Leaving Beyond – Grounded In Scripture

Written by: April J. Buchanan

What is the expectation when you visit a church? Do you expect to hear God’s Word opened and exposited, or are you looking for something else?

While out of town with my husband, I visit different churches. With our recent change of locations, I have the task of finding a church to worship alongside while here. I am beyond grateful to have a faithful home church, but the search elsewhere can be quite the experience.

Looking up local churches in a given area and reading their statement of faith, mission, about page, and reviewing their pastors and elders can be revealing. Often, far too often, one need go no further than the name of the church or its home page. Yet even when a church appears doctrinally sound on paper, and you have spent time carefully reviewing its website, listening to a sermon can tell a very different story. When what is taught does not match what is claimed, it is a taxing and disappointing process. Back to square one.

Many people look for a church that is fun, exciting, or experience-driven. Those are a dime a dozen, even if they claim to be unique. But what I often find as well are churches that appear to hold doctrinal conviction online yet avoid meaningful doctrinal clarity in the pulpit.

Making it past the website and into the pew is no guarantee of faithful expositional preaching or theologically rich and faithful singing. It is also no guarantee that the small groups or Sunday school classes rightly handle the text. When looking for a church, we must be careful to discern and seek what is closest to the Bible.

Are there faithful churches? Yes. But they are not a dime a dozen. They require discernment and a willingness to seek what is truly faithful to Scripture. Many settle. Many more pursue what appeals to their felt needs and promises an experience. But there are also churches that maintain the appearance of doctrinal soundness while in practice they hover and never land. They are neither anchored in clear error nor anchored by firm conviction to what is sound. They aim to be open, friendly, and broadly welcoming, presenting God in such a way that the hearer may subjectively interpret the message however it feels meaningful to them. These may well be more dangerous than those with convictions in error, because error can be tested and shown for what it is. The one who hovers is like trying to nail jello to a wall.

Going verse by verse through a book of the Bible and then using the passage merely as a launch point for personal feelings about a subject mentioned in the text is not expository preaching. It is more like hovering over the text, entirely untethered from it.

Expository teaching does not begin with one’s own ideas and then seek support by bouncing around Scripture, even if the passages come from the same book. It derives meaning and application from the text itself, from what it actually means and how it rightly applies to our lives today.

It is frustrating to visit a church that claims to exposit Scripture, reads the next verse, and then never once goes into that verse to bring out its meaning. Instead, the text becomes a springboard into personal impressions about what they feel the passage means. The preacher then hovers over the text using subjective language like “open” and phrases such as “God can do whatever He wants,” leaving the hearers with their own subjective interpretations of what that language might mean.

Once you have sat under the faithful exposition of Scripture, nothing else quite compares.

It is equally disappointing to hear the work of evangelism reduced to slogans like “just speak Jesus to them,” or to hear the purpose of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer minimized to merely empowering someone to share a personal testimony.

Expository preaching is faithful exposition of the text. It goes into the text and brings out its correct meaning and application. Not everything that claims to be expositional preaching is, in fact, expositional preaching.

Friend, be not discouraged if you are sincerely seeking a doctrinally sound church. Christ is building His church and not on every corner. We have His Word. Test all things accordingly.

Grace and peace.
Soli Deo Gloria