The Need for Biblical Preaching and Teaching

Why preach?  Is it not enough to saturate our communities with copies of God’s Word and encourage people to read God’s revelation for themselves?  Sunday after Sunday people fill the pews of churches with the intention of hearing a Word from the Lord that is going to make their lives richer and fuller.  Yet, they leave disappointed.  They leave wondering what Sunday’s sermon and/or the Sunday School lesson means for them come Monday morning.  Josh Hunt writes that “the Bible must connect to people’s lives, their Monday mornings.  It must connect with what they do every day of the week.”[1]  It is this reality that has sent the American church and her preachers scrambling to prepare a sermon that will deal with the audience’s perceived needs, regardless of the preacher’s exegetical integrity with the biblical text.

America is seeing the dawn of a new day in which undiscerning people find themselves with a belief system that belongs to everyone because it belongs to no one in particular.  To suggest that this notion is going to be the demise of the church is an understatement at best.  Intolerance regarding convictions, values, and absolute truth are things of the past and they have been replaced by selfish and worldly desires, pragmatism, and relativism.  Because this has infiltrated the church, the church has been left diluted and crippled.  Furthermore if something does not change, the New Testament Church will suffer its death from self inflicted wounds, leaving a church that will find her value and worth, not in pleasing God, but in pleasing self.

            It is because of this intolerant attitude displayed by the church, that we must seek to find an effective solution that stresses the need for studying and applying biblical truths in one’s daily living; truths that should be proclaimed from every Sunday School class and every pulpit.  Yet, for a variety of reasons, it appears that the Sunday morning learning experience is falling deeper and deeper into the chasm of mediocrity and may soon find that its effectiveness is nonexistent. 

            Be encouraged by the words of Scripture, "For the word of God is living and active.  Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow..." (Hebrews 4:12 NIV).

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1. Josh Hunt, Disciple-Making Teachers (Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, 1997), 58.