If You Can't Be Good, Be Loud!

 I want to look at two kinds of preaching today. One kind is roughly called expository preaching. The other I have heard but I do not know what to call it.

Expository preaching, to me, is taking the literal Bible narrative and expounding on it. Telling us the old, old story that we have read and studied for a long time. Not just doctrine, since expository preaching is not about doctrine. It tells us what they did and why they did it thousands of years ago. Expository preaching puts me to sleep. 

Good preaching takes the Bible and applies it to real life. How God works today in current people's lives. Not just how they got saved, but what God is doing today. Pastor Mitchell was a master at this. His mind was full of people and experiences that he could use to illustrate truth today. Pastor Warner is very good at this as well.

I am not a preacher or a pastor. But I know good preaching when I hear it and I know lazy preaching when I hear it. Like my mother in law used to say, if you can't be good, be loud.

One final thought. Pastor Mitchell was a reader. He could have written books, but he did read, and not just the Bible. Deep preaching has a reserve to draw on. Expository preaching is lazy. Anyone can read the Bible and tell us what it says. Maybe our pastors need to return to reading.