"One thing, and only one thing, is necessary for the Christian life, righteousness, and freedom. That one thing is the most holy Word of God, the gospel of Christ."
- Martin Luther
Sermons
"One thing, and only one thing, is necessary for the Christian life, righteousness, and freedom. That one thing is the most holy Word of God, the gospel of Christ."
- Martin Luther
Theology of Preaching
Preaching is at the very core of corporate worship. God commands His people to hear the word of God. God's people depend on and demand that God's word be rightly preached. One of the central realities that distinguished the true church from all other pretenders is the right preaching of the gospel. Where the true church is gathered, the true gospel will be proclaimed.
Biblical preaching is built upon the conviction that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. This word is the imperishable seed of the new birth and is singularly sufficient to accomplish what God would accomplish in, among, and through His people.
The ultimate subject of the Bible is God's Son, Jesus Christ. All the Bible anticipates, reveals, explains, and exalts Him. Therefore, the goal of all preaching is the communication of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The word is preached by mandate from God for the purpose of calling sinners to repentance and calling the saints to holiness. The Bible can rightly be divided into Law and Gospel. The Law reveals the will and character of God; it defines the standard by which all men will be judged. Its function is to indict men for their hopelessly sinful condition so that they may flee to Christ for salvation. The Law can rightly be said to be that which exposes and convicts men of their need of the gospel. The Gospel is the good news of what God has accomplished once and for all through the life, the death, and the resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. The Gospel is proclaimed to all with the confidence that God's word will accomplish the purpose that God has intended, namely the salvation of God's people.
The proper methodology for the preaching of the Word of God is to be expository preaching. Expository preaching derives its theme, its development, its goal, and its purpose directly from the text itself. Expository preaching takes into account the various essential contexts of the text and seeks to explain the selected passage with faithfulness to the original intent of the author and with the understanding of and application to the modern listener in view. The ultimate audience in preaching is God Himself and it's His ultimate approval that we seek.
At North Clay Baptist Church, we employ Biblical exposition as the default methodology of preaching. While we will periodically break from expository preaching to address specific topics for short periods of time, we always return to the Biblical text in order to allow God's Word to determine what God's people need to hear.
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