The style of preaching and teaching that I have tried to do for a number of years. Charles e Whisnant

The style of preaching and teaching that I have tried to do for a number of years.
Charles e Whisnant

From October 1982 after going to a Shepherd Conference I learned something about preaching. From that time I wanted to teach the the Word of God, the New Testament one book at a time, and with some depth as I went along in each book. I didn't want to take every rabbit trail as I went along, I wanted to say only what the text contained.

1. I have from the beginning always believed that I held in my hand the actual Word of God. And that every messaged I preached was is the Word of God and that I wanted to do  the best that I could to  interpret it and understand it.
   
2. While I have taught “The Bible Which You Hold In Your Hand Is The Word of God” series I have not really tried to prove that what we are reading and what we are hearing is God's Word. I haven't needed to do that because scripture is its own defense. I have believed that the scripture examined and scripture understood will make its own case for its authority and inherency. I am a presuppostionalist in that sense. God does not try to prove the bible true, God simply declares the Bible true.
   
3. The Bible is its own fearless advocate , its accuracy and its truthfulness, its clarity, its power are obvious as its content accumulates. And the weight of it increases and increases. And thus when this is done doubt will dismiss and disappears. To those who are not exposed regularly to the truth and power and depth of scripture some rationale defenses might help them.
   
4. When those who are constantly regularly systematically brought into the depths of Holy Scripture it builds its own case. And eventually what you have is concrete reinforced with rebar that you can stand on foundation that does not move and that is why I have tried over the years in the churches I have pastored to start an exposition study of the New Testament.
   
5. I have only one objective and it was not homiletically, I don't know that I have had a class on the subject, I don't really spend a lot of time on outlines, what I do is put down what is in my sermons.  The art of preaching or writing sermons
   
6. I don't try to take time to think up practical ways to apply the text since every one is different.
   
7. I don't think I spent 10 minutes on a sermon trying to figure out how I could make it say what I thought people might like to think it says because it fits their cultural perspectives.
   
8. I never thought about relevance, I never thought about how can I move their emotions, never thought about how I can motivate them. All I thought about was how can I explain what the texts means.
   
9. So if you were to characterize my desire preaching it would be explanatory. I just care about what God thinks. Just what the scripture mean by what it says. We explain the meaning of scripture in its original meaning, the original meaning intend by the author is what God was meaning and there is one meaning.     MacArthur Sr, said to Jr. "Don't be the hero of your own story and watch out for those who do."
   
10. I want to preach the truth of God and only one way for me to do that is to be diligent on the explaining of the Scripture as truthful as I can.
    
11. And I believe that the Holy Spirit then moves with power where He will and send it to whom He wills based upon a true understanding of Holy Scripture.
    

So in the 27 years that I have taught as a pastor/teacher, I have strive d to preach the text each week and try to clearly understand what the text is saying in its context to the whole Bible.  So I try to say what the text means and then broadening the meaning from that text to other scriptures in the bible that reinforces this great truth and out of the truth of the scripture which is alive and powerful and out of the truth comes strong compelling divine life-changing implications and far more interested in implications then application, The Holy Spirit can do the application. I want people to feel the burden of the implications.  Its a matter of obedience and judgment.

I want people to have the confidence that I have rightly divided the Word of God as God's Word and not my words but God's truth.