9 Marks Sunday School- Expository Preaching

Discussion Questions:

What do you think it means for a church to be healthy? What qualities do you think should be present?

What do you consider to be the most important part of church? What sets the tone?

9 Marks:

Expositional Preaching

Biblical Theology

The Gospel

Biblical Understanding of Conversion

Biblical Understanding of Evangelism

Biblical Understanding of Church Membership

Biblical Church Discipline

A Concern for Discipleship and Growth

Biblical Leadership

Expositional Preaching:

Topical vs. Expositional

Topical:

Based off an idea that the preacher wishes to address.

Often based on a larger theme or idea paired with stories or anecdotes.

Useful, however when the main diet of the church can lead to both the pastor and the church not being pushed to change in response to God’s Word.

Topical sermons often do not lead the pastor to learn any new information, and in worst case scenario can be used to avoid more difficult texts.

Expositional

“Expositional preaching is that preaching which takes for the point of a sermon the point of a particular passage of scripture.”

It provides the greatest guard against misinterpreting a text: context!

A commitment to expositional preaching is a commitment to hear God’s Word- not to just affirm that it is God’s Word but to actually submit yourself to it.

Central Role of God’s Word

The Word Gives Life

Creation- God Speaks

Gen. 12, God Speaks and calls Abraham

His Word is necessary to bring life. For God has to call blind people to Himself.

It is the Word that reveals what we are to believe, thus if we don’t receive it we cannot initially believe or mature.

God’s Word Sanctifies

“ A healthy church is a church that hears the Word of God and continues to hear the Word of God. And such a church is composed of individual Christians who hear the Word of God and continue to hear the Word of God, always being refashioned and reshaped by it, constantly being washed in the Word and sanctified by God’s truth.

Preaching and God’s Word

The duty of a Pastor/ Elder is first and foremost to preach the Word.

The sermon must not be developed by taking the pulse of society and responding.

Preaching must be founded on the Word because only in the Word are God’s people going to actually encounter God.

Thus, expositional preaching is the first mark of a healthy church, for change and obedience to God in the life of a church must begin in the pulpit.