IRTTA – We Love God!

Expository Preaching: 1. Emulates biblical preaching both in content and style. 2. Best achieves the biblical intent of preaching: delivering God’s message. 3. Promotes scripturally authoritative preaching. 4. Magnifies God’s Word. 5. Provides a storehouse of preaching material. 6. Develops the pastor as a man of God’s Word. 7. Ensures the highest level of biblical knowledge for the flock 8. Leads to thinking and living biblically. 9. Encourages both depth and comprehensiveness. 10. Forces treatment of hard-to-interpret texts. 11. Allows for handling broad theological themes. 12. Keeps preachers away from ruts and hobbyhorses. 13. Prevents the insertion of human ideas. 14. Guards against misinterpretation of the biblical text. 15. Imitates the preaching of Christ and the apostles. 16. Brings out the best in the expositor.

James Alexander

Let's use the idea of "binding Satan," which is taught in some churches as a norm for Christian living. In Revelation 20:1-10 we read that Satan will be bound for a thousand years, later released for a short time, and finally thrown into the lake of fire (hell) for eternal punishment. In other words, it seems quite clear that until Satan is bound for the thousand years, he is not bound. He will not be bound until Scripture says he will be bound. The 1000 years of Revelation 20, when the Lord returns to this earth to set up His millennial kingdom, is a future event. Therefore the "binding of Satan" today is really unscriptural terminology and unscriptural practice, even though the intent may be for the glory of God. Christians who spiritualize the 1000 years of Revelation 20 to the present "Christian age" (the "amillennial" view of Revelation) are inconsistent if they call for the "binding" of Satan. If Revelation 20 is in the present time, then Satan is already bound by God, and he doesn't need to be bound again and again by Christians! Any way you look at it, "binding Satan" shouldn't be part of normal Christian conduct today.

David Reid