WHY I PREACH WITH AN OPEN BIBLE.
Geoffrey R. Kirkland
Christ Fellowship Bible Church
Blogs
and articles abound in promoting myriads of ideas relating to preaching
and of being relevant to the audience and clever in the delivery. My
commitment has been and will continue to be simple: to open the Bible,
to read a biblical text, to explain that biblical text, to press home
its application to the hearer’s heart, and to proclaim the saving gospel
and call sinners to repent and believe. In doing this, I preach with an
open Bible -- always. I’ve compiled a few reasons why I preach with an
open Bible.
1. it conveys my only authority.
When
the preacher speaks, he has only one authority -- the voice of God that
goes forth in the declaring of divine truth as it is sourced in the
written Word. Other than that, the man has nothing to say. When I open
my Bible and preach from it, it conveys to the congregation that my only
authority to stand before them and speak is simply and solely is the
written and sufficient Word of God. I want it to be seen. I want the
audience to understand I’m a man under divine authority as I speak God’s
truth to His people.
2. it models biblical hermeneutics.
Preaching
is hermeneutics publicly spoken. To preach the Word means that a man
has prayed and studied and done all the hard work so as to present
biblical truth in a clear, compelling, and understandable way. I preach
with an open Bible because I want to model biblical interpretation --
good hermeneutical principles and practices -- even in the act of
heralding God’s Word. I don’t want people to ever come away and say “I
believe this because Pastor Geoff said it!” Rather, I want people to
leave convinced of theological truths because they say: “I see this in
the Bible!” I want to model for them the art and discipline and proper
methods of arriving at the proper meaning of the biblical text. And
preaching with my open Bible aids me in this endeavor.
3. it prevents self-contrived ideologies.
Preaching
with an open Bible prevents me from inventing self-contrived ideas and
self-promoting messages. How easy it would become to start tickling the
ears of the audience and fall into the cunning trap of people-pleasing.
But to preach with an open Bible prevents me from creating and crafting
my own fabricated ideologies and sermonettes and it causes me to preach
what God wants me to preach in the following paragraph as I preach
expositionally and sequentially through entire books of the Bible. I
don’t want to be in charge of what I say or preach; I want God to
dictate what and how I preach. And to prevent my own ideas infiltrating
in, I believe that having an open Bible on the pulpit before me and
constantly referencing verses in the Bible helps prevent self-contrived
ideologies.
4. it visualizes the Headship of Christ
Jesus
rules His church. I don’t think very many people would argue with that.
But when you observe much of American Christianity you see something
vastly different. One way, I believe, to emphatically show that Jesus
rules this church is to preach from an open Bible on the pulpit so that
all the congregation knows and hears and understands that Jesus Christ
speaks to us now through the exposition of sacred Scripture as it is
read and expounded through God’s appointed messenger. I don’t want to
neglect anything that would downplay the headship of Christ. I don’t
want to pick and choose verses and paste them on a screen. I want people
to see the truth in their own Bibles. I want people to see me hold my
Bible. I want the congregation to see me point to my text of Scripture. I
want them to see my authority comes from Christ as it is codified and
revealed in the inerrant Scriptures.
5. it proclaims its own sufficiency
Preaching
with an open Bible in front of me is a simple proclamation in and of
itself. It declares the sufficiency of the Bible. I don’t need gimmicks,
or dramas, or entertaining techniques. I don’t need visual aids or
clever anecdotes or humorous stories to catch people’s attention. God
does that. So in opening my Bible, reading it, explaining and applying
it, and pressing it home to people’s hearts and consciences, I believe
that this testifies to the Bible’s own power and sufficiency.
6. it enhances frequent cross-referencing
One
key principle of rightly interpreting the Bible is the analogy of
Scripture -- comparing Scripture with Scripture and interpreting texts
in light of other biblical texts that speak to the same truths. When I
preach, I want the congregation to all know that the Bible -- though
containing 66 uniquely inspired books -- comprises a glorious unity of
divine wisdom. Nothing ever contradicts itself. No part of Scripture
will ever diminish or negate or eliminate another. So in my preaching, I
want my Bible to be open so that I can readily tell the congregation:
“turn to…”, or, “let’s see this further in another portion of
Scripture…” So in the open Bible before me as I herald, I want the
freedom and readiness of turning to many Scriptures throughout the
entirety of the message to aid and serve the message going forth. An
open Bible helps with this.
7. it reminds me of my grave responsibility.
Quite
simply, preaching is a sober calling and a majestic task. In a sense,
the preacher always fails when he preaches because he can’t due justice
to the beauty and glory of the God that is being presented, nor can
human words adequately convey the splendor of Christ and the efficacy of
His atonement. Nevertheless, all biblical preachers fearfully and
joyfully take up the divinely-given call to preach. No greater joy
exists in the world than to open God’s clear word and explain its
meaning to the people God has brought to hear it. Preaching with an open
Bible serves as an ongoing reminder that my responsibility is great and
my duty is lofty. I am a mouthpiece, a messenger, an ambassador, a
prophet-like man, to take God’s given revelation and speak it
faithfully, unchangeably, and powerfully to all who have assembled.
Having an open Bible serves to continually bring the weight of sobriety
on my soul that I am a man under obligation, a man devoted to God, a man
enslaved to Christ, a man in love with souls. Thus, I preach God’s Word
to God’s people with an open Bible with joyful trembling and sober
expectation that God will work in and through the going forth of His
word to accomplish His perfect will.
** More podcasts on Preaching / Exposition can be found HERE.
