Preaching the Word

While some preachers like to clear the pulpit so that nothing gets in the way, I always felt that the big pulpit Bible which never really got much use had a place on the pulpit and needed to be there more than anything else I might put in place of it.  As I recall every church I served had one.  And as I also recall, it just stayed open, but never read.  The only exception was in Richmond Hill where people were invited to come into the sanctuary during the week and read aloud to an empty sanctuary.  It was our intention to read completely through the Bible in this way.     

Those of us who made a habit of going in to read figured it was a good thing to fill the air of the sanctuary with the Word of God.  Certainly, it was not something which would hurt anything.  Aside from that usage, the big bulky pulpit Bible was always a visible reminder to the preacher who stood behind the pulpit to preach.  It reminded me that whatever I said needed to have at its core something from that Book.  One of my seminary preachers always said that people did not come to the church on Sunday to hear what the preacher was thinking, but to hear what the Word of God was saying.    

It was one of those things that I carried with me through the years of preaching.  Being a Bible based preacher does not mean filling a sermon with so many scripture references that the sermon seems like a concordance, but instead, it means preaching with a mind to proclaim what a particular part of the Word of God is saying.   A common refrain often heard after the Scripture is read is "The Word of God for the people of God."  Many a preacher has uttered the refrain and then went on to preach something that had nothing or little to do with the Word of God.  Such may be acceptable in the church as good preaching, but it is really just a poor substitute.