Expository Preaching - Guest Post by My Husband

Why do I believe so strongly in expository preaching? Because I believe it is the only right and proper way to truly preach the Bible. The scripture passage determines the subject and main point of the sermon. The passage verse by verse and thought by thought are the content of the sermon. This is true exposition.

99% or more of the churches in the USA do not preach this way. In the last 11 years since my last pastorate I have not been in a single church of any denomination that preaches this way every single week.

If we are going to preach the Bible we must preach it the way God gave it to us. It is His Word. It is His Message. If we go into and preach our ideas and thoughts then it is our message not God's. My ideas, my thoughts and my opinions are totally worthless in view of the inspired Word of God. My words do not save any souls. My words do not change any lives. My words to not have any eternal value. It is God's Word (The Bible) that saves souls, changes lives and have eternal value. Not mine.

As you can tell I am passionate about it and long to see pastors and churches truly get back to the Bible and trust the Holy Spirit to use it change people. I have seen it first hand and I long to see it again.

If it isn't in the passage is shouldn't be in the sermon. That has been my rule for the past 50 years since I preached my first sermon as a teenager. I believe every sermon should be a passage of Scripture not one verse and especially not one word. When you take a word or verse out of context you can very quickly lose its correct meaning. When you stay in the context of the surrounding verses, chapter and book then you are much more likely to have the correct interpretation, meaning and preaching.

It takes work and effort to preach expository sermons. It is much easier just to make up what you want to say instead of searching out the correct meaning of the verses. In my pastoring days I often struggled with passages to make sure I had it right. A couple of times I even rewrote my sermon notes on Saturday evening to make sure I preached it correctly on Sunday morning.

For the past 11 years of being out of full time ministry it has been extremely difficult and frustrating to listen to sermons Sunday after Sunday where the context and main point of the passage is discarded to that some man can pontificate their own thoughts and ideas that they are always sure that they are correct about. I have seen the Bible diluted and and actually massacred in pulpits across the country.

God help us to come back to the Bible. Only His Word gives life!

How do you know if a sermon you are listening to is expository? It is really not that hard.

1. Do they have a passage of scripture and do they stick to it? I like to have a passage that is 4-6 verses in length. That is not a hard and fast rule. It will be dictated by the passage itself. The authors think and write like we do. They have groups of thought. One group of thought should usually be one sermon. Much of the Bible was written in paragraphs. Those paragraphs usually contain one main thought. A sermon should never be just one word or just one verse. It needs to be taken in its complete context.

2. Does the preacher stick to that text for the whole sermon? Not to say that they can't refer to related or supporting verse elsewhere in the Bible. But that should be at a minimum. If they jump to another passage and stay there for more than a few minutes then it is no longer an expository sermon. I have seen preachers go to 20-30 other verses in one sermon. That gets confusing to the listener. You then lose the thrust of the passage being preached. They need to preach the passage based on the interpretation from the original languages. What does it mean in the original Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic? There are many great tools you can use to accomplish that even if you aren't a great Greek or Hebrew scholar.

3. Do they often or even continually quote commentaries? Commentaries are just that, someone else's comments or opinions. I can count on one hand the number of times I have quoted a commentary in a sermon. I rarely use them even in preparation. I have heard sermons almost completely made up of quotes from commentators. I don't want to hear other people's opinions. I can get that anytime I want on TV. I want God's Word and what does He say through His Word. Man will often be wrong. God will never be wrong.

4. Is the passage interpreted though the culture of that day? I will give 2 examples. First is marriage. You will understand the Bible's teaching on marriage more completely and simply if you understand how a Jewish marriage worked from betrothal until death. It is much different from what we are used to in the western world. Second is adoption. You have to understand adoption in the Jewish culture of the first century. Their adoption was nothing like our adoption. No children were ever adopted into a family. There was the "spirit of adoption" when every child reached adulthood. I was "born" into God's family (John 1:12 and John 3). I was NEVER adopted into God's family. No more than my natural born children were adopted into my family. They didn't need to be. Understand the culture of the day and you will better understand the Bible.

In Bonds of Calvary,

David

Sermons:

The book of Romans series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOTcKEmDMorAr2Em0exDjGp7rhIYj04Iu

The Church series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOTcKEmDMorA0A966m-oPvFpGstS5QTI_

Jonah series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOTcKEmDMorAGvW_cpqq-iEL27iqqMeUp

YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@versebyversebibleexpositio5817/playlists

Click this for more series and playlists.

Whose Word is it Anyway?

I heard a young man preach last Sunday. I think the young man has potential, but he has a lot to learn about preaching God's Word. Throughout his sermon, he repeated that this is God's Word, this is what God has said, etc. He reiterated this several times, yet when it came to the actual Word, he changed what God said. He turned it into his own words, but kept God's name on it, passing it off as God's. He preached his word to the people, claiming it was God's Word, but it wasn't at all.

Here's what he did. He took James 1:2, which says, "...count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience," and he changed it to say, "...count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith, when you have the proper response, when handled right, produces patience."

Do you see the difference? He added "when you have the proper response, when handled right" to God's Word, effectively turning his sermon into one of Secular Humanism instead of one of God.

Whose Word is it? When we muddy the clear, pure waters of God's Word with our own secular, humanistic ideas and pass them off as God's, we are not only leading the sheep down a dangerous path, we are jeopardizing our own theology, making us more vulnerable to the rampant false teaching that plagues our churches today.

Be sure, it is God's Word and only God's Word will accomplish His purpose.

Listen to every sermon with a critical ear.

Take no one's word for God's Word.

Look things up for yourself.

If a preacher changes God's Word to suit an agenda (usually an attempt to control people's behavior), do not listen to that preacher.

You have the right and responsibility to question anyone who is teaching God's Word. If they do not receive your questions, they are not worthy or qualified to deliver God's Word.

Be like the Bereans, who were praised for looking things up for themselves. This was no small feat on their part, either, since #1, the entire Bible had not yet been written and #2, there weren't printed copies or a local book store to buy one from. STILL, they looked things up for themselves.....Acts 17:11-12a, "they searched the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Therefore, many of them believed..."

~Tricia

Commentaries and Sermon Prep Do Not Mix

Contrary to what some think, I do not hate commentaries. I do, however, think they are highly overused, especially when pastors depend more on them than they do the Bible for their pulpit ministries.

I can always tell when a commentary, rather than the Word of God, has been used in sermon prep. I think it's a shame, too. This practice not only hurts the pastor doing the prep, but it hurts the listeners as well.

I Peter 2:2 tell us, "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby."

God wisely gives us the perspective of His Word as milk...and not just milk, but sincere milk. As the mom of 8 kids, I can tell you first hand, it's not good for newborn babies to have anything but the sincere milk they need to start off life. With my first baby, my doctor advised me to give him nothing but my milk for at least the first 6 months. No water, No juice. No food. Just the sincere milk of his mama, so that he would grow. While the same applies to non-nursing newborns, they ought to be given the sincere milk of the formula their doctor prescribes. You can't just give a newborn cow's milk, soy milk or almond milk. They need "sincere" milk. They need highly nutritious, high protein, pure milk, either from their mama or specially formulated......so they can grow properly.

Commentaries are not for newborns. Baby Christians need the sincere milk of the Word of God. They need the real thing, not a watered down version that has lost its potency. They need the pure Word of God, not the opinions of men. Commentaries are the opinions of men. When a pastor heavily uses commentaries for sermon prep, they are giving their people a watered-down version of the Word, not the pure Word. The result is, the people don't grow as they ought. Their behavior might change for a while, but their hearts are not growing, they are only temporarily changing their behavior to please people and try to fit in with everyone else. This is not discipleship, this is cloning. God does not want clones; He did not tell us to make clones. He told us to make disciples.

Pastors, take a look at your sheep. Are they stepping up to serve? If you're begging for helpers and volunteers to teach and no one is stepping up, it could be that they are spiritually malnourished from shallow preaching that has been heavily watered down by commentaries. Babies who are properly fed want to learn all the time, then they want to share that knowledge. It's impossible to stop a properly fed newborn from growing, learning and wanting to share that learning with their world. When babies don't do this, pediatricians call it "failure to thrive" and immediate steps are taken to improve their diet. Are your sheep failing to thrive in their Christian walk?

Commentaries are not for pulpit ministry. Once a person has established their ability to learn from God's Word by personal observation and interpretation, they can begin to refer to a commentary here and there as a reference to see what others have concluded about a passage of Scripture. It's assumed that one who is a pastor has already learned how to make their own personal observations and learned to interpret God's Word properly. If they want to read a commentary to see how their interpretations line up with others who are assumed to be like-minded, then reading a commentary is highly appropriate to their study. However, when a commentary is the first thing a pastor grabs for sermon prep and does not do any of their own observations and interpretation, there is a big weakness in their ability to dig out the Truths in God's Word. This, in turn, leads to a weak pulpit ministry....and weak sheep with a failure to thrive.

Commentaries are not always right. God's Word is always right, but since commentaries are written by humans, we have to assume they have contain mistakes. There is not one commentary that is 100% right 100% of the time. Since it would take a tremendous amount of time to flush out every mistake, why use a faulty guide in the first place? There are no mistakes in God's Word. None. And if one does not feel confident in their ability to observe and interpret, they can be reminded that the perfect Holy Spirit is their Guide.  I do not understand people's insistence on using an imperfect resource as a main resource when the Perfect One is so readily available.

I fear many lay aside God's Word and pick up commentaries first. They ought to lay aside the commentary and pick up God's Word for a change. They might be surprised when their church begins to grow and thrive beyond their expectations. After all, this is how we all grow.

~Tricia

Fallout from a Good Sermon

For the past three weeks, in our quest for a church home, we've visited a church that we think just might become our church home. Finding a church preaching the Word and not worldly philosophy has been a huge challenge, but we might finally be at the end of our search.

Last Sunday, the senior pastor of this church preached a sermon on the whole armor of God. Since then, I have been driven to think about, ponder, look up and study the passages he preached from because his preaching was so spot-on that it fueled further study. 

This is fallout from a good sermon. 

This is what pastors want their people to do.

Many times, I'm looking up the sermon passage because I'm uncomfortable with the content of the sermon and I'm searching to see if what was preached was true to the passage. Mostly it hasn't been for the past three years. Mostly it's been a quest to feed myself the truth of a passage because whoever "preached" it did not. 

That has not been the case for the past three weeks. The first week we visited, they had a guest speaker, a missionary, and he was true to the text. The next week, the senior pastor preached and he was spot-on, just as he was this past week.

His text last Sunday was Ephesians 6:13-17 and he preached on the whole armor of God, focusing on the helmet of salvation and he referred back to Isaiah 59:16&17 where God sees no intercessor so He brought salvation unto him and he put on righteousness as a breastplate and the helmet of salvation and verse 20 where it says, "And the Redeemer will come to Zion...." and this has all served all week to nourish my soul.

He said the helmet of salvation guards my mind so I'll remember the permanence of salvation; that I have a future with Christ. We are saved from the penalty of sin. We are saved from the power of sin. 

Do you see what a good sermon can do for the heart of the people? It's Friday and I'm still contemplating this sermon and excited to hear more this Sunday. I take notes. I devour this. 

I do not have this reaction when a pastor preaches philosophy or some list of how to do this or that. I don't care how he feels about how anyone does this or that, I care about God's Word, which He manifests through preaching.

It's the preaching, people, not the program. It's not the style of preaching, either, because there is only one way to preach and that is expository. Anything else is not preaching.

This daughter of Abraham has been empowered, encouraged, strengthened and motivated.

If all programs were thrown out the window and only the preaching remained, God's Word, the ministry and the advancement of His kingdom would still thrive.

It's the preaching.

Get this.

~Tricia

I am Ruined

In our search for a church home, we have been visiting many different churches. We are having trouble, however, because churches are not preaching the Word, they are preaching a social gospel that does not represent God's Word nor His message for mankind. We are extremely saddened and frustrated by this. I have taken to listening to proper sermons I find online because my soul is hungry for God's Word and I can't find anyone preaching It.

They are preaching philosophy.
They are preaching ideas.
They are preaching secular humanism.
They are preaching nonsense.

Let me give you some examples of things we've heard from pulpits for the last 2 1/2 years:

Jesus is a replica of God.
If you put God in the copy machine, Jesus would come out the other side.
You own your spouse like you own your toothbrush.
A wife is just the husband in another body.
The entire book of Philippians is centered around the fight of those 2 women in chapter 4.
I am the pastor; I rule over your entire life and you have to raise your family the way I say. (This one wasn't said in so many words, but it was practiced with disastrous results.)
You have all the power to change your life.
God can't work without your cooperation.
You can stop God's plan.
I see things in the Scriptures that no one else ever sees.

Most churches we've visited are big on series preaching. They choose a theme and preach a series centered on that theme. One church chose "The Fight" and formed "Fight" clubs for men, women and children. One church chose "Unstuck" and is attempting to tell people how to get unstuck from what they perceive holds them back (from what I don't know because no one said). The list goes on. Churches are choosing these series and searching out God's Word for verses that support their series themes.

A series theme is chosen, then verses are looked up to support the series founder's ideas on what the series should represent. These verses, always taken out of context to fit, sound so good and so right and so reasonable that the people are blinded by their application. Their souls cry out, "Yes!" while their spirit, unbeknownst to them, is led astray and destroyed. Instead of going home from the sermon more acutely aware of how great God is and more keenly aware of how great a gift Christ gave, they are puffed up with "You can do this," "You can choose," "You hold the power," and their faith is chipped away by their inward focus. They begin to believe it's all about them and they look inward to themselves constantly to make sure they are exercising all that power the pastor said they have. Are you choosing the right response to your spouse? (God won't bless your marriage if you're not.) Are you making sure your tone is proper when you speak to your children? (They will grow up into ungodliness if you don't!) Are you using your time wisely and not being idle? (God will not answer your prayers if you don't.) And the list goes on. And while all this is happening and the saints are completely preoccupied with their own behaviors, no one in their circles is hearing the gospel from them and their message becomes "Me! Me! Me!" instead of "Him! Him! Him!" These are all lies. God is not bound by anything you do, say, think or feel.

Where is the cry of Isaiah? Where is the sure-footed doctrine of King David to exalt our living God instead of ourselves? Where is the terror of Daniel? Where is the boldness of Paul to preach only Jesus and Him crucified?

I am ruined. I cannot tolerate this shallow preaching and gross misrepresentation of God's Word. My husband was my pastor for 32 years. He does not preach this fluff. He does not allow a subject to determine a sermon. He only allows God's Word to determine a sermon. Right now, while we are working to plant a multi-ethnic church, we are searching for a church home to belong to, but it is  not to be found. We have visited every church within reasonable driving distance and have been repulsed by the preaching in every single one of them.

We fought for the gospel throughout our years of full-time ministry. I am astounded that some have never had to fight for the gospel. We had to fight hard to keep the Name of Jesus in the pulpit and on our lips. Amidst threats, assaults and character attacks, we kept on for Him. Once you fight that hard to even keep His Name on your tongue, you develop a complete intolerance for anything less.

Put every sermon you hear to the test. Hold it up to the light of the gospel and see if it measures up. If it contradicts even one attribute or character of God, it is rubbish. God will not violate His own attributes in His own Word and no sermon should do that, either.

If a sermon is not expository, I'm not listening. I'm done. I'm ruined.

~Tricia

The Cat Was Out of Food

So, this morning, our cat, Oliver, was out of food. I saw a piece of broccoli on the floor next to a dish of milk. I commented to my daughter that she was being really nice to Oliver by giving him milk. That is not an everyday thing. She told me he was out of food. Now, I knew he was low on food, but I plan to go grocery shopping tomorrow and thought his food would last another day. I was wrong. He had eaten it all.

So, I ran into the grocery store after dropping my daughter off at her job, which happens to be at that same grocery store, and I bought a big bag of cat food.

Upon getting home, I put the bag down just inside the door so I could put my keys on the shelf where they belong, kick off my shoes and put my wallet and sunglasses away. Oliver went berzerk over that bag of cat food. He kept whining around it, then walking over to the basement door, trying to lead me to the basement where his food dish is kept. Because it takes a minute to put things away and take off my shoes, things were not moving fast enough for him and he repeated his actions several times before I finally picked up the bag and started to follow him downstairs.

At the bottom of the stairs is our home office and my craft space. His food dish is behind the stairs. I stopped at my craft desk to cut the bag of cat food open and Oliver almost had a heart attack. He could not believe I had stopped and had not gone directly to his food dish. He circled around me and the chair the bag of food was on, then kept trying to lead me to his food dish. Well, it takes a few seconds to cut the bag open, but he had no tolerance for what he seemed to think was my snail's pace.

When I cut the bag open, he nearly jumped out of his skin because the smell was so much stronger. After a few short meows, he seemed relieved that I was finally picking up the opened bag and walking over to his dish. As soon as I poured some of the food into his dish, he attacked it with gusto, making it spill over the sides and make a mess. He didn't care. He acted as though he was starving to death and could not get enough food fast enough.

Literally two minutes later, he was lounging around upstairs like all was right with his world again.

Indeed.

This is exactly how I feel right now about the lack of expository preaching we're finding in our search for a church home. We are working to plant a church, but, in the meantime we need a church home. We have had a very hard time finding a church that is preaching the Word. They are standing up in their pulpits putting cold broccoli and milk on the floor while we are starving for good, chewable food that will feed our souls.

We've heard preachers actually preach out of someone's book, not the Bible. We've seen preachers not even take a Bible into their pulpits. We've heard preachers say things like, "Jesus is a replica of God. If you put God in the copy machine, Jesus will come out the other end." (No, no....Jesus IS God, not a replica of God.) We've heard preachers take a passage of Scripture completely out of context to fit their point.

This is exhausting.
We are in a famine.

Let me tell you preachers something. I am not interested in what you think or feel about the Bible. I am interested in what God says in His Word. He manifests His Word through preaching, but preaching is not defined by what you want it to be. Preaching is expounding what God has said, not what you think about what God has said. Expository preaching is the only real type of preaching. If it's not expository, it's not preaching; it's just a speech.

I can relate to Oliver.
We will continue our quest to find a church that is really preaching the Word.
~Tricia

Eternal Rewards

Today, as my husband preached on multi-ethnic ministry from Acts 13:1-4, I was struck by the wonderful memories it evoked. Before the message, he showed a video of a bi-lingual baptism we'd had in the past and I was nearly overcome with joy at the knowledge of where those brothers and sisters are now.

They are serving. They are evangelizing. They are working for the Lord Jesus Christ in their local church and that church continues to grow. They practically need a building program already! God is so good. He has remained faithful to these brothers and sisters. I'm incredibly thankful that we are able to keep in touch with them and continue to see their obedience to the Lord and their work in His church.
Seeing our spiritual children grow in the Lord and in His work is one of the huge joys of ministry. (This is not only true of our spiritual children, but of our physical children, too, who are all our spiritual children, too!)


This growth did not come without hardship, obstacles and persecution. But, it was worth it all! Not one brother or sister was lost in all the hardship we suffered together. They remain faithful, true and close as we all now serve from different places. These are eternal rewards.

Praise be!
~Tricia

The Best Advice I Ever Got

As we get older, we have more and more opportunities to look back on things in our lives that have guided and impacted us. As I am about to join my new church based on testimony, I have been remembering back to February 9, 1975 when I first learned the Gospel message, when I had my first introduction to what God's Word really is, and when I first heard real preaching of the Word. My pastor at the time, Lowell Spencer, who still pastors that same church in Ohio today, taught me many, many things. He was very patient with me as I grew in my new-found faith and answered my many questions with patience and love.

Of all the things he taught me, one thing stands about among the rest. Actually, this one thing he taught me is what guides the rest of what he taught me. It's a truth so profound, yet so simple, that it is often overlooked, minimized and even disregarded. But, it's so necessary. This one thing has impacted my life more than any other.

This simple truth is straight out of Scripture and is found in Acts 17:11. The Apostle Paul, and Silas, had come to Berea after they'd been sent away from Thessalonica in the night. The people of Berea "received the Word with all readiness of mind" and "searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so." This was my pastor's advice to me: "Seek it out for yourself....search the Scriptures yourself to see if what I'm teaching you is true." And I did. And I still do. No matter who is preaching or who is teaching God's Word to me, I seek it out for myself to see if the things they are teaching me, or have taught me, are true. You might be shocked to find out how many times people in these positions are not teaching the Truth! I have found that to be true again and again.

I can summarize a few things I've learned:

Seeking it out for myself has protected me from falling victim to false teaching more than once.

Seeking it out for myself has given me a passion for inductive Bible study.....the only definition of Bible study there is.

Seeking it out for myself has honed my discernment, making it easy to spot false teaching, even in its most subtle forms. (And it's always subtle, my friends.....at least when it starts out.)

Seeking it out for myself has caused me to be dissatisfied with what the Christian world calls "Bible study books." They simply aren't....they are someone else's observations and interpretation. They do not lead you to study the Bible, they lead a study of what someone else thinks about the Bible. There's a big difference.

Seeking it out for myself has created a discipline for Bible study that I do not believe I would otherwise have, or even desire to have.

Seeking it out for myself has created a dissatisfaction with shallow teaching. It has caused me to want the meat of the Word more and more.

Seeking it out for myself has given me a boldness I would not otherwise have.

Seeking it out for myself has opened my eyes to the power of a life transformed in Christ.

I could go on. I might go on as I continue to think about this. But, for now, for today, I want to say a resounding THANK YOU to Pastor Lowell Spencer for his great advice and resulting impact on my life.

Praise be.
~Tricia