. The principles of Scripture condemn this no matter if it is an ancient society or a “modern” one. This is just one example among many. The real difficulty is that very few people allow themselves to think logically with principles in our times. It is a matter of convenience and ignorance.

A lot of this kind of information can be found in OT Surveys, NT Surveys, Bible encyclopedias, and Bible dictionaries. Commentaries usually have introductions to each book and there is also valuable information that is contained there. You just have to work and stay in your seat until you dig it out. There are no shortcuts to great preaching.

You might also want to consider alternate translations to read through the book you are working with. I have found that the NASB, J. B. Phillips, James Moffatt, and sometimes The Message can be valuable to help me further focus on greater details in the book.

2. Break the Book Up into Main Ideas

Now back to the plan of actually doing it. First, read the Book. Secondly, break up the passages into main ideas. You can do this by resorting to an outline or you can pick out key words and allow this to drive your message. I have come appreciate study Bibles that break up the books into paragraphs (NASB; NIV; ESV, etc.). The paragraphs allow you to determine the subject matter and then progress from there.

The new ESV breaks up 1st John in the following manner with the use of paragraphs:

1:1-4 — The Word of Life
1:5-10 — Walking In the Light
2:1-6 — Christ Our Advocate
2:7-14 — The New Covenant
2:15-17 — Do Not Love the World
2:18-26 — Warning Against Antichrists
2:28-3:10 — Children of God
3:11-24 — Love One Another
4:1-6 — Test the Spirits
4:7-21 — God Is Love
5:1-5 — Overcoming the World
5:6-12 — Testimony Concerning the Son of God
5:13-20 — That You May Know

This can be very helpful in helping to set up the main ideas. Now, I have a tendency to over-do things and I have with my 1st John series. I have just finished 3:3 and have 17 different messages. In fact, I managed to pull from 2:15-17 three messages. In 2:15, “The Love that God Hates,” in 2:16, “Why a Saint Cannot Love the World,” and in 2:17, “The Cardiology of Worldliness.” These three turned into a five Sunday night series back in the summer month of June. I will be honest in saying that I was literally stunned at the results. I was able to simply walk through Scripture and plead with people about how important it was for us not to love the world and to give our lives entirely to God.

Since I have those strong Pentecostal roots and feel that altar services are still important, on all five Sunday nights in June there were very lengthy times of prayer after the preaching. I am spoiled by the church that I preach in weekly because of their hunger for the Word and then their response to the Word. I have almost refused entirely to resort to Powerpoint Scriptures on the screen because I want people to bring their Bibles to church. If we have guests, I encourage those standing nearby to share their Bible. As for the altar services, they all lasted at least 45 minutes (a couple went well beyond an hour) and ¾’s of our church was involved in them.

As mentioned previously, expository preaching is not a running commentary of random thoughts on different things that come to the mind of the preacher while he is studying. When you isolate the ideas, then you begin to work with the main idea. If there are any suitable subtopics in the passage you can work with these also.

3. Take the Main Idea and Work It Out

The next step is to take the passage that you are working with and press it through the rigors of observation, meditation, and interpretation. By doing this you allow the Word to develop the message instead of having to hunt down warm fuzzy stories, video clips, and a host of other lesser substitutes. There is a famine in the land not of bread but the Words of God (Amos 8:11-12). I do not want to be a man in a pulpit who endorses the famine of the Word by preaching Guideposts sorts of sermons.

As for the application aspect, you may consider these questions.

• Are there examples to follow?
• Are there commands to obey?
• Are there errors to avoid?
• Are there sins to forsake?
• Are there promises to claim?
• Are there new thoughts about God?
• Are there principles to live by?

I will say that if you have perused some of my Ephesians notes or the 1st John notes you probably did not notice the application aspects. I purposely did not place them in the actual notes but wrote in the margins and on the preceding pages.

These three main steps have multiple different components to them that I have not included. My interest is to encourage you to simply begin. I will continue to preach topical messages but I will balance it with expository messages because this has to be the backbone of my preaching/teaching. It sheds great light on our days.

I want to encourage you on two things. First, you may begin a series and then back out because it is tedious and demanding. Don’t lose heart, it happened to me on one of the early series I started in Matthew. I started and quit in grave frustration. But a little while later, I picked up Ephesians and discovered that my stumbling steps in Matthew were useful to help me in Ephesians. Secondly, you will have to train your congregation to get used to this kind of preaching. If you have some hearty soul who has been saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost, they may accuse you of being “Baptist” with your approach. Luckily I am in a church that has this kind of teaching for 40 years and they are used to it. However, my strong response to that claim (and I have told a few preachers this before who determined to “straighten” me out) is what Paul told the Ephesians elders in Acts 20:27. “I have not shunned to declare until you all the counsel of God.” All means all. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. . . I intend on preaching every verse of it!

Lastly, I know some of you may know Brother John Harrell in Bridge City, Texas. He is a tremendous preacher whom I have grown to know and love over the past 10 years. I managed to get a tape catalog years ago of his preaching in Bridge City and I leave this example to encourage you for where you are serving. He preached lengthy series through Genesis, Luke, and Ephesians. In addition to this he also preached lengthy series through the life of David and Peter.

Now just go and preach. . . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

Planned Preaching????!!!!! — Part 7

With this next post I want to give you a few things that have been useful to me as far as the preparation process for actually putting a lengthy series together.

1. Read the Book!

First, read the Book! It is important for you to read the whole book of whatever you are working with. If you choose to begin with 1st John, you should read that epistle daily. It takes about 25 minutes to read through 1st John but as you read it repetitively there is an ability that you develop through the rote of it that helps you to cross-reference the chapters because you are familiar with Scripture.

On a side note concerning reading the Bible: You can break up the Bible into segments and read it through 30 times in about 2 ½ years. The way this works is you should take for instance 1st John and read its 5 chapters every day for 30 days. Then go to Philippians and read it entirely every day for 30 days. To alternate the shorter books with longer ones, then go to Matthew and read chapters 1-8 every day for 30 days. By breaking the NT up into segments like this, when you read it repetitively like this, you will be amazed at how much you can memorize actually through the daily process of it. As you move on through the NT, cross-referencing becomes very easily done. This is a great strength of the study method for expository preaching.

In addition to reading the book you have selected, it is very important to look into the historical background and allow that to develop a geographical picture in your mind. When I did this with Corinthians, the historical data that I gathered brought me to the idea that Corinth was apparently like Las Vegas or New Orleans with all of the flagrant sins in those places. When I did this with Ephesians, I came away with the idea that Ephesus was somewhat sophisticated but given to much idolatry. They were a society that was advanced financially because of the commercial trade routes (by sea and land) that ran through the city. While not exactly like Wall Street, you can see some similarities between the two. Interestingly, scoffers of preaching and the Bible say that neither is relevant for our day. But what could be more relevant to our society than solid instructions from the Word that will revive the heart into spiritual life?

In fact, for those who say that we have made technological advances that have outpaced the Bible, I would strongly disagree with you. Abortion is not new to our days. The Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and the Romans (among others) all practiced abortion. The principles of Scripture condemn this no matter if it is an ancient society or a “modern” one. This is just one example among many. The real difficulty is that very few people allow themselves to think logically with principles in our times. It is a matter of convenience and ignorance.

A lot of this kind of information can be found in OT Surveys, NT Surveys, Bible encyclopedias, and Bible dictionaries. Commentaries usually have introductions to each book and there is also valuable information that is contained there. You just have to work and stay in your seat until you dig it out. There are no shortcuts to great preaching.

You might also want to consider alternate translations to read through the book you are working with. I have found that the NASB, J. B. Phillips, James Moffatt, and sometimes The Message can be valuable to help me further focus on greater details in the book.

2. Break the Book Up into Main Ideas

Now back to the plan of actually doing it. First, read the Book. Secondly, break up the passages into main ideas. You can do this by resorting to an outline or you can pick out key words and allow this to drive your message. I have come appreciate study Bibles that break up the books into paragraphs (NASB; NIV; ESV, etc.). The paragraphs allow you to determine the subject matter and then progress from there.

The new ESV breaks up 1st John in the following manner with the use of paragraphs:

1:1-4 — The Word of Life
1:5-10 — Walking In the Light
2:1-6 — Christ Our Advocate
2:7-14 — The New Covenant
2:15-17 — Do Not Love the World
2:18-26 — Warning Against Antichrists
2:28-3:10 — Children of God
3:11-24 — Love One Another
4:1-6 — Test the Spirits
4:7-21 — God Is Love
5:1-5 — Overcoming the World
5:6-12 — Testimony Concerning the Son of God
5:13-20 — That You May Know

This can be very helpful in helping to set up the main ideas. Now, I have a tendency to over-do things and I have with my 1st John series. I have just finished 3:3 and have 17 different messages. In fact, I managed to pull from 2:15-17 three messages. In 2:15, “The Love that God Hates,” in 2:16, “Why a Saint Cannot Love the World,” and in 2:17, “The Cardiology of Worldliness.” These three turned into a five Sunday night series back in the summer month of June. I will be honest in saying that I was literally stunned at the results. I was able to simply walk through Scripture and plead with people about how important it was for us not to love the world and to give our lives entirely to God.

Since I have those strong Pentecostal roots and feel that altar services are still important, on all five Sunday nights in June there were very lengthy times of prayer after the preaching. I am spoiled by the church that I preach in weekly because of their hunger for the Word and then their response to the Word. I have almost refused entirely to resort to Powerpoint Scriptures on the screen because I want people to bring their Bibles to church. If we have guests, I encourage those standing nearby to share their Bible. As for the altar services, they all lasted at least 45 minutes (a couple went well beyond an hour) and ¾’s of our church was involved in them.

As mentioned previously, expository preaching is not a running commentary of random thoughts on different things that come to the mind of the preacher while he is studying. When you isolate the ideas, then you begin to work with the main idea. If there are any suitable subtopics in the passage you can work with these also.

3. Take the Main Idea and Work It Out

The next step is to take the passage that you are working with and press it through the rigors of observation, meditation, and interpretation. By doing this you allow the Word to develop the message instead of having to hunt down warm fuzzy stories, video clips, and a host of other lesser substitutes. There is a famine in the land not of bread but the Words of God (Amos 8:11-12). I do not want to be a man in a pulpit who endorses the famine of the Word by preaching Guideposts sorts of sermons.

As for the application aspect, you may consider these questions.

• Are there examples to follow?
• Are there commands to obey?
• Are there errors to avoid?
• Are there sins to forsake?
• Are there promises to claim?
• Are there new thoughts about God?
• Are there principles to live by?

I will say that if you have perused some of my Ephesians notes or the 1st John notes you probably did not notice the application aspects. I purposely did not place them in the actual notes but wrote in the margins and on the preceding pages.

These three main steps have multiple different components to them that I have not included. My interest is to encourage you to simply begin. I will continue to preach topical messages but I will balance it with expository messages because this has to be the backbone of my preaching/teaching. It sheds great light on our days.

I want to encourage you on two things. First, you may begin a series and then back out because it is tedious and demanding. Don’t lose heart, it happened to me on one of the early series I started in Matthew. I started and quit in grave frustration. But a little while later, I picked up Ephesians and discovered that my stumbling steps in Matthew were useful to help me in Ephesians. Secondly, you will have to train your congregation to get used to this kind of preaching. If you have some hearty soul who has been saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost, they may accuse you of being “Baptist” with your approach. Luckily I am in a church that has this kind of teaching for 40 years and they are used to it. However, my strong response to that claim (and I have told a few preachers this before who determined to “straighten” me out) is what Paul told the Ephesians elders in Acts 20:27. “I have not shunned to declare until you all the counsel of God.” All means all. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. . . I intend on preaching every verse of it!

Lastly, I know some of you may know Brother John Harrell in Bridge City, Texas. He is a tremendous preacher whom I have grown to know and love over the past 10 years. I managed to get a tape catalog years ago of his preaching in Bridge City and I leave this example to encourage you for where you are serving. He preached lengthy series through Genesis, Luke, and Ephesians. In addition to this he also preached lengthy series through the life of David and Peter.

Now just go and preach. . . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

Planned Preaching????!!!!! — Part 6

The last post on expository preaching was about some tools that encouraged me to get into verse-by-verse teaching. Let me allay the concerns of some who may be reading these posts, I am not speaking of an off-the-cuff rambling from one verse to the next and making varied comments about all sorts of things that come to the preacher’s mind. I am speaking of working through a paragraph or a passage where the context is intent on enlightening us about what God has to say about things.

When one does this sort of teaching, doctrinal understanding is heightened and a God-focused ministry of the Word will prevail. It will prevail against theological liberalism, doctrinal shallowness, and things that are shades of gray will become very clearly black and white. Our gray thinking world and even some gray-thinking saints will not appreciate the firm and clear directives that the Bible speaks specifically on. Gray-thinking creates an atmosphere for “out of season” preaching as Paul encouraged Timothy to give himself to. There will be times that our preaching will be “in season” and there will be other times that it is as if we are pulling a wagon up a hill. This is “out of season” preaching that is required of the man whom God has called to preach.

Some more tools that I have found very valuable in helping me work through passages of Scripture are books that help one to understand the nuances of the Greek language. My interaction with the Greek language has been challenging, difficult, maddening, and yet very provocative and helpful. I begin in 1991 with a Greek class taught by Brother Hunt at TBC. We began with the alphabet, worked with parsing words, and rote memorization. However in all of that, there was an understanding about how to use Strong’s Greek numbers in his concordance and the Thayer’s lexicon. Grasping the ability to use that was extremely helpful and for at least a year beginning in July 1992, I would do word studies on different passages in the Bible. I first started with the Sermon on the Mount and then skipped over to Ephesians.

Word studies can be wearying and exacting but I pressed on with it and found many things that added content to preaching and teaching. I will never forget one of those “aha” moments that struck my soul when I started working with the word “temple” in the NT. I won’t spoil the inspiration for you. I would encourage you to find it on your own but it was a very powerful concept that was opened to me.

Another word that so struck me was the word “tare” in Matthew 13. There are huge implications when one looks into the thoughts of the darnel in comparison to the wheat. The comparisons and contrasts from the weeds and the wheat in reference to a true saint make for fine preaching! These are only two of the vast treasures that I mined out by doing Greek word studies.

I mention one more to help you to see the importance of it helping you. In Ephesians 6, Paul lays out the order of the armor. He mentions the breastplate of righteousness and then the belt of truth. I found out by doing word studies that the breastplate was worthless without the belt. The breastplate was made in such a fashion that it attached to the belt so that it would remain secure. If the belt was not in place the breastplate had no security. Righteousness (holiness) is very dependent on truth (doctrine). Some lament the emphasis on holiness and others decry the emphasis on doctrine. However, Paul clearly stipulated that a Roman soldier would not go into battle with one of these things missing. Doctrine and holiness secure each other! I dug this out of Thayer’s and Vincent’s word studies. Brothers, please understand that if you ever determine to dig into expository preaching in this manner it will transform the way you look at the Word.

Another helpful tool for me was a “hoss.” It is expensive and in the beginning stages very difficult to learn how to use. Knowing Greek is almost a requirement but if you don’t, this should not be something that stops you from buying it. I am speaking of Kittle’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. It is nine-volumes with a 10th index volume that is very helpful if you do not know Greek. It adds much to your understanding particularly in the background of certain words and what context that they were used in. Again, I have to tell you that this set of books will take some time to learn how to use them and they will not be books that you will use every time you are in preparation but they are still worth the investment.

Marvin Vincent, Vine’s, and Kenneth Weust all have books that are devoted to Greek word studies that can be very helpful. Spiros Zodhiates The Complete Wordstudy Dictionary – New Testament is also a good investment to make as it will provide insight. I would say that all of these books elevate the appreciation that a student ought to have for the Greek language (koine’).

Another helpful set of books was William Barclay’s Daily Study Bible. He spent a lot of time writing about the historical background of the text that I was working with and it was very valuable. Many times he would be able to open up a Greek word that Thayer’s and Strong’s were not as insightful about.

I am now going to list some things that will be helpful to you. I must always place in the sufficient disclaimer and say that my listing of these books does not mean that I endorse all that they have written. I expect that you will do as I do and that is read and study with a leaning toward discernment.

Study Bibles

Thompson Chain Reference KJV
The English Standard Version Study Bible (new from Crossway)
The MacArthur Study Bible NASB
The J. B. Phillips Translation of the New Testament
James Moffatt’s Translation of the Bible
The Archaeological Study Bible NIV

Systematic Theology

This sort of book is helpful to let you see how a particular subject is followed through all the way through Scripture. My primary exposure has been with only two and therefore I cannot say anything about other books of this nature.

Louis Berkhoff — Systematic Theology
Wayne Grudem — Systematic Theology

Hermeneutics

I used to scoff at this sort of thing but the longer I live the more important I have come to understand the context of the passage. Books on hermeneutics can give you some good tips as to making sure that you get it right. There are numerous OT passages that have been brought into play by some who think they are for the modern day church. Hermeneutics will help you to determine what God was speaking to Israel and what applied to the Church. I might add that these books can be a task to read.

Daniel Seagraves — You Can Understand the Bible
Bernard Ramm — Protestant Biblical Interpretation

Single Volume Helps

These books are very good because they are often concise in their treatment of a book or passage but pack much power.

Harold Wilmington — Wilmington’s Guide to the Bible
J. Sidlow Baxter — Explore the Book

Life of Christ

Frederick Farrar — The Life of Christ (2 vols.)
G. Campbell Morgan — The Crises of the Christ; The Parables and Metaphors of Our Lord; and The Teachings of Christ
Dwight Pentecost — The Words and Works of Jesus Christ. (Section on John 15 is stunning especially on the pruning process.)

Commentaries

I will not list a lot of these because you will find that there are some you will warm up to and others that will be a waste of your time. Something I did learn about commentaries that I wished I would have learned earlier. I found out that because a commentary is listed as a “critical” commentary does not mean it is opposed to Scripture or detracting from Scripture, it simply means that it is very detailed in explaining its points. Commentaries fall into two categories: 1) Critical and 2) Devotional. A devotional commentary would be that of Matthew Henry and others like him. A critical commentary would be The Anchor Bible Commentary.

John MacArthur — The MacArthur New Testament Commentary
The Anchor Bible Commentary
The Pulpit Commentary — Very old but very helpful.
Keil and Delitsch — Commentary on the Old Testament

As you develop your habits, you will also develop your library. Again, you will find that when you start dropping your anchor into these waters, a lot of modern popular writers will lose their hold.

I know that some of you are probably thinking I am overboard with the studying that is required for this kind of preaching. I might add that up until almost 3 years ago now, I was working full-time at the hospital in a cath-lab as an RN. In addition to that I was on call, 7 days straight every other week. What I found out was that time is very valuable and a lot of it gets wasted on frivolous matters. You have to get a grip on your time and discipline yourself to being an ardent student of the Word.

There were a lot of late nights after my kids had gone to bed and my wife was reading in another part of the house that I was plowing on in a field that has given many a harvest. I watched the doctors I worked with and how disciplined they were about always reading and going to seminars to learn to perform their tasks better and it motivated me to do the same with ministry. Most of the doctors that I worked with easily spent 60-70 hours a week in the hospital or the clinic. I used that as spiritual steam to motivate me toward something excellent. When I read of Mike Shanahan (coach of the Denver Broncos) and Bill Cowher (former coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers) spending 70-75 hours a week working for their teams, I let that motivate me. They are reaching for corruptible crowns. . . . I made it my intentions to reach for an incorruptible one to hear the words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant. . .”

God Bless and thanks for reading. . . . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

Planned Preaching????!!!!! — Part 6

The last post on expository preaching was about some tools that encouraged me to get into verse-by-verse teaching. Let me allay the concerns of some who may be reading these posts, I am not speaking of an off-the-cuff rambling from one verse to the next and making varied comments about all sorts of things that come to the preacher’s mind. I am speaking of working through a paragraph or a passage where the context is intent on enlightening us about what God has to say about things.

When one does this sort of teaching, doctrinal understanding is heightened and a God-focused ministry of the Word will prevail. It will prevail against theological liberalism, doctrinal shallowness, and things that are shades of gray will become very clearly black and white. Our gray thinking world and even some gray-thinking saints will not appreciate the firm and clear directives that the Bible speaks specifically on. Gray-thinking creates an atmosphere for “out of season” preaching as Paul encouraged Timothy to give himself to. There will be times that our preaching will be “in season” and there will be other times that it is as if we are pulling a wagon up a hill. This is “out of season” preaching that is required of the man whom God has called to preach.

Some more tools that I have found very valuable in helping me work through passages of Scripture are books that help one to understand the nuances of the Greek language. My interaction with the Greek language has been challenging, difficult, maddening, and yet very provocative and helpful. I begin in 1991 with a Greek class taught by Brother Hunt at TBC. We began with the alphabet, worked with parsing words, and rote memorization. However in all of that, there was an understanding about how to use Strong’s Greek numbers in his concordance and the Thayer’s lexicon. Grasping the ability to use that was extremely helpful and for at least a year beginning in July 1992, I would do word studies on different passages in the Bible. I first started with the Sermon on the Mount and then skipped over to Ephesians.

Word studies can be wearying and exacting but I pressed on with it and found many things that added content to preaching and teaching. I will never forget one of those “aha” moments that struck my soul when I started working with the word “temple” in the NT. I won’t spoil the inspiration for you. I would encourage you to find it on your own but it was a very powerful concept that was opened to me.

Another word that so struck me was the word “tare” in Matthew 13. There are huge implications when one looks into the thoughts of the darnel in comparison to the wheat. The comparisons and contrasts from the weeds and the wheat in reference to a true saint make for fine preaching! These are only two of the vast treasures that I mined out by doing Greek word studies.

I mention one more to help you to see the importance of it helping you. In Ephesians 6, Paul lays out the order of the armor. He mentions the breastplate of righteousness and then the belt of truth. I found out by doing word studies that the breastplate was worthless without the belt. The breastplate was made in such a fashion that it attached to the belt so that it would remain secure. If the belt was not in place the breastplate had no security. Righteousness (holiness) is very dependent on truth (doctrine). Some lament the emphasis on holiness and others decry the emphasis on doctrine. However, Paul clearly stipulated that a Roman soldier would not go into battle with one of these things missing. Doctrine and holiness secure each other! I dug this out of Thayer’s and Vincent’s word studies. Brothers, please understand that if you ever determine to dig into expository preaching in this manner it will transform the way you look at the Word.

Another helpful tool for me was a “hoss.” It is expensive and in the beginning stages very difficult to learn how to use. Knowing Greek is almost a requirement but if you don’t, this should not be something that stops you from buying it. I am speaking of Kittle’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. It is nine-volumes with a 10th index volume that is very helpful if you do not know Greek. It adds much to your understanding particularly in the background of certain words and what context that they were used in. Again, I have to tell you that this set of books will take some time to learn how to use them and they will not be books that you will use every time you are in preparation but they are still worth the investment.

Marvin Vincent, Vine’s, and Kenneth Weust all have books that are devoted to Greek word studies that can be very helpful. Spiros Zodhiates The Complete Wordstudy Dictionary – New Testament is also a good investment to make as it will provide insight. I would say that all of these books elevate the appreciation that a student ought to have for the Greek language (koine’).

Another helpful set of books was William Barclay’s Daily Study Bible. He spent a lot of time writing about the historical background of the text that I was working with and it was very valuable. Many times he would be able to open up a Greek word that Thayer’s and Strong’s were not as insightful about.

I am now going to list some things that will be helpful to you. I must always place in the sufficient disclaimer and say that my listing of these books does not mean that I endorse all that they have written. I expect that you will do as I do and that is read and study with a leaning toward discernment.

Study Bibles

Thompson Chain Reference KJV
The English Standard Version Study Bible (new from Crossway)
The MacArthur Study Bible NASB
The J. B. Phillips Translation of the New Testament
James Moffatt’s Translation of the Bible
The Archaeological Study Bible NIV

Systematic Theology

This sort of book is helpful to let you see how a particular subject is followed through all the way through Scripture. My primary exposure has been with only two and therefore I cannot say anything about other books of this nature.

Louis Berkhoff — Systematic Theology
Wayne Grudem — Systematic Theology

Hermeneutics

I used to scoff at this sort of thing but the longer I live the more important I have come to understand the context of the passage. Books on hermeneutics can give you some good tips as to making sure that you get it right. There are numerous OT passages that have been brought into play by some who think they are for the modern day church. Hermeneutics will help you to determine what God was speaking to Israel and what applied to the Church. I might add that these books can be a task to read.

Daniel Seagraves — You Can Understand the Bible
Bernard Ramm — Protestant Biblical Interpretation

Single Volume Helps

These books are very good because they are often concise in their treatment of a book or passage but pack much power.

Harold Wilmington — Wilmington’s Guide to the Bible
J. Sidlow Baxter — Explore the Book

Life of Christ

Frederick Farrar — The Life of Christ (2 vols.)
G. Campbell Morgan — The Crises of the Christ; The Parables and Metaphors of Our Lord; and The Teachings of Christ
Dwight Pentecost — The Words and Works of Jesus Christ. (Section on John 15 is stunning especially on the pruning process.)

Commentaries

I will not list a lot of these because you will find that there are some you will warm up to and others that will be a waste of your time. Something I did learn about commentaries that I wished I would have learned earlier. I found out that because a commentary is listed as a “critical” commentary does not mean it is opposed to Scripture or detracting from Scripture, it simply means that it is very detailed in explaining its points. Commentaries fall into two categories: 1) Critical and 2) Devotional. A devotional commentary would be that of Matthew Henry and others like him. A critical commentary would be The Anchor Bible Commentary.

John MacArthur — The MacArthur New Testament Commentary
The Anchor Bible Commentary
The Pulpit Commentary — Very old but very helpful.
Keil and Delitsch — Commentary on the Old Testament

As you develop your habits, you will also develop your library. Again, you will find that when you start dropping your anchor into these waters, a lot of modern popular writers will lose their hold.

I know that some of you are probably thinking I am overboard with the studying that is required for this kind of preaching. I might add that up until almost 3 years ago now, I was working full-time at the hospital in a cath-lab as an RN. In addition to that I was on call, 7 days straight every other week. What I found out was that time is very valuable and a lot of it gets wasted on frivolous matters. You have to get a grip on your time and discipline yourself to being an ardent student of the Word.

There were a lot of late nights after my kids had gone to bed and my wife was reading in another part of the house that I was plowing on in a field that has given many a harvest. I watched the doctors I worked with and how disciplined they were about always reading and going to seminars to learn to perform their tasks better and it motivated me to do the same with ministry. Most of the doctors that I worked with easily spent 60-70 hours a week in the hospital or the clinic. I used that as spiritual steam to motivate me toward something excellent. When I read of Mike Shanahan (coach of the Denver Broncos) and Bill Cowher (former coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers) spending 70-75 hours a week working for their teams, I let that motivate me. They are reaching for corruptible crowns. . . . I made it my intentions to reach for an incorruptible one to hear the words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant. . .”

God Bless and thanks for reading. . . . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul