Marcus Honeysett

Welcome to the web Marcus Honeysett, blogger, Bible teacher etc.
Digital H₂O, grace, glory, godliness.
http://marcushoneysett.squarespace.com/blog/

The Goal of Preaching: Worship

My one overwhelming tip for your Bible preparation for this weekend is this: worship over the Bible as you prepare. For sure we want to be diligent and accurate in our prep and our delivery but it is possible to have accurate Bible talks and studies that that don’t glorify God because they take his mighty word and make it boring.

...the key point is not to deify the technical and underplay the glory. Worship over the text as you prepare. Make every effort at accuracy. If you want your message to have power then it has to come with accuracy from the text. People have to be able to see clearly that you are preaching to them what the Bible says, concretely, specifically and compellingly. But don’t substitute glory for mere accuracy as your goal.

Lastly, that tells us we should pray over our preparation and our delivery. You cannot speak accurately of the Lord and his ways without having been caught up yourself. People can tell if we have engaged with God in our prep and whether they are coming from hearts that are affected by the content. Preaching can never be dispassionate. Occasionally I hear people say things like “present the text as objectively and dispassionately as you can so people don’t see the preacher only the passage.” NONSENSE! Preaching is NOT teaching precisely because the message has affected us and we are urging, exhorting, pleading with our hearers to turn to the living God. and do what the word says. It has exercised our prayer and our spiritual energy as we prepare. It has set our hearts ablaze and our prayer is that it does the same as bring it in the power of the Spirit.