A Bible Timeline And Preaching God’s Word
Not long back I had a retired Pastor reprove me very sharply, for making some interesting points while preaching on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. He was very old school, and he referred to 1 Tim 1.4 “nor to be taken up with with myths and never ending genealogies.. ”
He answered “No”, when I asked him if I had said anything that was heretical. I went on to quietly explain that that particular Scripture was referring to the false teachings and philosophy of Gnosticism, not of genuine enquiry. He could not accept it.
Gnosticism had been so influential in the new Testament times, and the new Testament writings, how could a pastor of 40 years experience not know this. It is important for pastors to know these things, and to teach their congregation in order that they might understand and interpret their Bible well.
If the many pastors persist in preaching, lightweight and shallow messages to the congregation, the results will always be a people, who do understand their Bible very well. Pastors preach again and again ‘moral essays’ and ‘warming affirmations’, for this is what good Christians do, if they truly ‘love’ each other.
Well, who cares if God’s people are falling through the cracks ‘for a lack of knowledge’ (oracle), what’s really important, is if we are very positive and ‘nice’ to everybody.
The reality is, the more ‘relevant’ Christians become, to the world, the less relevant we all are in actuality, to the world. 🙁
Our staple diet from pastors seems to be favorite topics and ‘feel good’ messages. Ministers preach on a verse from 1 Peter as well as a passage about a hero from 1 Kings; topical sermon from Hosea and then the belief in God of Aaron or the humanity of King David.
We preach a portion from here and another from there, but we need to put it all together in a clear understandable format.
Constantly we are bombarded with new publications and modernist ideas, some of them dangerously leaning toward Liberal theology. We are repeating history, but if we were to teach the basics of Church history, we would be more equipped to avoid repeating that history.
Let us correctly prepare the Church to understand God and the Bible, but piecing together the fragments of his Word into a beautiful seamless mosaic.
This is not difficult to attain, if we put in some good prayer and study.
John 17:17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. (NIV)
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