On a number of occasions I recommended that Christians do not employ a 'read the Bible in a year' plan....even though most major ministries do recommend them....and I have never read a word of criticism on the plans. I acknowledge that there was a day when this method was probably very beneficial....but right now we need the leading of the Holy Spirit on where to go in our daily reading of God's Word....just as pastors need that freedom to preach on where the Holy Spirit would lead them on the Lord's Day!
I'm less confident on this but I also do not favor expository preaching. I have heard of pastors who have preached on the book of Genesis for a year straight. My own pastor is preaching from the gospel of Luke for a year.....after preaching on Revelation for a year. Martyn Lloyd-Jones could preach long periods of time on one book. I love those particular sermons but I could never spend a year straight on them. His were different times....and I do not think that he would be doing that today. Charles Spurgeon on the other hand preached topically and I have been listening to recorded sermons of his from 1989 to 1991 straight through for the past six months.
There is something else that is less than ideal with expository preaching. Generally....the preacher takes a verse....usually an entire passage....and explains it....most of the time accurately I'm sure. The problem as I have come to see it is that any Christian can do the very same thing on his or her own....and should be doing that on a daily basis. What results is that we get ourselves in a rut where we wait for Sunday to be taught God's Word....and maybe also midweek in a Bible study....but once again it is going to be someone teaching us what in most cases we should be doing ourselves....and therefore going out to find new believers to help them on their way until they also can read God's Word for themselves!
I have seen over the past forty years....Bible studies take a small pamphlet....maybe on Ephesians or Philippians or any epistle....and take six months to go through it one day a week....and then take the summer off for vacation! There is a great need for Bible studies....we do need guided....and I thank God for faithful Christians who teach and believers who want to know....but we are to work to become craftsmen....and this is but one tool.
I posted this in September of 2009...."[These are the] words of William Tyndale, martyred for translating and printing the Bible in Henry VIII's England, who when confronted by the vain knowledge of a cleric who opposed him said....'If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plough, shall know more of the Scriptures than thou'."
I am just a ploughboy....and I thank God for that....for if I were a minister....with my degree in theology hanging on my wall....and ministerial meetings and session meetings and presbytery meetings and yearly synods to reinforce in me a feeling that I am in some way more capable of going to God's Word than the borough employee raking piles of leaves off the street into the vacuum hose....this outside my window as I type right now....then I might also be glued to a yearly plan....and not observing what God is evidencing right now as to the time that we live in.
Addendum: As so very often happens....I posted and then came across something related that I want to share. In this case it is from John Piper's....desiringgod.org...ministry....an article on audio by one of the young men who John Piper is apparently nurturing. There are a number of these young men....Greg Morse is another that comes to mind. Today is Reformation Day....recalling that day 506 years ago when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the castle church door in Wittenberg....effectually starting the Reformation. The audio of that article by David Mathis is titled.....Real Protestants Keep Reforming....and I highly recommend that you listen in!
Also....I randomly picked a Martyn Lloyd-Jones sermon on revival to listen to after posting the above. He began by saying that he was interrupting his sermon series on Ephesians "for a few Sundays" to preach on an "urgent matter'....the deteriorating consideration in the church and the world and the urgent need for revival. MLJ preached this sermon on January 11, 1959. !958 had been one nuclear test after another by the West and the USSR....and Khrushchev had just warned the West to get out of Berlin. I do not have much feedback from Christians on the sermons that they hear but on what I do....there is little urgent concern on anything. I personally have hardly heard a word on what is happening in Israel. May God open our eyes in that we might see what is ahead....and pray without ceasing....so that the bride might prepare herself for the coming of the bridegroom....our Lord Jesus Christ....along with His mighty angels.
