Bible

Help for New Expositors: Choosing the Next Book From Which You Will Preach

/ Richard Bargas / 2 Comments

This blogpost assumes a few things: that you preach, that you use the Bible when you preach, and that you preach through whole books of the Bible. If all of those apply to you, then perhaps this post will be helpful.
Below I have listed a few thoughtful considerations when choosing the next book from which I will preach:

  1. Which books have I already covered in my expositions? This is important because it might show you the heaviest types of books you have emphasized in your preaching thus far. Perhaps you have favored the Gospels or Pauline Epistles in your preaching. Maybe you are about to finish preaching through a large book, like Psalms or Genesis. Maybe you will notice that you have preached exclusively in the Old Testament or the New Testament. Maybe you have preached one letter out of a series (1 Corinthians, 1Peter or 1 John for instance), and have not covered the other epistles. By asking this question you will have a better grasp of any places you need to avoid and others you need to seriously consider.
  2. What are the major needs of my church right now? If you have many newer believers, the Gospels would serve them well. If you have a church that is more spiritually mature, but could use some teaching in deeper doctrine, like soteriology, perhaps Romans or Ephesians would be a good pick. Maybe your congregation has been beat up spiritually, or they have just gone through a major upheaval or split. Which books would help bring healing and peace to their souls during this time? Along with their spiritual needs, you might consider the needs of the church body in practical matters. Are you seeing many families come in who could benefit on teaching about God’s plan for the family? Is your church financially wealthy and they need to see how God would have them use their wealth and spiritual gifts for the glory of God? Many times pastors think that to answer these practical types of questions they need to go to a topical sermon series to answer these needs, but a well chosen book can help while at the same time demonstrating the way that the Bible is to be read as the Word of God and not a “fix-it manual.”
  3. Where have I as a pastor avoided preaching because of my own weaknesses? Pastor, never forget that you are not just a shepherd, but a lamb, and you need to grow as well. Sometimes we pick what we know and are most comfortable in regard to books and subjects. Do you struggle with the discipline required to stick with preaching longer books—choose a longer book and preach it! Do you drag your church through minutiae in the text? Preach an overview of a book in a few short weeks. Do you struggle with your understanding of the Old Testament practices of Israel and how they relate to the Gospel? Preach through the book of Hebrews. Do you love long books? Preach through a few short books. Preach almost exclusively from the New Testament? Preach through an Old Testament book. If you only preach on subjects and from books from which you are comfortable, then you will not grow in your knowledge of the Word, but worse, you and your church will become anemic in the areas you fail to preach.
  4. Where do I see the church needing to go in the near future?Are you needing to develop deacons and elders in your church? Prepare their hearts to understand what the biblical requirements of these offices are by teaching them from the Pastoral Epistles. Are you seeing that your church has lost its heart for evangelism? Think about why that is, and then prepare to take them through a book like Acts, or the Gospels. I think it is always a good time to point out to the Church what it is like to live in a society that is hostile toward God, his Word and his people. This will prepare them to trust in God when times are bleak and will help them endure during persecution. The books of Daniel, Acts and Revelation are great for this purpose.

While it is true that the Spirit of God will use whichever book we choose to preach from, we should be more methodical and thoughtful as we prepare for preaching through a new book. This means we should begin with prayer, think thoughtfully about questions like those I pose above, and then use wisdom, depend upon the Lord that he will bless the preaching of his Word to your Church.

When Reading Your Bible Through the Year is Wrong

/ Richard Bargas / 5 Comments

Like many Christians, I have tried to make it my practice to read the Bible on a daily basis and to read through the Bible in a year by following a reading plan. I have been blessed by this practice and would recommend that every Christian be in the Bible on a daily basis.

On this New Year’s Day, fresh reading plans will begin and new Bibles purchased will be read with great anticipation and joy. I applaud these things. What joy the Word of God brings to those who would spend time plumbing its depths! There is no better use of one’s time than reading and meditating upon Scripture.

But on this New Year day, I want to add balance to some things I have heard regarding Bible reading. We live under grace, not Law. Bible reading is important—as Jesus said, it is our daily bread for our weary souls (Matthew 4:4). But there is a hidden danger in making Bible reading into a work of the Law rather than a means of grace. Beyond the self-righteousness that can come from those who do read their “Bibles before breakfast,” and expect that all Christians should do the same or they are out of fellowship with God, there is also the danger of making the Bible another “to-do” to be checked off from our list of chores every day. Rushed reading without any thought to what the verses say or mean produces Bible illiterate people as much as not reading the Bible does.

It reminds me of a saying my wife and I had in our bedroom which read, “Always Kiss Me Goodnight.” Can you imagine waking up to your spouse and saying to yourself, “If I don’t kiss her, I can’t eat breakfast, so I better get it over with and give her a kiss.” Surely this falls short of true love and the intention of this sentiment. Reading your Bible before breakfast is good in placing your relationship with the Lord above our fleshly appetites, but this can also easily slide into legalism. And legalism is powerless over the flesh. Rules eventually fail where only the Spirit of God can bring about change.

The Word of God is written for our benefit. We might not always want to read it, but this is not so much a matter of obedience as it is a matter of the heart and how it has grown cold. If we begin with this realization, we can go before our heavenly Father in confession, asking him to warm our heart and to remind us of his love for us. We can be honest, knowing that he already knows our hearts have grown cold, and we can ask him to help us in our weakness to draw close to him.

Then, with a humble heart of faith, we can draw near, knowing that as we drink from the well of the Word, our Lord will begin to give us a thirst for him. We become like the father in the New Testament who wanted to believe that Christ could heal his son, but yet he knew how weak his faith was, so he cried out, “I believe, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). We might know we need to read our Bibles, but we need to be honest when we also realize that we don’t want to, and that this is a spiritual problem that we must confess to God for his help.

Today, many Christians will begin their new Bible reading strong and with the best of intentions…but in the flesh and not in dependence upon God. This year, try something new—read your Bible in dependence upon the Spirit. Not just to begin reading it, but to continue reading through to the end. The goal is not finishing the Bible, nor is it reading it every day without fail. The goal is growing close to your Savior and God. From that relationship will flow rivers of living water.  

John Piper and the Question of the Rapture

/ Richard Bargas / 5 Comments

Today John Piper posted a short audio question and answer on the subject of the rapture of the church on his ministry website, Desiring God. I first learned about his post when it came across my Facebook stream this morning. The responses were mixed. Some said it didn’t matter, as long as we make it to heaven–that’s pan-eschatology; it’ll all pan out somehow. Then there are those who were quick to dismiss the idea of a rapture with no proof or substance. Then there were those who were genuinely wondering about this important subject.

The confusion, mockery and indifference toward this question is troubling. Although I disagree with John Piper’s answer to the question, I am glad he brought it up.

In his short 13-minute audio clip, Dr. Piper shares his understanding of what a few passages teach on the doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ and whether the Bible teaches that the Church will be removed before the future period of judgment that the Bible describes will come upon the whole earth. You can listen to it here and follow along with the transcription given.

I have great respect for John Piper and Desiring God, and I especially appreciate how he is very gracious in his treatment of the people who hold views that are different than his own. In this, I see true Christian humility in him.

With that said, I would disagree with him on his assessment of the pretribulational rapture and I would like to offer a few specific comments about his answer.

Although this is somewhat a minor point in this issue, it is still one worth mentioning. The listener’s question and the answer that John Piper gives are couched in such a way that Piper begins with the assumption that the rapture is an additional coming of Christ. This begins to formulate the idea that those who believe and teach this doctrine of a pretribulational rapture are said to believe in effect three comings of Christ—his incarnation, his coming to rapture the Church and his final return in judgment. Although there may be some who would describe the rapture as a separate return of Christ, many, if not most of those who subscribe to a pretribulational rapture would describe the return of Christ as being a singular event occurring in two stages. They would point to the fact that at the rapture as described in 1Thess 4:16-17, Christ does not fully descend to the earth, but partially descend to the earth and then the Church ascends and meets Jesus in the clouds, from where they return to heaven together.

This distinction is important because by stating the issue in terms of a second and third return of Christ strikes those considering the issue as being out of tune with what most Christians are familiar with—the Second Coming of Christ. By couching it in terms of “two comings of Christ in the future,” the issue is already slanted toward the view that this idea of a pretribulational rapture is unbiblical.

Additionally, the listener “Nick” who posed the question that John Piper answers describes the question of the rapture as a “huge debate,” and Nick is correct in this. And although Dr. Piper is gracious in his explanation and response to Nick, his answer does not address the depth of this issue with any seriousness at all. I would not expect that John Piper would spend much time answering this question in the format that he has on Desiring God’s blog, knowing that many books have been written on this subject. Neither would I expect that the arguments that John Piper gives would wrestle with the complexities surrounding the timing of the rapture.

But what I would expect is that the question would not be answered in such a way that a reader would be given the impression that the answer is easily arrived at with a cursory look at a few passages. This is evidenced in the way that Piper sets up his argument. He pits his teenage self against someone he describes as a “very reputable Old Testament scholar—a really scholarly Old Testament scholar” with the question of the rapture. Young John Piper gives the scholarly scholar one shot—give me your best verse! I thank the Lord that this is not the way that doctrine is decided!

However, Dr. Piper does not explain his post-tribulational view of the rapture with one text. To do so, he uses 1 Peter 4:12, 2 Thessalonians 1:6-8 and 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3, 8. He adds to these 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, Matthew 25:6 and Acts 28:15 to bolster his argument. The problem here is that just as Piper uses multiple texts to uphold and defend his view of the rapture being at the end of the tribulation, he does not allow for those who hold to a pre-tribulation rapture to do the same. Instead, he sets up a straw-man argument—the scholarly Old Testament scholar gets one single text to prove his view—his best text! And then Piper dismisses it with these words, “God’s promise to keep us from the hour of trial probably doesn’t mean that we are taken out of the world, but rather that God will keep us from the faith-destroying effects of the hour of trial. He will guard us. He will protect our faith.” (Emphasis mine)

Dr. Piper doesn’t defend his understanding of this text exegetically, but theologically. I agree with him that God guards and protects us and guides us through time of trial, in general. But Scripture also removed some of God’s people from trials as well—such as men like Enoch and Elijah, who also were taken from this world without dying. The existence of these men being translated from the earth without dying doesn’t prove the rapture is pretribulational, but neither does John Piper’s dismissal of Revelation 3:10 as “probably” not meaning what he already has said he doesn’t believe.

The answer to the rapture’s timing is not as simple as John Piper’s answer makes it seem. I need to say this because all too often I have seen more and more people mock and vilify those who hold to a pretribulational or premillennial viewpoint with absolutely no proof or substance. John Piper has not been this way in his responses, as is evidenced by his respectful comments about his father and his childhood church which both held to the pretribulational rapture view.

But Dr. Piper might do his readers a great service to point them to those who can fairly represent both his view as well as the views he does not believe and allow the truth of the text to stand. A good place for someone to read a stronger representation of the pretribulational rapture view would be Richard L. Mayhue’s “Why a Pretribulational Rapture?” in The Master’s Seminary Journal. For a more scholarly response to John Piper’s post-tribulational view and the objections he makes to a pretribulational rapture, see Paul Feinberg’s article here.

When all the texts are considered and the Bible is examined, I still believe that the pretribulational rapture view is the most biblical. I know many will not agree. What I would like to see is not division and mean-spirited name-calling, but rather a humble desire to study the Word for ourselves and to graciously contend for our convictions with others in a spirit of grace and love. One day, we will know more fully those things which are not so clear right now. Until then, may we seek truth in love.

Simplicity and Clarity are Not the Same as Vapidity: Dig Deep in your Preaching

/ Richard Bargas / 2 Comments

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15, ESV) 

I don’t have any doubt that we live in a time when people clamor for mindless entertainment, where it seems that the more outlandish and stupid, the better. How else will history be able to understand pop cultural trends like the current infatuation with “poop emojis”and YouTube videos of people eating Tide laundry detergent pods? 

However, as a pastor, I am troubled that the mindset that some people have had is that since this empty-mindedness is not going away, that people cannot handle the preaching of the Word of God with any depth. The argument usually is that people just don’t know their Bibles today, and so we must shorten the length of our sermons and simplify our messages—with some even saying that the church will need to abandon preaching altogether and instead should just have “talks.”

What is particularly dismaying is that theological liberalism often chooses to move away from the Bible, stating that Scripture cannot be accepted as it is given because it is intellectually untenable. A person could not believe in the Bible as it is presented in its grammatical, historical and literal setting andalso believe in science!

But that isn’t what we have all too often in Bible churches. Instead, there is a movement away from the Bible because even though we Bible-believing Christians can all affirm its truthfulness, we don’t want to dig too deep—it makes our heads hurt with all that history and geography and cultural stuff. And don’t get us started on theology! We have Bible churches that are often filled with people who prefer Bible-lite sermons that tell good stories and have lots of moralizing, but woe to the pastor who would dare to go deeper!

At least that is what a lot of pastors I have spoken to seem to think…

What I have found out is something quite different. Yes, many Christians are against boring sermons, and overly-long sermons. They sleep through sermons that have no point but are simply data-dumps and half-baked sermons that meander nowhere slowly. They leave churches where the pastor seems to want to talk about only his hobby horse doctrines or wants to flaunt his ability to use Greek grammar. Yes, it’s true, people don’t want  that.

But we seem to confuse simplicity with simplemindedness. We think that because they don’t want to hear a 45-minute sermon on the history of Tiglath-Pileser that they can’t stand real Bible preaching! So, in frustration, some pastors go back to vapid sermons. Stories, jokes, cutesy alliterations, we dress up like John the Baptist or the angel Gabriel. Why? Because we have not worked hard at going deep and wide. We have not prepared our biblical meal for everyone at the table to be able to digest the truth.

We can’t forget that people are at all sorts of different levels spiritually. Every church is like this. Some are unbelievers, some are babes in Christ, some are plateaued in their walk, some are maturing and others are going through a spiritual growth spurt. Don’t get frustrated by that man who wants you to go deeper every Sunday! Put a nugget or two in the sermon for him to chew on. Don’t scoff when that young couple ask the simplest questions—they are hungry! Feed them some application alongside your explanation of the text! Don’t chuckle at the hard-headed fellow who never seem to get it. Speak at his level and give him clear illustrations to cause that light to go on for him. We preach to real people, and so our sermons need to speak to real people!

My experience has shown that committed Christians don’t want shorter, watered down sermons. They don’t want a bunch of silly stories or jokes. They want the Bible! They want theology! They want to go deeper! And those “millennials” that so many people like taking jabs at, they thrive in churches where the Word of God is preached with conviction and depth.  

Our sermons can’t be empty. But they can’t be boring either. We need to present the meat of the Word in the most pleasing way we know how. We need to break it down for the young in Christ and give those who are more mature something to continue to work out in their own personal study. By doing this, we will raise the bar of our churches—they will all grow in depth and breadth of their knowledge of the Word and their learning will, Lord willing, blossom into changed lives. 

The Deepest Need in Preaching: A Majestic View of God

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment

“There are always two parts to true worship. There is seeing God and there is savoring God. You can’t separate these. You must see him to savor him. And if you don’t savor him when you see him, you insult him….The greatness and the glory of God are relevant. It does not matter if surveys turn up a list of perceived needs that does not include the supreme greatness of the sovereign God of grace. That is the deepest need. Our people are starving for God.”—John Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching