Well, the Protestant Reformation was a recovery of the pulpit, and yet 500 years later there

are ways Protestant preachers unwittingly fail to honor the Bible in the pulpit, which leads

to today's question from an anonymous church leader who writes this.

Pastor John, I'm on a staff at a church, and over the past couple of months I have noticed

a trend in my pastor's preaching.

Let me first say that nothing he says would ever be considered wrong.

He uses points from the overarching themes of scripture in his sermons.

Bottom line, he preaches the truth, but those points rarely derive from the sermon text

he reads at the beginning of his message.

Is this a problem?

What's at stake?

And is this a common phenomenon or an anomaly?

The answer to those three questions is number one.

It is a problem.

Number two.

It's far too common, tragically.

And number three, what's at stake are at least these six things.

Number one.

Preaching that does not show the people what the text meant and what those implications

are for our lives is failing to honor the nature of the text as God's glorious revelation

of what we need to know and how it relates to our life.

It's failing to honor the text and he is failing to honor the people in the congregation

...