Here we step firmly into the realm of opinion. I believe in preaching through books of the Bible. I firmly believe that is the healthiest form of preaching for churches. I know that there are lots of other styles that are favored by other preachers. Let me tell you why I think this form is the healthiest.
When I was growing up, I thought the New Testament epistles were something like the book of Proverbs, a series of generally unrelated statements that were placed together. I would hear a verse quoted from this book, then one from that book, then this verse from another. I had no idea that the letters had a flow to them, that arguments were being created by the author, building on ideas presented earlier. Context was a foreign concept to me.
Those were the days of the slide rule Bible verse tools for personal workers. Want to talk about infant baptism? Here are some verses. Need to explain why we meet on Sunday? Here are the verses. Naturally, when I went to prepare my first sermon, I turned to a concordance. How else could I find all the verses that talk about a certain subject?
That’s part of the reason I feel the real need to model something different from the pulpit. To say, “This is the text that we’re going to wrestle with today, not to get my thoughts, but to try and hear God’s voice.” People need to see that the Bible isn’t a reference book where we go to find information on this subject or that subject; the Bible defines the subject, then gives us the information.
I believe that preaching through an entire book of the Bible forces the preacher to address subjects he wouldn’t have touched on otherwise. In the same way, I believe such preaching gives the Holy Spirit more freedom to speak to the needs of the congregation. I’ve seen time and again the situation where the preacher is merely dealing with the next part of the book being presented, yet the subject matter is exactly what was needed at that moment in time. This also gives the preacher the freedom to present that word without charges of subjectivity; the topic hasn’t been chosen because of any one person or situation. No one is asking, “I wonder what happened this week to make him feel like he needed to talk about that?”
We also find that the Holy Spirit knows how to arrange things better than we do. He will lead us, as we work our way through Titus, to teach grace in order to produce works; my human wisdom would have never thought to do so. He will balance the story of the Good Samaritan with the story of Mary and Martha, showing us that piety without service is inadequate, but so is service without piety. If we preach our way through biblical books, we will hear more of God’s voice and less of man’s.
On a personal level, I think the preacher is forced to grapple with God’s Word in ways that he wouldn’t otherwise. How does this passage relate to what’s been said before? How does it fit into the overall themes of the book? I was vividly reminded of that the last few weeks as I was working through Hebrews for the radio program I do. I’ve preached Hebrews 10:19-25 numerous times, yet never had the force of the text been made so clear to me as it was last week. Because I was thoroughly immersed in the previous chapters, I could present that passage with the message it was meant to convey.
I’m not convinced that the preacher can do that when dealing with multiple passages in a given lesson. And I’m afraid people come away more of the preacher’s thoughts and ideas than the Word of God.
There’s lots more that could be said, but it’s time for me to be quiet and listen a bit. I’m looking forward to hearing different perspectives on this subject.
Excellent points, Tim. One of the most important you mentioned is: “I believe that preaching through an entire book of the Bible forces the preacher to address subjects he wouldn’t have touched on otherwise.”
This. is. huge. Preaching through texts from start to finish should be the standard; allowing topical interjections if needed. So much of the Bible is ignored and we in the West are currently under a famine.
It also, as you mentioned, allows us to walk through a text as it was written, read, and heard to the first listeners. This begs us to walk with our ancestors and it also begs us to walk with those throughout church history who have wrestled with these texts. “Believe it or not, this is not the first time this egg has been cracked. Let’s dive in together.”
Good word, Tim.
Grace be with you –
Jr
Preaching through books requires the preacher and the congregation to encounter the Scriptures AS we’ve received them by faith.
The greatest part of my dilemma with the kind of thinking you so aptly described in the beginning of this piece is that it deconstructs the Scriptures, as we’ve received them, and reassembles them into a form that more neatly fits our worldview, our will, and our context.
If “the pattern God gave us” is as important as is typically asserted (and I believe it IS – but that THAT pattern has been obscured by years upon years of assembling and defending OTHER patterns), shouldn’t we treat the Scriptures *as they came to us* with respect for their pattern?
This post by John Mark Hicks convicted me deeply that I was reading Scripture very disrespectfully.
No one would imagine the early church at Ephesus or Corinth receiving a letter from Paul and just picking out a couple of verses to read and discuss.
I could not agree more! It also forces us to see our “proof texts” in context.
I’m all for textual preaching as opposed to the topical preaching that begins with a topic and then forces some text (or proof texts) to support that topic. But…
As the first person to comment on this thread thus far who preaches every Sunday with the same church (one sermon a week every Sunday morning), let me say that I am not for preaching through books. It is fine to preach through a book if we are talking about preaching through Ruth, Jonah, Philippians or 1 John because those books are very small and can be covered in a smaller amount of time. But what about books like Genesis, Isaiah, Matthew, or Romans? Depending on how the preacher divides the text up into passages of scripture to preach from, we are talking about a sermon series that could potentially take more than one year to complete.
Besides the enormously long time factor, there could be a few missional or pastoral circumstances taking place in the congregation that might warrant making a different text. For example, the preacher and elders might begin to notice a lot of selfish actions taking place among the assembly and decide that it is time to preach a small series on 1 Corinthians 12-14. Also, if we spend an entire year preaching through Matthew or Romans then that also means we have spent an entire year without preaching any sermons form the Old Testament (which is problematic).
I think what is more practical is to preach smaller series based on sections of scripture from various books. For example, this upcoming Christmas season, we might plan a short sermon series called “Beginnings” from Genesis 1-3 then we might follow that up with a short sermon series called “Saving Faith” from Romans 3-5. By doing this, we are still preaching textually but because the sermon series are shorter, it allows for more flexibility (and believe me, having flexibility and being flexible is essential).
Grace and Peace,
Rex
Having said just what I posted and generally having disdain for topical preaching (the kind that forces scripture to support the conclusion reached before hand), there are times when some topical preaching is warranted. Believers sitting in the church need to understand why praying is important, how to love one another, etc… and those are topics that we can certainly open scripture and let scripture speak too. So in such cases, I’m for the occasional topical series so long as we are still allowing scripture to shape our conclusions.
Rex,
I understand your concern. Some of this was taken care of in the days (which still exist in some places) where you had a large portion of your audience return on Sunday nights. I preached through Luke while in Stockdale, Texas. With interruptions, etc., it took about two years. Sunday evenings were used for topics.
Note that I said “interruptions, etc.” The concerns you mentioned could easily be taken care of by putting the series on hold for a short amount of time. Allowance can also be made for special days, etc.
I would repeat, however, that I’ve found that the Holy Spirit can often address these issues better than we. I’ve seen time and again how the timing of a series will often address the needs of a congregation. The clearest example I can point to is a situation we faced in Córdoba, Argentina. Some of the members wanted to change the meeting time to better fit their life situation, even though it would mean that a few of our younger men wouldn’t be able to make it because of their work. (They worked all night on Saturday; they could conceivably be physically present Sunday a.m., but wouldn’t be functional) Our Bible study through 1 Corinthians reached chapter 8 on the very Sunday when we were going to discuss the possible time change. After looking at Paul’s arguments in 1 Corinthians 8-10, the members wanted the change desisted, realizing that they weren’t thinking of the needs of their brothers.
Had I said, “We have this situation, so I’m going to preach about unselfishness,” I don’t think it would have had the same impact.
Grace and peace,
Tim
Tim,
You said, “I’ve found that the Holy Spirit can often address these issues better than we.”
Then why preach and teach? Why not just read the scripture without any homiletic or didactic exposition of the passage? Or is it possible that the Holy Spirit works through our preaching and teaching, including the decisions we make about how long or short a sermon series will be, what that series will cover, etc…?
For the record, I would not say to a church, “We have this situation, so I’m going to preach about unselfishness…” because that would likely put some, perhaps many, members in a defensive posture. If there was a problem of selfishness in the church, I might then preach a series from 1 Cor 12-14 so that the Spirit could do its work through that preaching.
Grace and Peace,
Rex
Tim, I couldn’t agree more. The method you describe is not very popular because it requires much more study and prep work.
Yes, it takes a lot of time. Radio preacher J Vernon McGee went through the Bible in 5 years, 25 or so minutes, 5 days a week, on his program. The late W A Criswell preached through the whole Bible in I think 12 years. What’s the problem? We have ’til Jesus comes?
In my view if we value all of scripture we should talk about all of it. I think a topical preacher could preach for 30 years every Sunday just on the New Testament and never mention over half of it. That is not good.
Most people in most of our congregations know precious little about theology. They know the talking points of coc distinctives but not much about the doctrines of justification, sanctification, the person and work of the Holy Spirit, the doctrine of salvation, etc. They learn those things if the preacher is an expositor who preaches through books of the Bible.
Nick, thanks for the link to John Mark Hicks on Stone-Campbell Hermeneutics!
Tim wrote, “If we preach our way through biblical books, we will hear more of God’s voice and less of man’s.” Let me add a big, hearty “AMEN!” to that sentiment (echoed in the comments above).
I can understand Rex’s concerns about a given series being “too long” – and concern that a year-long series on Matthew or Romans would neglect the Old Testament. However, a good study of Matthew or Romans would involve much of the Old Testament as both of these (as do most of the books of the New Testament) draw heavily on the OT. In fact, such a study helps us to put the Old Testament into context for our own study.
If I was going to do a full-out, all-the-way-through series on a book of the Bible like Isaiah or Matthew, I would rather teach it as a class Bible study. Even better would be to get a group of believers interested in a deeper textual (and theological) study of such book and invite them to my home where we could meet for a couple of hours and have some meaningful discussion too.
Rex,
I’ve wrestled with that in my life about how the Holy Spirit works in preaching decisions. Some would say that no preparation at all is best, for that leaves more room for the Spirit.
In my life and my experience, I find that the less micromanaging that I do, the more room there is for God to work. When I try to make the decisions about presenting this part or that part of the text, it becomes MY decision. (and yes, some of that is inevitable) When I say, “Here is God’s Word; I’m going to present it, do my best to help make the meaning clear, and trust God to use that Word,” I find that there is less of me in the process.
I also find the old saying to be true: “You can’t overhear the voice of God.” I can hear what he’s saying to me, not what he’s saying to you. I can only share how he’s spoken to me, to see if that somehow applies to you as well. When I say, “Here’s what these people need to hear,” I’m often wrong.
One other point: when you pick and choose the sections to present out of a book, you’re going to run the risk of falling into the trap of not preaching certain passages. Even when going through Luke, I was tempted to leave out the Parable of the Unjust Steward. Then I sat down and worked with the text and found it to be one of the richest messages that God had to speak to me. If I preach Romans 3-5, I’ll be leaving out a big part of what Paul wanted to communicate, both as the basis for that passage and what he built on top of that passage. I’m not presenting Paul’s full message.
The sermon vs. Bible class question gets back to yesterday’s question. To me, the best situation would be for the sermon to address a portion of Scripture, with the Bible classes analyzing the application of that Scripture. The church needs to hear large portions of the Scripture read aloud. Maybe reading long sections and preaching portions out of those sections would be the answer.
OK, I’m rambling…
As with others above, I whole-heartedly agree with preaching through an entire book, bones and fins included. That does not mean a painful grammatico-historical exegesis complete with color coded parsing of obscure Greek and Hebrew words. What it does mean is that we take each book we are preaching through as a coherent entity and making sure that each sermon topic (be it a verse, a sentence, a paragraph, or an entire chapter) is preached with integrity (literary, that is, although moral integrity is obviously assumed. :)
I would like to believe that my audience’s inablility to stay engaged with a study of 18-24 months has more to do with my frailty as a proclaimer of the message, and not the content of the message itself. I would also like to challenge my audience to lift their ability to remain focused for that length of time, rather than to assume their inability, and therefore to reinforce the (subtle) message that they are incapable of following a sustained reading of Scripture.
You will never create a valedictorian by endlessly telling a student that he or she is too stupid to learn. By telling our members that contextual Bible study is too difficult we reinforce the concept that they are not capable of such, so therefore why try? Expect success and your students will succeed.
Tim,
Great discussion. I also would agree that it is important to preach scripture by books but I also see a place for topics and believe a good mix is best. Many of the NT books are topical and very practical for their day. So if I teach a book that was practical for the time because I fear that too many sermons are trying to be practical for our time?
When John the Baptist was asked about the kingdom in his preaching he was very topical in his response and if I preach through Proverbs what would I say?
In my first full time ministry I preached through scripture. We had two services which allowed one from the OT and one from the NT each week. I guess since that time I have moved to a blending of the two. I also agree with Rex that you can study sections of scripture without doing an entire book. Different OT characters also allow for this.
As always enjoying the read.
Tim,
We may just need to agree to disagree on this but I do have one more question. When we read Paul’s epistles, what do we find? Granted that the epistles of Paul is not a sermon or teaching class but it is an extension of the way he instructs churches and that includes the writer responding to whatever issues were at hand, and utilizing the gospel story along with select scriptures to address the situation beginning with the theological side which segueways to the practical (the indicative to the imperative). Is the Holy Spirit not at work in this? Of course, the Spirit is at work in this. So can the Spirit not also be at work in our own preaching and teaching, to help us discern what sections/passages of scripture we might preach on? And why should we think that such discernment gets in the way of the Holy Spirit?
I mostly agree Rex. The answer to your question though could be answered if you had heard some of the rabbit chasing, unbiblical, topical sermons I have heard. A sincere yet untrained, and or immature, guy if he limits himself to one passage of scripture for a lesson, is more likely to find it’s truth and meaning than if he hops all around the Bible trying to prove some conclusion he started out with. Unfortunately that’s what too much preaching today is.
I certainly do not want more of those “rabbit chasing, unbiblical, topical sermons.” Almost all of my sermons stay within in one passage, as my intention is to preach a sermon based on what one particular passage is saying.
Rex,
You’ll be interested to know that, while I’m an advocate of preaching through a book, my sermons over the last few years have mirrored your practice. Since I’m gone a lot, I have hesitated to begin a longer study and have been doing sermons based around this passage or that passage.
I also think you can find passages where the original thought is being fleshed out in different situations and so using those passages helps in teaching the original text.