Emergent Preaching

On Wednesday evenings here at LABC we are discussing what it means to be a Biblically healthy church. Next week we will finish reviewing why Expository Preaching is Biblically healthy and so necessary for the pulpits of our churches. One glaring example of unhealthy preaching is that of Brian Mclaren, one of the leaders of the emergent church. Brian is encouraging Christians to participate in the Muslim holy month of fasting known as Ramadan. His justification for his actions is a clear misunderstanding of the Bible. Maclaren writes,

“Just as Jesus, a devout Jew, overcame religious prejudice and learned from a Syrophonecian woman and was inspired by her faith two thousand years ago (Matthew 15:21 ff, Mark 7:24 ff), we seek to learn from our Muslim sisters and brothers today.”

I have a few questions for you to consider.

Can you see what is wrong with this line of thinking? [Try reading the texts that are cited.]

Can you provide some Biblical texts that may counter his premise? [Consider 2 Cor 6:14-15]

One of the problems with this line of thinking is that it begins with an idea or ideology and then attempts to find a text to support that concept. Expository preaching begins with the text to discover its meaning, explains the text, and allows the implications to be directly deduced from Scripture.

We will discuss this and more next Wednesday.