Recently I began preaching through whole segments of the Bible, just like I do in my Bible studies. Currently I have been preaching through the book of Galatians in our Sunday morning services. I must say this book was made for preaching, but so too is the whole Bible. Today I would just like too point out some of the reasons why we as Preachers resist this practice of preaching through books of the Bible. some of the things that stopped me from doing this initially.
- If I preach through whole books, I might miss the Spirit? As I type this, I see the fallacy of the statement. Considering the Bible to be Gods word and breathed out by Him, the only way we can miss the Spirit is to deviate from the text He has prescribed to us. Lets think about it this way. The way our Bibles have been laid out for us, is the way God has chosen to reveal to us. Wouldn’t it be a good thing to share that word after the pattern He has laid it down for us? Since I have undertaken this task, I’ve found as a preacher that I am forced to wrestle with the text at hand, and this cant be a bad thing! I’m certainly not claiming to have arrived at preaching by a long shot, but I’m finding the sermons to be richer in content since I’ve adopted this approach.
- Have you noticed that Preachers who never preach through whole books of the Bible end up getting stuck on one theme? Or worse yet we ignore large segments of the Bible, or truths we are not comfortable with. The sad thing is as Preachers we are not preaching the whole counsel of God. We become lob sided as we emphasize one aspect of the Bible as we neglect another. Very often as we preach through books of the Bible we do it with knees knocking as we ourselves are being convicted. A Preacher who is preaching under conviction is not going to be harsh and abrasive on others, but will preach with a greater reality. After Galatians I have 1 John in my sights. Consider as a hearer, whether you are putting yourself under expository preaching, or just topical all the time? if you are under topical, or as a Preacher are choosing the topical route, it wouldn’t hurt for you to look over the sermons and ask yourself, what truths of scripture am I neglecting? Have I become two one sided and are stuck on one theme? Am I purposefully neglecting or even subconsciously, neglecting truths of scripture? I believe as we devote ourselves to expository preaching and expository hearing we will be delivered from the symptom described by Paul in 2 Tim 4:1-6. of having our ears itched and itching ears.