I watched a youtube Video about Topical Preaching the other day. It was VERY insightful. God is NOT a "self Help" seminar, God's word is not solely to give us "life lessons" (though it does do that) His word is to give us Theological TRUTH,

Theos=God
Logy=knowledge

Knowledge of God does not mean taking the 2 loaves and 5 fish story in scripture and teaching "share your food"..THAT IS NOT what the text is about.

I'm NOT against all topical preaching,....but dont take one line out of a verse, or one verse out of a point and then teach some "life lesson".....Teach the scriptures

sorry, rant over....

please what's your opinions guys?

The problem I have with topical preaching is that it can leave holes in our knowledge of the Bible. Every pastor has his biases...things that he is drawn to...issues that mean something to him and he is drawn to. Those would be the things that he preaches on. It isn't even intentional, but just human nature.

Even when pastors preach mainly from passages of scripture, or go through an entire book over several Sundays, he still would have the tendency to preach on the books that he likes best.

A pastor could just start from Genesis and work his way through the entire Bible...like Calvary Chapel does. That would definitely ensure that the entirety of the Scripture is taught.

In my church, we have a three year scripture reading schedule that includes an OT reading or a reading from Acts, an Epistle reading or a reading from Revelation, and a Gospel reading. It is designed take from the various parts of scripture in a balanced and comprehensive way. The pastor usually bases his sermon on one of the scripture readings, but he is free to preach on something else if he feels so led. My pastor has done that on occasion. I like this because we get a well balanced teaching on the Bible...topical sermons can be preached, because a scripture reading may lend itself to a particular topic or the pastor may choose to preach on a topic if that seems appropriate...but it also lends itself to a balanced presentation of scripture without holes due to unintentional pastoral bias.

Of course, also important is to attend a bible study of some sort for more in depth study in addition to just listening to the Sunday sermon.

neither "method" is "right".

Real preaching is God communicating through a man to others and nothing less.

It is like a light reflecting off of one object and over onto another.. nad another and another. It is not the objects that are sending the light forth.. it is the source of the light that is sending it to all of them.

One has to lose the analytical side to really preach. Everything else is merely teaching.

how about all around preaching, both in-depth theology as well as "life lessons" and whatever else may be of importance. Why this either/or. I swear, moderation is a word that has been lost in the english vocabulary.

It depends on the situation.

Classical example of systematic preaching: Try and expound the meaning behind Romans 9. You need systematic preaching. Yeah

Classical example of topical: Teach somebody about the Trinity. There is a LOT of verses in the Bible about it. No one verse (infact, the Bible) gives the doctrine of the Trinity any justice.

Depends on the topic though.

However: For topical preaching... Make sure you don't look for "proof texts". And for systematic preaching, make sure you look at the "context". Both are vital and yeah, they can and often do coexist in the same sermon.