The Power of Biblical Preaching
Biblical preaching confronts men and women with God through His Word, inspired and energized by the Holy Spirit, filtered through the personality of the pastor, so that the church will understand and respond to Him. Proclamation involves reading, explaining, and applying the Word.
Why does God want His church to preach the Word? Because we spend too much time listening to and studying the words of men, and too little time coming to grips with what God has said to us. You aren't going to find the world grappling with the Word, but there ought to be one place where you can go and get the real deal about what God thinks on the issues of life. That place is the church, the only entity on earth specifically charged with the responsibility of holding forth God's Word. The Bible is like a telescope. If you look through it, you can see the world far beyond. But if you just look at it, you don't see anything. The great danger is that the church will look at the Word and not through it.
So we need to make sure that the message we are delivering to the church is "Thus saith the Lord," not "Thus thinketh the pastor." I tell our people at church that if they want to know my personal opinions, call me at home, because in the pulpit my job is to deliver the King's message. I need to be evaluated as a pastor by how faithfully I preach the whole Word of God, not by whether I can move people to tears or shouts or impress them with my eloquence. The question is, Does what I say agree with what God says?
I want our church to be like the Bereans of Acts 17:11, whom Paul called "noble-minded" because "they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so." They didn't buy what Paul was preaching simply because he was an apostle. The Bereans' attitude was "Let's see if God really said what you just said that He said" — and Paul couldn't have been happier about the situation.
You have probably seen those metal stands at the airport that tell you whether a piece of luggage qualifies for carry-on. If you set your bag in the stand and it doesn't fit, you can't take it on the plane no matter what you may feel or think or what your momma told you. That metal rack is a fixed standard that doesn't budge, no matter how hard you try to stuff your oversized bag into its dimensions. You have to conform to the standard; it doesn't conform to you.
Second Timothy 4:2 contains another needed word to the church concerning our biblical proclamation. Paul wrote, "Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season."