importance of preaching Christ

Michael Horton has written an excellent article on the importance of preaching Christ from anywhere in the Bible. He also lists some of the ways that well intended preachers miss on this as they preach. Here is the introduction to a helpful and edifying article.

If our preaching does not center on Christ–from Genesis to Revelation–no matter how good or helpful, it is not a proclamation of God’s Word.

“You search the Scriptures in vain, thinking that you have eternal life in them, not realizing that it is they which testify concerning me.” With these words, our Lord confronted what has always been the temptation in our reading of Holy Scripture: to read it without Christ as the supreme focus of revelation.

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Not infrequently, we run into a church that is very excited about having just discovered the Reformation faith, but the preaching remains what it always was: witty, perhaps anecdotal (plenty of stories and illustrations that often serve the purpose of entertainment rather than illumination of a point), and moralistic (Bible characters surveyed for their usefulness in teaching moral lessons for our daily life). This is because we have not yet integrated our systematic theology with our hermeneutics (i.e., way of interpreting Scripture). We say, “Christ alone!” in our doctrine of salvation, but in actual practice our devotional life is saturated with sappy and trivial “principles” and the preaching is often directed toward motivating us through practical tips.

What we intend to do in this issue is present an urgent call to recover the lost art of Reformational preaching. This isn’t just a matter of concern for preachers themselves, for the ministry of the Word is something that is committed to every believer, since we are all witnesses to God’s unfolding revelation in Christ. It is not only important for those who speak for God in the pulpit in public assemblies, but for the layperson who reads his or her Bible and wonders, “How can I make sense of it all?” Below, I want to point out why we think there has been a decline of evangelical preaching in this important area

Tim Keller has also spent a good bit of time with Dr. Edmund Clowney teaching how to preach Christ from anywhere in the Bible in this postmodern world we live in and the lectures are on iTunes for free.

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