Biblical preaching allows the variety of the text to determine the message, it does not rely on the preacher’s discretion to import other Scriptures to balance its message – making the sermon the product of the preacher’s understanding. It allows each passage to speak for itself, and then next time the next passage will speak for itself.
There’s a liberty in that, and a benefit for congregations who grow from hearing the variety of God’s word week by week rather than the preacher’s varying impression of what the congregation need to hear.
From Ray Ortlund.
My brother pastor, to preach with biblical fullness, rising above our biases, our best course is to preach through the Bible, passage by passage, letting each passage make its unique contribution, confident that over time the fullness of it all will serve people well with a clear vision of the Triune God. But let us never force a passage to say what we think it ought to have said and thus complicate the work of God.
For example, if a biblical passage teaches imputed righteousness, let’s not “balance” it by inserting into the sermon a counter-emphasis on imparted righteousness. And if a passage teaches imparted righteousness, let’s not “balance” it with a forced counter-emphasis on imputed righteousness. That is not biblical preaching. And Scripture, not the categories of Systematic Theology, is our final authority.
Humility allows God to speak through his Word, yielding to him passage by passage, Sunday by Sunday, so that he enriches us with one precious gospel gift after another, each one a new facet of the many glories of Christ. This kind of preaching—oscillating, not vacillating—can raise up wise and healthy churches, not limited by any pet doctrine, but enlarged by the grandeur of Scripture.
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