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Nothing gets a debate going among preachers faster than the question “Are you preaching the Bible?” The question is so vague, because in all of my years I’ve never heard a pastor say NO! To get the true meaning of the question, you have to know who’s asking it.
For some people they mean, “Are you preaching long, from the King James, and screaming at me, telling me how worthless I am?”
For others they mean, “Are you preaching exegetically through whole books of the Bible? (Usually for a really long time)”
For others they mean, “Are you preaching on topics that are completely unhelpful to my everyday life but I consider them to be deep?”
And the last group means, “Are you preaching the Bible the way that I interpret it?”
I have to admit I struggle internally with this pressure to “preach the Bible.” Let me give you some brief background about my teaching style. From my first sermon I’ve always felt more comfortable preaching in a verse-by-verse exegetical style. It wasn’t something I was taught or told I had to do, but I tend to speak from the overflow of my devotions, so it usually is more verse-by-verse. As I began pastoring, I began to feel the strain of topical preaching about my people’s everyday experiences.
No one ever complained or told me I wasn’t being helpful, but I began to notice that I never talked about marriage, parenting, dating, conflict resolution, working hard, or financial budgets, and that’s where my people are day in and day out.
Initially I rejected it because it felt shallow and less spiritual, but after a few years I am coming around to the idea. Don’t get me wrong, everything we preach must be based heavily in the scriptures, but it doesn’t have to be either/or. You can do both. Jesus did both. He spent time quoting the Old Testament and explaining it, and he spent even more time telling stories about everyday things like a farmers, fisherman, and kids.
I have to work twice as hard on the topical sermons because it takes more craftsmanship putting the pieces together, and I try to work hard and not just do some Bible “word search,” but in the end I want to help people navigate through their week with some nuggets of truth, as much as I want them to understand the trinity.
Just because it’s based on a topic doesn’t mean it’s not Biblical.
When I hear bible teachers talking about how long they’ve been teaching through one book of the Bible, it just sounds like them bragging about how much they bench press. News flash, if you’ve been preaching through a book of the Bible every Sunday for longer than 3 or 4 months, CSPAN just called and they want you to come be a guest host.
What we’ve done to try and balance this at our church is rotate between verse-by-verse teaching and topical series. For example, from October to December last year we did a study on the life of David. This year it will be Joseph. In 2009 we preached through the book of Matthew taking a break every 4 or 5 weeks to do a topical series. In 2010 it was Exodus.
If all you ever do preach is exegetically, ask yourself “Do my people find my teaching helpful?” If all you ever do is preach topically, ask yourself “Are my people rooted in solid Biblical truths and knowledge?”
No matter which side of the argument you fall on, please, please, please, stop telling your people that some other pastor isn’t preaching the Bible. You’re just showing your insecurity.
About the author
Jason is the Teaching Pastor at River City Worship Center in Louisville KY, and owns a web development company Jbirdmedia. He wanted all boys until he had his daughter Sadie and now he wants 4 girls. You can follow him on twitter @jasonisaacs
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