If you ask your typical church-goer if their church is a Bible-believing church, you will almost always get an affirmative answer. And if you ask them if them if the sermons are based on the Bible, they will answer "Yes." But then you have to ask yourself, how can that be? There are wide differences between denominations when it comes to their beliefs, doctrines and practices. If all of these churches were teaching from the same Bible, wouldn't they be more alike?

So what accounts for the differences? One significant thing is their approach to preaching. It stands to reason that the more the Bible is preached, the more likely that the parishioners will learn and understand it and conform themselves to the principles and precepts of the Bible. But if one church uses the Bible very little in their sermons and another uses it very much, it is not hard to understand that there could be significant differences in their beliefs and the conduct of the parishioners.

To use another example, if an elementary school decides to concentrate on teaching their students math, but neglects the teaching of reading, writing, spelling and grammar and another school neglects teaching math, but concentrates on reading, writing, spelling and grammar, which school will produce great mathematicians and which school will produce great writers? Clearly, the first school will produce great mathematicians, but very few good readers & writers, but the second will producer great writers & readers, but very few mathematicians. Or to look at it another way, it is like the old saying, "You are what you eat" -- if you are getting a lot of the Bible in your spiritual diet, it is very likely that you will become a solid Christian, but if you are not, the chances of that are very slim.

So what kind of spiritual diet are you getting at church? It depends to a great degree on the method of preaching; are the sermons liturgical,topical or expository?

Liturgical Worship

The problem with liturgical churches is that the focus of the worship service is not on the sermon, but the ceremonies; very little time is given to expounding on the Bible. And the brief sermons in liturgical churches are prewritten, often centuries ago. Some churches take this to the extreme, where even funerals are scripted, word-for-word, only the name of the deceased changes (there is a handy blank provided for the name in the canned sermon). As a rule, the liturgical sermons are finely crafted to affirm church doctrines and are based on very few verses of Scripture, if any. In some churches the pastor is allowed five or ten minutes to add in some contemporary remarks of his own, but the service is always dominated by the ceremonies and prescribed liturgy. In recent years there have been scandals in many non-liturgical churches because it was discovered that their pastor had "borrowed" a sermon from a colleague in another town, or used a sermon he found on the internet, verbatim. So in other words, the pastors were plagiarizing their sermons from other sources, something that those in liturgical churches take for granted!

As you might imagine, it is very difficult, if not impossible for the stale and dusty prescribed liturgy to reach and stir the hearts of those listening. Liturgical sermons are used in Roman Catholic Church and many Protestant churches such as Episcopal, Lutheran, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox and other such "high" churches.

Since the pastor did not write his own sermon, we must ask, can those that actually wrote the liturgy be trusted? Considering the history of these churches, the answer is resoundingly, NO! There are not enough words to describe how the Roman Catholic Church corrupted the Gospel, it is nothing short of damnable (a good overview of this historical corruption is included on our History page, click "History" above). And the Protestant liturgical churches are liturgical churches because they inherited those practices from the church they originated from--the Roman Catholic Church. If one studies the doctrinal history of these churches, they will see that not only did they inherit the Roman Catholic form of worship, but a good deal of their heretical doctrines as well.

However, we should not conclude that a liturgical sermon (if one were to drop the ceremonial distractions) is inherently bad. After all, the overwhelming majority of denominations use prewritten sermons, only they are generally written by the pastor himself (or herself) and usually only days or weeks before they read it (instead of centuries).

However, it surely helps if the message is written in a way to connect with the contemporary audience, but this is not possible with a liturgical sermon. And as we already discussed, because of its connection with the Roman Catholic Church, those Protestant denominations that try to base their preaching on the Bible are by definition, those the furthest from the Roman Catholic Church and therefore the furthest from their liturgical form of worship.

Topical Sermons

Most Protestant churches make the sermon the focus of the worship service, not processions, ceremonies and other spectacles. This is good, because then the church can make the Word the focus of the service and the preacher can expound on it to help the listeners understand it. But do preachers take full advantage of this opportunity?

Topical sermons are probably the most common types of sermons among Protestant Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches. These are sermons based on a topic of interest; a pastor will often pull a few verses from various books of the Bible in order to make his points. And almost inevitably, these sermons end up containing much more of the pastor's philosophy than the Word of God. As one person put it, topical sermons are a lot like those large hot-air balloons with a Bible verse printed on them that some churches have used in an effort to spread the Gospel: they have a Bible verse or two for appearance's sake, but they are really just a lot of hot air!

If your pastor uses mostly topical sermons, think back, when was the last time he or she based the sermon on more than a few verses? How much of the sermon could be traced directly back to the Bible verse(s) your pastor cited and how much came from the pastor's own ideas? And when was the last time an entire chapter was used? And were the Scriptures merely functioning as window dressing, giving the sermon an air of legitimacy and religiosity or were the Scriptures the one and only focus of his sermon?

Sermons devoid of any meaningful Biblical content have been common in liberal Protestant mainline churches for more than a century; in such churches, a pastor can expect to get complaints from the parishioners if he uses "too much Scripture" or in some cases, even if he references the Bible at all! However, traditionally it has been different in the more conservative, evangelical, churches. However, a ten-year study of the sermons in two of the most respected journals ("Preaching" and "Pulpit Digest") for evangelical pastors showed that times are changing. The study revealed that less than 20% of the sermons were "grounded in or related in any way to the nature, character and will of God,"¹ (though Scriptures may have been thrown in for window dressing). Most of them were instead centered around man: what he wants and his desires for self-fulfillment, comfort and success, not Christ's message of repentance, holy living and self-denial. Furthermore, the study found that 14% of the sermons did not contain a single thing in the content or organization of the sermon that related in any way to Scripture!² As one scholar who reviewed this study said, these sermons "could have been given by a secular psychologist in a setting like the Rotary Club"!¹ Yet, these are considered model sermons; examples which evangelical pastors look to when composing their own sermons!

Expository Sermons

If you truly want a Bible-believing church, however, look for one that uses expository preaching on a regular basis. Expository sermons start with the reading of a significant portion of Scripture, followed by an explanation of the scriptures that was just read. This practice helps to ensure that the Bible is the primary focus of the sermon. With expository sermons, the scriptures determine the topic(s), just the opposite of the topical sermon. And we know that this is exactly how the first century church conducted their church services, so those who do expository preaching are in good company.

Of course, expository sermons are not a fool-proof method of making the Bible the center of the sermon. There are a number of loopholes. For example, when a pastor is preparing his sermon, he could easily make sure that he does not choose a chapter from the Bible that would make him (or his parishioners) uncomfortable. What could make his parishioners uncomfortable? It could be a condemnation of sin (which some parishioners may be involved in), it could be doctrines from the Bible that conflict with current church practices or beliefs, or it could be a call to repentance, etc. The last thing the pastor wants is for his parishioners to have their consciences pricked, they may start squirming in their seats, they may reduce or stop contributing altogether when the offering plate is passed around or they may even walk out of the church, making a big commotion, or they may even call for a board meeting and get the pastor fired from his post! So it is no wonder that most pastors purposely avoid those troublesome verses by practicing censorship by omission--they ignore them and pretend that they do not exist.

Now there are a few churches where a pastor does not pick and choose which verses will be considered for the sermon. For instance, a few churches start with the first chapter of Genesis and work their way through the Bible, not skipping a single chapter (except those that are only genealogical name lists). This is certainly a better way of preaching for any church that would call itself a Bible-believing church. However, even here there is a loophole, the pastor has time to invent creative ways of glossing over those "troublesome" verses so as to not make his listeners uncomfortable; as they say today, he could put his own "spin" on those verses as he expounds on them or he could just fail to comment on them at all in his sermon, hoping that the congregation will forget that the verses existed! Don't laugh, this happens all the time!

The Ultimate Expository Sermon

In their effort to make the Bible the one and only focus of the sermon, the Apostolic Christian Church has taken expository preaching to the next level. Imagine what would happen if you took your typical preacher and gave him the chapter of the Bible you wanted him to preach on---only a minute before the Sunday morning service were to start! You can almost see the beads of sweat appearing on his brow, can't you? Well, believe it or not, that is very close to the way sermons are constructed in the Apostolic Christian Church! On the pulpit, as minister opens his mouth to speak the first words of the sermon, he opens the Bible at random and that becomes the chapter that he will base his sermon on! No kidding! There is no preparation!

Opening the Bible at random ensures that the "hard parts" of the Bible will not be overlooked or purposely censored out of the worship service. And there are a lot of "hard parts." This practice goes a long way to explain why the Apostolic Christian Church still abides by many New Testament principles and commandments that most other Christians have never even heard of! And this form of preaching means that the ministers need to know their Bible--and all of their Bible, because they may be called to preach on it some day. How many of you know your Bible well enough to start preaching on any chapter--right now?!

Not only does this form of preaching, that is, extemporaneous expository preaching close the loopholes we mentioned above, but it also means that the sermon comes from the pastor's heart (because it certainly can't come from a piece of paper composed previously)! It also means that the minister must rely on his own personal spiritual experiences as he expounds on the Scriptures, he can not rely on the words written by a man centuries ago as with liturgical pastors; he can not just act the part, he needs to be the genuine article--a true Christian man; if he is not, it will soon become evident. The result is heartfelt sermons, sermons that can touch the heart and mind of the listeners. If you have never heard been to an Apostolic Christian Church, we encourage you to go to a service at a church near you to experience it for yourself; it will be different from any kind of preaching you have ever heard, we promise!

References

1 No Place For Truth: Or Whatever Happened To Evangelical Theology?, 1993, David F. Wells, pages 251-252.

2 God In The Wasteland: The Reality Of Truth In A World Of Fading Dreams, 1994, David F. Wells, page 149.