When I was in preaching school (churches of Christ - Sunset School of Preaching in Lubbock, TX) we had a preaching competition (I know what you're thinking, so am I, but we still had it). My class nominated me to participate. I choose 2Corinthians 10:1-6. I quoted no other Scripture during my lesson. I lost by 1/2 point. One of the judges counted points off because I didn't quote other passages. Since then I haven't let that episode rule how I preach. In my "expository" preaching I stay pretty much with the text. Only when an obvious Scripture pops into my mind during study will I use it. I don't go to the concordance or topical Bibles looking for more Scripture to quote during a sermon.

During school we had a prominent preacher in our fellowship come and do a meeting. One of my classmates counted one night and there were 75 passages quoted from memory without turning to the passage quoted.

I'm looking forward to your handling of the Proverbs text. I like your two concerns in trying to figure out when to add other passages. I hope to remember and incorporate those concerns in my study.

I try to stay put in the text but have found that showing how the idea of the text is applied in other places of the Bible is helpful. For example, in a sermon from the life of Abraham I went (in my manuscript) to 2 Chronicles 20 and Isaiah 40(something) to show how later the Jews applied the lessons learned from Abraham's relationship with God. In the actual preaching I skipped over the Isaiah passage because 2 Chronicles adequately made the point.

I love this blog Steve you clearly know an aweful lot but am I right in thinking from your asides and comments that most weeks you only preach the one message. The reason I say this is because some of your thoughts are so good, but have to be balanced by virtue of the fact that I am writing two different sermons every week for my congregation. I wish it wern't so, so I could be more focused on the one message with all that entails.

Tell me will you provide any thoughts and helps for those of us who having poured everthing we can into one sermon have to do it all over again in the same week for the same day?

Great site, thanks for the inspiration

D.

I agree, the danger of topical preaching is that one may not sourcing EVERY scripture on a given topic, thus giving an inaccurate complete picture. Expositional preaching is safe because we know that no scripture contradicts another so we can go through and allowing God to guide us in the process. :) S

Soli Deo Gloria
Dan

DAVE: You're right . . . at this point in my ministry, I'm only preparing one sermon per week. I'd love to address your question about the challenge of preparing more than one sermon a week. It's such an important question that I'll dovote an entire post to it in the next couple weeks. In the meantime, it would help me know what the settings are for your two sermons. I'm assuming that one is for your main worship service(s) and the other is for a mid-week or a Sunday night service. Is that right?

"Remember, people learn how to read their Bibles from listening to your sermons!"

This is, unfortunately, a very true and frightening statement. When we point people to the biblical text and then proceed to present a message that is not God's message in that text, but one of our own creation, we have committed a grave sin. We have, in effect, overwritten - like using the insert key on our keyboard - God's TRUTH with our "truth". It does not matter how good our "truth" is, since we have, for our audience, deleted (possibly permanently) God's TRUTH in that text. God Himself condemns anyone who takes away from His Word, but that is unquestionably what is being done, dare I say, in most churches on a very regular basis.

Also, we are teaching people not to hear God's Voice in the Scriptures, but our's. The harmful results of this cannot be calculated. People will inevitably become confused by the disparity between what they read in the Bible and what we say it says. If they submit to our fabricated interpretations\applications they can only conclude that their understandings, which may actually be more faithful to God's meanings, are wrong, making the Bible too obscure for them to comprehend, and themselves wholly dependent upon the "spiritual" preacher who is able to discover such profound "hidden meanings" in the Bible. The long term results of this common practice has been to alienate people from studying God's Word, or to produce an "anything goes" attitude toward interpreting/applying the Scriptures. There is little doubt that much of the well-documented, massive biblical confusion existing in the church today originates from our pulpits.

Hi Steve

I look forward to that post as I'm finding your insights very helpful. Yes your right in your estimation we hold to seperate services on a Sunday most come for the morning, so return for the evening and some only come in the evening...we have a dwindling number in the evenings as well; a factor in many British churches today.

Grace n peace

Dave

ROY: Thanks for the follow-up words of warning. Every preacher should take them to heart.

DAVE: It's a privilege to interact with you and get first-hand insight about the challenges you face as a preacher in Great Britain. I'm interested in this because we have a several members of our congregation who hail from England, and a couple of them will be returning in the next year.