Do you always preach on new passages?

July 5, 1992 was my first Sunday as a very wet-behind-the-ears preacher. My mentor (and father-in-law) encouraged me to preach from the following text:

1 Corinthians 2:1-5 NAS77
1 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
4 And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5 that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.


I have returned to this text every July since. 21 times and the message has been different every time. Over the years I have grown, learned much, sharpened my writing and speaking skills. I'm a much better preacher than I was 21 years ago. You would think improvement in that area would reduce the weakness, fear and trembling. It's been quite the opposite.

I am accountable for my stewardship as an undershepherd. The longer I do this the awareness of my responsibility becomes more terrible and awesome - not in a negative way mind you. There is no timidity in weakness, fear and trembling. I often feel like a ham-fisted klutz given the task of protecting a piece of fine porcelain. In spite of that :godisgood:.

 

I try, as best I can, to preach new passages first and come back to established passages in my secondary texts.

Since my approach is a blend of topical and expositional sermons, I try to intersect with Scriptural texts that might be missed. For my topical sermons, some of the best content is the rich narratives from the OT and NT and can often be texts that few have regularly encountered.

One thing that I've noticed in my years of ministry is that occasionally folks love hearing a sermon from a text they've heard multiple times before. So, I try to provide that occasionally. It sure is hard to balance all these in approaching the text of Scripture.

From what I've seen by too many pastors is that they've neglected equipping themselves with tools to tread into neglected passages of Scripture and, by design, have to return to certain ones frequently. I'm not a fan of that, just like I'm not a fan of always going to Paul. Works for some guys but not for me.

Great question. :thumbsup:

 

Maybe a half dozen times. There is just so much to cover and I only get an hour..... I keep notes in the margin of my Bible when and where I preached a certain passage.

Back when I was with the UMC I had two churches so I preached the same message twice every Sunday. Pretty amazing how different they were.

 

I preach through an entire book in an expository manner. This eliminates topical preaching unless there is a specific reason why a topical message needs to be preached.

 

I read recently where Dr. Walter Kaiser said, "I believe every preacher should give a topical sermon once a year, and then immediately repent!" :laugh:

Thank you, pastors, for feeding the flock the Word.

 

Sometimes I recieve the same message from a different passage I teach.

 

Amen! That's the "analogy of faith" at work!