Chuck Smith in his “Calvary Chapel Distinctives” when speaking in regard to Paul’s statement in Acts 20:27, “For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God,” comments on this verse, “Now, how is it possible for a person to claim to have declared “the whole counsel of God?… “This can’t be done with topical sermons. Topical sermons are good, and they have their place, but when you’re preaching topically, you’re prone by nature to preach only those topics that you like. And, there are topics in the Bible that aren’t very inspiring. They don’t excite people, but they are necessary issues that have to be dealt with. The human tendency, however, is to avoid these. If you’re only preaching topically, you may also tend to avoid controversial or difficult topics, and the people won’t gain a well-balanced view of God’s truth. So the value of going “straight through the Bible” (emphasis mine) is that you can say, ‘I have not shunned declaring to you all the counsel of God.” Elsewhere he says, “For the most part, the teaching ministry of Calvary Chapel is expositional in style.” Beloved and dear friend, I agree with Chuck Smith and also the many others that agree with him about the task of the preacher to preach “the whole counsel of God.” This task we have been given by God to “rightly divide the Word of truth” is critical to the life of the church. You as a believer must learn to believe, trust, and breathe this. You must realize that one of the primary jobs of the shepherd is to feed the flock. Peter was reminded of this while writing his first letter (1 Peter 5:1-5). This means that you support, get behind, and partner with your pastor in this solemn call. This means that you will do your best to participate in the expositional style of preaching. Why, you may say? Well as Chuck Smith has said above, you need a“well-balanced view of God.”Beloved “a well-balanced view of God” means you try to learn everything about God: His attributes, His love, justice, mercy, grace, and yes, His judgment and hatred of sin. It is not very inspiring the last part!! However, a must if we are going to be faithful to His call on our lives as preachers and congregants. We can illustrate this with how we relate to different foods in our lives. The child that is given a choice between vegetables and candy will most likely pick candy. We know that this is a common problem for parents and parents want their children to grow strong physically so they encourage and feed their children good food (vegetables). This is precisely the same thing with us. We prefer by nature to want less appetizing spiritual foods. We prefer the candy-cane theology! We prefer puree verses solid foods. We prefer the potato chips over the broccoli and the cauliflower. Beloved, this must not be so. Let’s eat the right spiritual food so that we can grow into maturity. Let’s participate in “solid food.” This is the only way we will become skillful in discerning between good and evil. In other words, as pastors, one of our primary jobs is to center on expository preaching. Preaching expositionally means our preaching is to explain the text, passage, verse, or chapter we are proclaiming. The goal of explaining the text, is therefore, in mind. Nevertheless, let’s explain the Bible like Chuck Smith describes it further, “precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.” (Isaiah 28:13) We should not respond negatively as the Israelites did to Isaiah’s preaching and teaching, but we should prefer this type of meal! Let’s cultivate the positive response.
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