Giving a Piece of My Mind on Those Who Trash Expository Preaching

Although the article I found about Andy Stanley trashing expository preaching was last May 8, 2015 but I found it to be an interesting read. Here's an answer that Stanley gave that made me go dizzy just reading it:

Guys that preach verse-by-verse through books of the Bible– that is just cheating. It’s cheating because that would be easy, first of all. That isn’t how you grow people. No one in the Scripture modeled that. There’s not one example of that.

I'm really amazed at that really stupid answer. I feel like my stomach is churning too fast and that he calls it "cheating". Cheating? I really want to ask people who are against expository preaching that it's "cheating"? So don't tell me any teacher who expands on subject matters in just any subject in education like history, math and science are "cheating"? On the contrary, verse by verse preaching is not easy. Taking verses out of context is very easy because all you need to do is to is ignore the rest. But expository preaching demands a lot of study on both the pastor and his flock.

The first time I started getting into expository preaching, it means that any preacher should diligently do the following:

1. Getting the Greek and the Hebrew words in their original meaning. 
2. Analyzing the figures of speech used in the Bible.
3. Knowing the context of the verses and the setting of the narratives. 

Whenever I read through any commentary like the Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary, Vernon McGee's Through the Bible Commentary, John Gill's Exposition, Adam Clarke's commentary or John F. MacArthur's Study Bible, I am forced to slow down when I read the Bible. Instead, it means I may be stuck in one chapter for a month or two. It means it's time to chew more than usual. I felt like people back in the Old Testament may have had lesser issues with overeating because they may have been eating chewier meat from the clean meat God allowed them to eat. Let me tell you, sometimes the best tasting steaks or goat meat are usually not the soft type or those that have a lot of tendons to chew. They give me more time to savor than more tender meat. Likewise, the Bible is spiritual food to savor and chew thoroughly. Animals that have split hooves and chew the cud digest the nutrients better than swine. That's why even if I eat pork I usually prefer the meats prescribed in Leviticus.

Those who trash expository preaching do what they do because it's easier to take verses out of context than to analyze them in context. Do you know that the Roman Catholic institution as well as several pseudo-Christian cults are founded based on verses taken out of context? All the Popes needed to do to lie they were Peter's successors is to give a faulty interpretation of Matthew 16:16-18. Other cults claim they are the last messengers by simply misquoting prophecies claiming they came to fulfill it. Homosexuals claiming to be Christians quote a lot of verses in the New Testament to justify their lifestyles without considering homosexuality is still condemned under God's moral standards (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). Try reading everything that was take out of context in context and cultists don't make sense at all. It's easy to see that cultists hate expository preaching because it exposes their lies. Remember, they would start to trash anything that would make them lose their grip of power. 

The ones who are actually guilty of cheating are the out of context preachers and not the expository preachers. They're cheating their flocks out of the opportunity to hear the real message as it should be heard. They're taking shortcuts so they could produce more sermons at the cost of giving a quality sermon. The same article speaks this truth about Stanley's attack on expository preaching:

We see here what Stanley is busy reading – and it’s not the Scripture. After all, the Scripture isn’t equally applicable or relevant to every "stage of life" (which is why the typical seeker-friendly church preaches from only a dozen different scripture texts – David and Goliath, Jonah and the whale, Joshua and the Sun, etc – repackaged over and over and over again in an endless sea of regurgitated life advice in a camouflage of changing phraseology). No, Stanley is reading culture. He’s reading the audience. He’s not a preacher – he’s contemporary anthropologist. His job is basically the same as Ed Stetzer’s – except applied as ecclesiastical methodology instead of as helpful missiological data – Stanley studies culture and provides to the consumer what is is asking for. Stanley’s king is not Christ. The consumer, in Stanely’s ministry, is king.

I don't think I could stand even a minute listening to out of context preaching. Either I laugh (like Steven Anderson's Pisseth Against the Wall sermon or some examples of out of context preaching that Pastor MacArthur gave as examples) or I'm just ready to roar in rage. It even drives me dizzy with all those cultists taking the Bible out of context. What's worse is that even when I start showing the Bible to them in context and the grammar used contradicts their teaching (like Matthew 16:18 shows that Peter is not the Rock but a rock, note the difference) they still insist in their error. It's just like how Stanley calls expository preaching as "cheating" because it doesn't fit with his seeker-friendly doctrine or how many pseudo-Christian cults reject Sola Scriptura because it goes against their practices. What's even funnier is that they misquote Mark 7:8-9 when they're the ones guilty of doing what those two verses say about the Pharisees.

Besides, Pastor MacArthur is right to say this one about those who trash expository preaching:

There’s a serious defect in a so-called minister content to be proud of assembling non-believers and calling them a church. Something deeply wrong there. Modern evangelicalism seems to exhaust every imaginable and unimaginable means to attract and collect non-Christians into a building and then call it a church and call it church growth. Maybe there’s a better way to identify these places, let’s just call them non-churches.

Yes, MacArthur may be partly right they're non-churches or maybe he's partly wrong. I'd probably give him a "friendly rebuke: and tell him that yes they're churches but they're defective, non-working churches. I could agree on what he said about modern evangelicalism. I christened it as the plague called "Easy Christianity". When I check these defective Baptist churches, they all teach stupid doctrine such as the perpetually carnal Christian or easy prayerism. Many of them just make their converts just pray a prayer and they're in. They never bother to check whether or not these people are truly converted. They'd even think that mass murderer the late George Sodini was even saved even when he's shown every marks of false conversion. As much as I believe in once saved always saved but Christians can't live like the rest of the world. They say that only Pharisees inspect fruits. Did they read Matthew 7:16-20 which warns that true and false converts will be known by their fruits? I wonder how many verses are missing from their Bibles. If they claim to be King James Onlyists (which I'm still one and embracing Reformed Theology is further strengthening my stand on it) then shame on them. They can't claim to be King James believers with all the unbiblical heresies they preach.

The battle to spread God's Word in context wasn't an easy one. Just think how difficult it was for the translators of the King James to get the most reliable English translation of the Bible for the common people. Before the King James came into place, just think how many people who preached the Bible in context were massacred. The great Girolamo Savonarola, Jan Huss and Willian Tyndale all risked their lives to get the Bible to the masses. Martin Luther suffered persecution because he translated the Bible into German for the common people. A lot of people paid the price just to make sure people got to read the Bible. Those out of context preachers are just ungrateful with how they keep taking verses out of context never mind the shed blood of the martyrs so the Bible can be translated with care without anything added or subtracted from it. People take verses out of context are just chewing themselves.

If anything, I couldn't imagine how their study Bibles would look like. Probably, I'm going to see more missing verses than the modern translations (like the New International Version or English Standard Version which some of my favorite preachers still use as an extra reference) that I've been avoiding. Maybe, just maybe if any of them decided to write their own study Bible may use verses from the King James but you may see the following verses missing to justify whatever heretical doctrines they want to uphold at the cost of the souls of their attendants:

• Matthew 7:16-20 (because they want to stop fruit inspection)
• Romans 3:31 (because they want to make faith a license to sin)
• 1 Corinthians 6:10 (because they want to teach Christians can still remain the same)
• Ephesians 2:10 (because they're against good works as a result of salvation)
• 1 John 2:19 (because they hate the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints as much as the conditional security crowd does)
• James 2:14-26 (now that's a lot of verses so they can continue to tell people that dead faith is still saving faith when it isn't)

That's just a few verses that I could imagine would go missing in their "study Bibles". I could imagine any verses that may relate to sanctification or any verses that go against Antinomianism will be taken out. If not, they may put nonsense margin notes that may say something as nonsense as, "But it does not mean Christians will bear fruit. You want rotten fruit? Look for those who keep looking for good fruit in the lives of others. They're rotten fruit. Those who say that those professing believers who don't bear fruit aren't saved are guilty of the leaven of the Pharisees." or "But it doesn't mean that a Christian lives differently from the rest of world even if Paul says they're sanctified." If I ever find such marginal notes in any commentary I'd get, I don't even know what I'd do. I might even write an angry letter to such Bible scholars for writing such nonsense on the Scriptures. I might even get a black marker and start crushing out their nonsense marginal notes. I guess they'll claim they got it by "divine revelation" even when it's just their nonsense imaginations or Satan manipulating their sinful imaginations to write such nonsense.

What I can say is these people aren't heeding God's warning about not adding or subtracting from His Word. They need to seriously read Revelation 22:18-19 which says:

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this Book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the Book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the Holy City, and from the things which are written in this Book.

This is really a huge warning to such people. It saddens me all I could do is just to warn them. I can't make them believe. If I did, I would be competing against the Holy Spirit. But all I could do is warn, conversion is the job of the Holy Spirit. All I could do is to minister God's Word and nothing more. If they don't heed the warning then it's their problem. All those who have mutilated the presentation of God's Word will have a lot to answer for on Judgment Day.