A healthy church is marked by expository preaching and teaching, based on a theology that’s biblical.

If a healthy church is a congregation that increasingly displays the character of God as His character has been revealed in His Word, then the most obvious place to begin building a healthy church is to call Christians to listen to God’s Word.

God’s Word is the source of all life and health.

Expositional teaching & preaching simply exposes God’s Word. It takes a particular passage of Scripture, explains that passage, and then applies the meaning of the passage to the life of the listener.

The practice of expositional preaching presumes a belief that what God says is authoritative for His people.

The authority of an expositional preacher or teacher begins and ends with Scripture. Just as Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles were given not just a commission to go and speak, but also to speak a particular message, the same is true today.

Nehemiah 8:4a And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose. 8:5 And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up: 8:8 So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.

Expositional teaching and preaching requires careful attention to the context of a passage, because it aims to make the point of the biblical text the focus.

1 Corinthians1:21 Since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

Martin Luther found that carefully attending to God’s Word began a Reformation. We, too, must commit
to seeing that our churches are always being reformed and transformed by the Word of God.

This important concept applies to any teaching done in the church, from children and youth programs, to life groups, and to sermons. The intention is for the teacher to first understand the Word, and then to explain the Word.

Healthy Churches Rely On Biblical Theology Paul Warns: People’s Desire for Truth Will End

1 Timothy 1:10 Sexually immoral people, homosexuals, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is opposed to sound doctrine 1:11b according to the glorious Gospel of the blessed God.

Paul presented a list of vices which begins with three pairs of adjectives, and then follows with the content in the Ten Commandments, and then also adds, any other thing contrary to sound doctrine. The kind of teaching Paul advocates in the New Testament is the kind that produces spiritual life, spiritual growth, and spiritual health.

Paul’s metaphor expressed his conviction that a morally disordered life is diseased, and stands in need of treatment by the law.

A life based on the teaching of the gospel

Paul Tells Timothy Remain Faithful to The Word Of God

2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all patience and instruction.

2 Timothy 4:3a For there will be a time when they will not put up with sound teaching 4:4 and they will turn away from the hearing of the truth, but will turn to myths.

Paul gave a stern charge to Timothy in declaring the truth, because even professing Christendom would increase its appetite for error, rather than for truth. They would find preachers who would tell them only what they desired to hear. They will desire satisfying, but meaningless mumbling of pseudo-scholarship. Such speakers toy with the minds of the hearers, but leave the intellect uninformed, the conscience unchallenged, and the will set in a direction away from God.

False teachers appeal to the feelings of people. It’s not that feelings do not matter, but the truth always goes at the mind.

The truth of the Word of God always goes at the thinking of people, not the feelings of people. God wants us to think differently about ourselves, about God, about Christ, about truth, about sin, about righteousness.

Any preacher or teacher should be concerned that people’s feelings follow their thinking, that their thinking be biblical. The teacher or preacher should desire for a person’s thinking or thoughts to change, be transformed, because they are hearing the truth of God’s Word.

2 Timothy 2:15 Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman not ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

God still speaks through His Word. Let’s teach it and preach it.