Mark #1 – Expositional Preaching

This is our first blog entry – so let me say a few preliminary things. I’m very grateful that God has allowed us men to meet together and invest this time into each other and into His Kingdom. It has been a blessing to meet with the men in my group as I’m sure if you are reading this – you feel the same way. So here is the deal – these blogs will post a few ideas about what I found and engage you the reader to post a comment to add to the discussion. In fact, the hope is that there will be more comment material to read through than there is “blog.” So please, don’t just feel free, but feel obligated to add to the discussion, adding a comment, agreeing, disagreeing, and/or imputing some other insights that may have been missed. Add the material your group talked about and allow other members of the discussion to learn from what God showed your group.

With that said, Mark #1 – Expositional Preaching.  Dever says that “it is far and away the most important of them all” (pg. 39). He even says that if we get this right, “then you have in place the single most important aspect of the church’s life, and growing health is virtually assured, because God has decided to act by His Spirit through the Word” (pg. 39).

Question: Where is this assured us in the Bible? Is it assured? Why does Dever have this perspective and do you trust him at his word – or is there something in Scripture that suggests/promises this to us?

I remember in our group also pointing out that while it is the main job of the pastor to exposit – explain the word, it then must be our job as the congregation to demand that he does this. In no way am I implying that our pastor doesn’t, but our responsibility is to make sure our Pastor does his job. In fact, if God takes us away from Bethel Grace, for work or retirement or whatever reason, this should be our main qualifier in finding a new church and keeping that Pastor accountable to do his job. In addition, it should be our job to encourage him when he does do his job to keep a constant reminder that we are walking with him and doing our part as Christians.

Question: Are you doing this? Are you interacting with Pastor Jeff and any other teachers before you? Do you remind them that they did a good/bad job in presenting what God’s Word says?

 

A large chunk of the chapter is dedicated to addressing the issue of God’s Word. Did people create it? Did they arrange it? Or did God speak and respond. All of us in my group loved the story about the Catholic guy and Mark Dever.

Question: How did your group respond?

 

Finally, our group talked through pages 50-51. We examined how we could create men’s groups that rally men together, or have kids groups that are dynamic and interesting, or rally behind a church service dedicated to traditional hymns and drum sets – but all these would be hardly strong centers for rallying God’s people. Rather, our strength comes from rallying around God and His Word, two things that never change. Our desire however should be that we be changed by God’s Word. God himself, unchanging, but the church, God’s people, always changing. At the bottom of page 51 – “We need God’s Word to be saved, but we also need it to continually challenge and shape us.” And later – the Reformation cry “The Church reformed, always being reformed, according to the word of God.” Dever points us in the direction that we as individuals and corporately as the church must constantly be changed by God’s Word. We are never finished works of God. We are always in transition, being transformed according to Christ, step by step. Dever points out that “a healthy church is a church that hears the Word of God and continues to hear the Word of God. And such a church is composed of individual Christians who hear the Word of God and continue to hear the Word of God, always being refashioned and reshaped by it, constantly being washed in the Word and sanctified by God’s truth.”

Question: Are you being shaped by God’s Word? Are you daily reading and getting immersed in the Word of God? Are you willing to see your life change, your church change, your marriage, job, family change so that it might be molded closer to Jesus Christ?

 

Respond by answering some of the questions or tell us what your group discussed as it reviewed this chapter. Remember – nobody who has answered these questions is perfect, nobody in our church or God’s church is “there yet.” We are all in progress, so tell us where you and your group is at. You might just be an encouragement to another man in the church and helpful in how you answer these questions or respond with how you and your group discussed the chapter.

 

~ Drew