result in both a loss of authority and power in our ministry.
The Church speaks with authority only when it gives voice to the revealed Word
of God. We have nothing to say to a lost and confused world, nor to a struggling
believer, but what God has already said. Indeed, Jesus never lost sight of this in
his own incarnational ministry, telling his disciples, "I did not speak of my own
accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say
it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. " (John 12:49-50). An
unmistakable declaration that our grip on the Word of God is a matter of life and
death. Jesus knew He must speak the words that His Father gave Him--it was
those, and only those, words that held the promise of eternal life. To a world that
believes it can live on bread alone we are charged to proclaim that real life,
"eternal life," comes from "every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."
(Deut. 8:3; Matt. 4:4)
Two Dangerous Trends
There is a growing consciousness of two dangerous trends in ministry today with
regard to the Bible, both of which can be characterized as losing our grip on the
essential authority and power we claim for our ministry. First is the danger of not
using the Bible at all, and second, the danger of making the Bible something
other than it is.
In the first instance, the concern is that in significant ways we are no longer
hearing the Word of God. It is widely acknowledged that both the public reading
and the exposition of Scripture has declined in evangelical worship services.
by laymen in evangelical churches, who ask why. With the exception being in
the more liturgical churches, the extent of the public reading of the Bible has
diminished, certainly in contrast to the practice of past generations. This trend
may affect evangelicalism in at least two distinct ways, when accompanied by
what J. I. Packer has called the "breakdown of the great evangelical tradition of
large-scale expository preaching Sunday by Sunday."
biblical texts and personal Bible reading and study. Believing that preaching
motivates and assists Christians in their private Bible study, he laments the
"deeply unnatural and unsatisfactory" situation in which personal Bible study
languishes "due to a lack of effective expository preaching in public worship."
Christian's lives as preaching utilizes it in ways other than expositionally. When
the Bible is not heard on its own terms and in its own words, which is the aim of
exposition, then confidence in the authority of the content of the sermon rests
fragilely on the integrity of the preacher. We must take him at his word that he is
speaking the Word of God. Time after time, laymen from evangelical churches
have expressed to me their hunger to hear the Word itself from the pulpit, rather