As Bible believers, we are tired of hearing the liberals say that the King James Bible is archaic and is no longer relevant. Yet I would like to encourage Bible believers to ask themselves if they could be part of the reason for this problem.
I have argued for quite some time now that Bible believing preachers need to concern themselves more with "Relevant Bible Preaching". You can preach Bible all day long and never bring it home to the hearts of the people; yet, on the other hand you can preach to people about their finances and social life without ever cracking the pages of God's word. I believe that both of these are wrong and a balance must be sought.
So what is the solution? Relevant Bible Preaching! Preach God's word, preach it in its context, and preach it according to sound doctrine, but at the same time help the people of God to see the sins of the Bible as their own sins. Help them to see themselves in King David, Moses, Abraham, and even Judas. Man has not changed, and the ways of men in the Bible are the ways of men today. People cannot always see these things, and it is the responsibility of the man of God (with the power of God's Spirit) to help them see. Apparently I am not alone in my thoughts, for as I was reading in an old Puritan book entitled The Art of Prophesying by William Perkins, I found the following statement, "The form of the plain style was as follows: the preaching portion, be it text or passage, was explained in its context; the doctrine, or central teaching of the passage was expounded clearly and concisely; and then careful application to the hearers followed in further explanation of the uses." A few paragraphs beyond this we read, "Perkins believed that preaching should "rip up the hearts" of those who heard it; but by the same token he saw the preacher as a spiritual apothecary whose knowledge of biblical remedies enabled him to bathe the wounds and heal the spiritual sicknesses of God's people with the grace of Christ".
