The Priority Of The Church Is The Word

"Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine" (I Timothy 4:13)

At GLCC it is our aim to declare to people the whole counsel of God. Paul said to the Ephesians elders, "For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God" (Acts 20:27). The only way we can make that claim is to teach through the whole Word of God from Genesis to Revelation. This cannot be done through topical sermons. Topical sermons are good and they have their place, but when you are preaching topically, you are prone by nature to preach only those topics you like. And you tend to avoid those topics that you do not like or that are controversial or difficult. As a result we are not giving the church a balanced view of God's truth. The only way we can say "I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God" is to systematically teach verse by verse through every book of the Bible.

This does not mean that we do not on occasionally address a particular topic or preach a series of topical messages. But for the most part, we must follow the example of Isaiah who said, "But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little" (Isaiah 28:13).
One of the advantages of preaching through the Bible is that we will deal with difficult issues that address problems in an individual's life or within the church body that we would otherwise not address. When you come to a difficult issue you can deal with it in a straightforward manner. We need not worry about people thinking, "Oh, he is aiming at me today." People in the congregation will know that it's simply the passage of Scripture being studied that day.

Teaching systematically through the Bible will not only give our congregations a good understanding of the scripture but teaching the Word of God as God has laid it out will change lives and grow the church. Jesus said, "The seed that falls on good soil will bring forth fruit, some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred fold" (Matthew 13:8). Now this growth may not happen over night. It takes time to whet and develop an appetite of the people for the Word of God. The seed does not bear fruit over night, but it eventually will, just keep teaching the Word verse by verse. God will bless when we give His Word priority in the church.
 

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