Austin's Blog

There is a poverty in many a pulpit today and it is certainly a choice. Our impoverishment concerns the content of our preaching. Far too many pastors, preachers, and teachers jump around within the Bible without landing within a single book for far too long. Maybe they are afraid staying too long in one book will bore their congregation or maybe they have never been taught this is a good practice. Regardless, I think there exists good reasons for those who man the pulpit to preach through whole books of the Bible. 

God inspired whole books. God did not send us mere platitudes that fit on a bumper sticker. He gave us whole books. This point is affirmed philosophically and theologically by most men who enter the pulpit but denied practically when we neglect the intentional, verse-by-verse preaching through whole books of the Bible. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” How we handle the Word before the congregation truly speaks of what we believe about the Word. We can claim we are inerrantists, defend the reliability and inspiration of the Bible, and even wax and wane eloquently about the historical background of the passages but if we neglect actually preaching books in their entirety, we are saying something that undermines all those worthy endeavors. 

The Apostles emphasized teaching and preaching the whole counsel of God. When the Apostle Paul was saying his goodbyes to the Ephesian elders, he made an audacious claim about his pastoral accountability before God and man. Pauls claims in Acts 20:26, “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” Why can no one charge Paul with wrong as it relates to his preaching, teaching, and training within the Church? Because he taught the whole counsel of God. It was courage within Paul that provoked the man to not shy away from preaching the whole redemption found within the Scriptures. He serves as a model for anyone and everyone who follows. 

This protects the Church. There are many false teachers and teachings circulating within the world and the Church. Christians need to be equipped to withstand, correct, and understand those heresies. What better way to prepare a church than to teach them whole books of the Bible? Teaching through whole books of the Bible not only protects Christians from false teaching, it showcases the beauty of all that God has promised and revealed to us. There are depths to what God has revealed in His Word that are mined well when a pastor preaches through whole books of the Bible. Indeed, a steady diet of whole books will not only reveal these beauties but mature believers within them. The writer to the Hebrews rebuked Christians within the church for not maturing through knowing and obeying the Word. “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” (Heb 5:12-14) There’s nothing wrong with having the faith of a five year old, if you’re five years old. There’s something wrong when you are thirty, forty, or fifty! A part of the immaturity of our churches is owing to pastors not teaching the full feast found in God’s Word. 

This protects the pastor. We all know preachers who have their hobby horses, topics or passages that they keep going to over and over again. Many people will leave churches if they feel that the pastor has an agenda or an ax to grind. How do you protect yourself from this as a pastor, preacher, or teacher? Just teach what comes next within the text. As long as you are preaching through whole books, you can never be accused of picking and choosing pet doctrines and topics to belabor. Furthermore, this removes the anxiety of trying to decide what to teach next Sunday. If you are preaching through whole books of the Bible, what’s next is what God has said in the subsequent verses. 

Brothers, may we be found faithful in the pulpit. We have a high and holy calling to the Word of God before the people of God. There’s a time and a place for topical sermons and a sermon series aimed at specific issues. Yet, I think the normal practice within our churches ought to be preaching through whole books of the Bible.