Should pastors not preach topically?

[evangelist6589]

Listening to a sermon by Mac today and he was saying something to the effect that modern pastors do not dive into theology but focus too much on topical sermons and preaching on life issues such as

Success
Failure
Rejection
Anxiety
Worry
Bitterness
Conflict
Control
Dating
Hypocrisy
Idolatry
Injustice
Persecution
Regret
etc..

I know that Mac does not do much preaching/writing on these type of topics and one reason why he is not exactly a great application oriented preacher. Charles Stanley, Erwin Lutzer, Jeremiah, and many others seem to do a better job on these kinds of topics in my POV. I do agree with Mac that compared to the Puritans (a comparison he made) modern theology is very weak and very lacking in doctrine and deep Biblical Studies no question about it. However not sure why he believed preaching topically has no place. Perhaps I misunderstood him, but I agree there needs to be balance. Sometimes is good to preach topically, and other times its not.

What do you say? If you say that there is no need to preach on life issues then I have to wonder why? Is God not a PERSONABLE God?

 

[Revmitchell]

Topical does not automatically mean sermons on that list or that they are not doctrinal in nature.


This is another one of those issues that gets misrepresented like sinner prayer and invitations.

 

[preachinjesus]

I preach topically. Ironically, I recently heard a pastor give a wonderful topical sermon on why we should preach expositionally.

What is truly ironic is that given the nature of the proclamation in the New Testament era, neither topical nor expositional would have been preferred (or widely in use.)

 

[padredurand]

Would preaching on sin and repentance be a topical sermon?

 

[Revmitchell]

Would preaching on sin and repentance be a topical sermon?

Well if you are going to preach expositionally then you can never ever ever ever ever under any circumstances leave one single passage of scripture. If you do, if your do, then you are no longer preaching from the bible but simply preaching about the bible.


And if you believe that fairy tale I have another one for you. :tongue3:


Oh wait, is sarcasm a sin? I forget.:tear:

 

[go2church]

The holy grail of exposisitory preaching only is such nonsense. My preaching advise (for what it is worth): Be faithful to Jesus, don't avoid the hard stuff, don't make stuff up, give the people a real life take away.