Another post on my experience as a teacher and preacher
First just let me say, I am not a writer.
I came to Bible Baptist Seminary in August 1966. I could not wait to get started as a student at the Bible Baptist Seminary in Arlington TX. Earlier that year, February my Dad died when I was in my last year of High School. I was going to BBS before Dad died, and he was glad that I was going into the ministry.
The subject of this blog is about preaching in the first year preaching class. Each year in the Speech class there was a preaching contest. Dr. Walker Moore was the teacher of this class. I really can't remember a lot about this class, but I know we were to preach a sermon and then the class would pick those who would continue to the next round. I can not remember how many were in this preachers class. But if I remember there were maybe between 50 and 60. ???
Well, there were I believe somewhere around five to seven rounds, and not sure about that either, it has been 50 years. Well, I had the most votes for all the rounds, Ron Brown was the counter of the class and that is what he told me. Then the final two were chosen and they were to preach in the Chapel service. And I was one and Bob Smith was the other.
I remember that one of the sermons that used was from Lee Roberston's outline. And than the other one I remember came from the Dickson Study Bible, an outline on Love had seven verses and outline. I used that one.
Well, the week just before we were to speak in Chapel, I went home over the Christmas break, and learned that the girl that I was to get married to, had just got married to someone else. I was really heart broken. Well, that had a bad effect on my, and when I got up to speak, I was a mess, and I just quite about have way through the sermon.
Of course in my first year at Seminary, I had already been preaching and teaching in my Dad's church for 27 months, and then when to Fellowship Baptist Church, in Roanoke VA and was teaching in the youth class and preached at the church several times, and then on Radio. Gene Arnold really was an encouragement to me. (He by the way was the last one to be such an encouragement.)
covered this topic of preaching many times.
I knew how to study for a sermon, that is I knew how to read from others and use their material and made it my own. I was not afraid of studying for others. I sometimes would just preach on a subject that I had heard someone else had preached. But to say that I knew really how to construct a sermon, I had note learned that skill. You know I was told that preachers really didn't have to study, they need to pray that the Holy Spirit would give them something to say when they preached.
Of course I never bought into that theory at all. I would always want to study for a topic. If I were to teach from a book, I would want to study and read from others. Those first years after Seminary I would use Dr. Martin's, or Gene Arnold or Dr. Barbers outlines that I took when I was in their church.
I was told that all I needed was a English dictionary and the old KJV bible to preach a sermon. Well of course you could preach a sermon but most of the time it was not from a passage of Scripture either.
I never had the spiritual insight into the Word of God in a way that I could get it without doing a lot of research. I have covered this topic as well.
Since I am not skilled in a lot of areas, I have had to rely on others to make it possible for me to preach and teach correctly.
I have learned to use some really good technical research books to help me get to the bottom of the Word of God. Oh I could research topics well, on just about any general topic that I want to use. But most of them was not within the context of the Scripture.
I certainly could develop some good teaching points of course, but it was not necessary within the context of any scripture.
I don't believe that I had heard many sermons that was really from the passage of Scriptures in the first place. Many of the preachers would preach a sermon that was to their liking and what they wanted to say, but it was not within the context of the scripture. The sermons were good points of course and where most likely right, but they didn't not prove it by scripture.
Topical preaching or teaching to many is not explaining any passage of scripture within its context but only preaching what they wanted to say to the people that was hearing them preach. Beside preaching was not teaching, it was preaching loud, and hard, and saying what you want to say.
I had heard good preaching from good preachers by the way. Oliver B Greene was great at teaching. J. Vernon McGee was another great teacher. Several good radio preaching we would listen to. So I had heard good bible teaching, and that was really what I want to do.
I was no Billy Graham, he was an evangelist, Lester Reloff was an evangelist, they were not pastors and teachers. I didn't want to be an evangelist.
I wanted to preach like Charles Spurgeon. Only I didn't now how. It was a sin to read books and learn from them and study other material other than reading the KJV and having a dictionary figure out what the words meant. Boy was that wrong.. Old of course you can preach a sermon that way, but most of the time it was not a biblical sermon.
I am only speaking for my self and my experience, I am sure there are good preachers and teachers.
Well I will cut this off, but what I am saying I need to use as much material as I can to get to the truth of any book I preach. I am not happy just to read Romans, or Matthew or Acts and not to get as much out of each verses that I can. I want to know that the Book is about, what was meant by what they meant it when they wrote it. I have always want to study in detail all that I could get. I loved the Thompson Chain Reference Bible and all its notes, that was the best even before I went to Seminary.
Okay that is enough until the next time.
