The Word of God is central and prominent in a worship service because it's the air that worship

breathes. God reveals Himself as the Word. He reveals Himself by the Word. He reveals Himself

in His works. He gives us life. He gives us faith all by the Word.

Why is the preached Word central to the church's corporate worship? That's the question that John

Piper answers from 2nd Timothy 3, 16, through 4, 5 in this episode of Light and Truth. This sermon

was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on February 8, 1998.

The question I'm posing this morning is why preaching assumes such a large and prominent place

in corporate worship in this church and in the Protestant tradition.

Another way to ask the question or really it boils down to two questions, doesn't it?

Why is the Word of God so prominent and why is this particular form of it called preaching so

prominent because you might agree that the Word should be prominent to Bible, should be the center,

but that is just read it for 30 minutes or 35 minutes or you might say discuss it. Let's

discuss it for 30 or 35 minutes or you might say, let's analyze it, word by word in a historical,

grammatical way. So it's not obvious that even with, if you believe that the Word should assume

a central place in the gathered worship service that it should take the form of preaching.

So those are the two halves of the question I want to try to address from the scriptures,

why the Word is so central in our tradition and why this particular form of it called preaching

has assumed the place that it does in our preaching and you might ask in addition,

why you're addressing that to us because we're not going to preach, this is not a seminary

classroom and the answer to that question is, if you know what preaching is, biblically,

and if you know why then it assumes such a prominent role, you'll know what to do with it.

I mean, to expose yourself to this sort of thing, weak in and weak out and not know why it's

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