Philosophy of PREACHING
The Purpose of PREACHING
The purpose of preaching is to unfold the whole counsel of God and make known His will through the understanding of His Word (Acts 20:27; 2 Tim. 4). Preaching exposes the hearer to Christ and how God has worked through Christ to reconcile the world to Himself through Christ's death upon the cross, His burial, His resurrection, and His ascension (Luke 24:27; John 5:39-47). The purpose of Biblical revelation is to reavel Christ and exalt Him above all things (Rev. 5:8-14).
Preaching is the verbal act of delivering God’s Word to those gathered together for corporate worship. Preaching is an act of worship as it is the celebrating of God’s Word as well as the seeking of the Spirit to apply that Word to our lives so that we grow in Christlikeness.
The focus of the sermon is Christ. The focus of every sermon must be Christ. The sermon is the most important element of any corporate gathering. The Preacher is not the most important element/person, but rather the Word preached is the focus. The Preacher is just the means God uses to deliver His Word. Therefore, preaching takes primacy in the corporate gathering of the local church. It is effective only inasmuch as the Preacher is careful to exposit Scripture. It is not a true sermon if it is devoid of Christ. It is not a true sermon if it fails to rightly explain the meaning of the passage in focus.
Expository Preaching
We believe that expository preaching is the best style of preaching for the church. An expositional sermon is a sermon that takes the main point of a passage of Scripture, makes it the main point of the sermon, and applies it correctly. In this way, an expository sermon has the most benefit to the hearer.
An expositional sermon exposes the meaning of a passage of Scripture and shows how God preserves not only the authority and integrity of the Word across time, but also how He maintains its relevance to the lives of its hearers.
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