Sunday, May 25, 2008

Have You Heard Of 9 Marks?

I happened across 9 Marks site today, I have heard of them, they do wonderful work in helping Churches. If you are not familiar with them 9 Marks is a reference to the 9 marks of a healthy church. What caught my attention today though was the first mark. The first mark of a healthy church is expository preaching. Do you know how many people would disagree with this? It boggles my mind to think of the number of churches out there that think mishandling the word of God does not qualify them for the unhealthy church heap. My pastor in St. Louis said once, "It is okay to preach a topical sermon now and then as long as you repent immediately afterward." Do you get it? Deciding what you want to preach about and then going to the scriptures to find support is exactly the opposite way of rightly dividing the word of Truth. That is where eisegesis becomes one's focus instead of exegesis. I simply will not understand those who do not understand that expository preaching is actually the only kind of preaching there is. If you are not preaching expository sermons guess what? You are not preaching.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, that's the thing I don't get. It's like God's word the way it's written just isn't good enough. When Jesus went into the synagogues, he read from the Scriptures. But then they (those who oppose expository preaching) argue that Jesus used stories and such when he preached to the regular people, but what they're not getting is that those "stories" are OUR Scriptures today. I guess they think they can do one better than Jesus, I suppose, by making up stories of their own!

Coram Deo said...

*Begin Sarcasm Disclaimer*

Buh, buh, buh...what about the "felt needs" of the "seekers"? They can't understand all that "deep scriptural stuff" anyway and we all know that "doctrine divides" so what's wrong with a couple of innocent jokes to lighten things up a little bit, you know, get comfortable, and then tell a few interesting and funny anecdotal stories, you know, stuff people can REALLY relate to - something RELEVANT - and then maybe here and there throw in just a dash of Jesus and a prooftext or two to show people just how much Jesus loves them and wants to encourage them to be the best they can be.

*End Sarcasm Disclaimer*

I actually feel like I need to repent just for joking about the afore parodied equine ejectus that passes for preaching these days...egads!