My way or the highway
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Reflections
Michael J. Brooks
Except in the case of brain surgery, there are generally more ways than one to accomplish tasks. Some insist their way is the only way, perhaps based on their personal life experience. Alas, this happens sometimes in the ecclesiastical world.
For example, I’ve heard arguments that exposition is the only way to preach scripture. Exposition means to take a verse, several verses, or a chapter and preach from it.
A friend told me he has a general idea what he’ll be preaching on for months at a time since he preaches through books of the Bible on Sunday mornings.
Surely nothing is wrong with this, but this isn’t the only way to preach the Bible.
Another technique is topical. For example, a pastor might speak on forgiveness or Christian citizenship or money and possessions using scriptural principles from various passages in the Bible.
Rick Warren is among the best preachers of our generation, and he does topical preaching. At a conference he once asked a pointed question about exposition in the Bible.
“Who took a passage and went verse by verse?” he asked. “Jesus didn’t in the Sermon on the Mount, nor did Paul on Mars Hill.”
Perhaps the closest to expositional preaching in scripture is Jesus’ inaugural sermon in Nazareth when he took a prophecy of Isaiah and explained it being fulfilled in Himself. Other than this, one is hard pressed to find expositional preaching in scripture.
My tact has generally been to do topical preaching on Sunday morning and expositional teaching on Wednesday nights. In recent years we’ve gone verse-by-verse through Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, and Acts on Wednesday nights.
The point is, there’s no one right way for a pastor to choose sermon topics other than through study and prayer.
Another contention is how to evangelize.
A gentleman approached me a few weeks ago and handed me a small, plastic Jesus figure.
“Everybody needs a little Jesus in their lives,” he said with a smile.
Granted, it doesn’t take a lot of courage to witness at the Billy Graham Training Center where we were, but I’d not seen these figurines before and appreciated his gift. But soon after I read a Facebook post calling these figures “graven images,” disparaging those who used them as witness tools.
I immediately thought how most churches display an image of Jesus in a manger at Christmas, and some on stained glass windows all the time – graven images?
Christians can be contentious about moral issues, but shouldn’t be contentious about matters of opinion or practice.
As Paul explained, “Love is patient and kind; it does not demand its own way.”
The church of Christ is richer when diversity is celebrated among us.
Michael J. Brooks, pastor of Siluria Baptist Church in Alabaster and former Judson College faculty member, writes a weekly faith column. Visit siluriabaptist.com.
