Calvinist Preaching Misses The Mark

 Everything I ever learned or knew about preaching I learned from Wayman Mitchell. I learned what Bible doctrine is. I learned how to apply the Bible to modern life. And I learned how to study to find out what the Bible says as you mine it's depths.

Our recent revival reminded me about expository preaching. What is that you may ask? It is the kind of preaching the Evangelical world lives on. It is the format of every radio preacher I have ever heard. It is a method of preaching that many feel is the only way to let God speak through His word. Basically, expository preaching is reading the Bible and trying to explain what happened way back in prehistoric times. It is explaining the Bible by telling the Bible stories and explaining how people thought or how they felt or to explain why they did what they did.

Pastor Mitchell was not an expository preacher. He could explain Bible doctrine better than anyone. He could uncover Bible truths in a way that anyone could understand it. But pastor Mitchell could also apply Bible truth to real life. He could show that the Bible is still alive and powerful by living it himself and by declaring it to others. All of the basic Bible doctrines that I know I learned from pastor Mitchell. Many successful pastors today learned how to pastor from Wayman Mitchell. Pastor Mitchell not only studied the Bible he also read many books and he applied what he learned to himself and his family and his church.

Knowing what old Bible characters were thinking or feeling is at best good for academic exercise but not always useful for overcoming sin or loving your wife. On top of everything else, the Bible is a book that is the story of redemption. It is incomplete in covering history. It leaves vast areas unexplained. It is not a handbook on how to succeed in the Christian life. It shows the wisdom of God in providing a savior to go to the cross and to rise from the dead.

Calvinists get some thing right. But they miss the mark by a wide margin in other areas. We are not Calvinists. We are those who believe that now is the time and today is the day and that a risen savior is still alive and working today. Let those who minister the Word to us both live as an example and preach with clarity and show us how to make it to Heaven in the end.