THE DEVALUATION OF PREACHING#

To explain why preaching receives these low grades would take us into every area of our common life. Because preachers are no longer regarded as the intellectual or even the spiritual leaders in their communities, their image has changed. In addition, preaching takes place in an over-communicated society. Mass media bombard us with a hundred thousand “messages” a day. Television and radio feature pitchmen delivering a “word from the sponsor” with all the sincerity of an evangelist.

Much modern theology offers them little more than holy hunches, and they suspect that the sophisticates in the pew place more faith in science texts than in preaching texts. For some preachers, therefore, fads in communication become more alluring than the message. Undoubtedly, modern techniques can enhance communication, but on the other hand, they can substitute for the message.

THE CASE FOR PREACHING#

In spite of the “bad-mouthing” of preaching and preachers, no one who takes the Bible seriously should count preaching out. To the New Testament writers, preaching stands as the event through which God works. Through preaching God had redeemed them.

When Paul wrote this letter to the congregation in Rome, he confessed, “I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine” (Rom. 1:11-12 RSV). Paul realized that some ministries simply cannot take place apart from face-to-face contact. Even the reading of an inspired letter will not substitute. A power comes through the preached word that even the written word cannot replace.

Preachers should pour out the message with passion and fervor in order to stir souls. Not all passionate pleading from a pulpit, however, possesses divine authority. When preachers speak as heralds, they must cry out “the Word.” Anything less cannot legitimately pass for Christian preaching.

THE NEED FOR EXPOSITORY PREACHING#

Those in the pulpit face the pressing temptation to deliver some message other than that of the Scriptures—a political system (either right-wing or left-wing), a theory of economics, a new religious philosophy, old religious slogans, or a trend in psychology. Yet when they fail to preach the Scriptures, they abandon their authority. No longer do they confront their hearers with a word from God. That is why most modern preaching evokes little more than a wide yawn. God is not in it.

God speaks through the Bible. It is the major tool of communication by which He addresses individuals today. Biblical preaching, therefore, must not be equated with “the old, old story of Jesus and His love” as though it were retelling history about better times when God was alive and well. Nor is preaching merely a rehash of ideas about God - orthodox, but removed from life.

Through the preaching of the Scriptures, God encounters men and women to bring them to salvation (2 Tim. 3:15) and to richness and ripeness of Christian character (vv. 16-17).

The type of preaching that best carries the force of divine authority is expository preaching. Admittedly, expository preaching has suffered severely in the pulpits of those claiming to be its friends. Yet not all expository preaching necessarily qualifies as either expository or preaching. Ministers may paste the label expository on whatever sermon they please, and no consumer advocate will correct them. Yet, in spite of damage done by admirers, genuine expository preaching has behind it the power of the living God.

THE DEFINITION OF EXPOSITORY PREACHING#

Preaching is a living interaction involving God, the preacher, and the congregation, and no definition can pretend to capture that dynamic. But for the sake of clarity we must attempt a working definition anyway.

The Passage Governs the Sermon#

What particulars of this elaborate and somewhat dry definition should we highlight?

First, and above all, the thought of the biblical writer determines the substance of an expository sermon.

Expository preaching at its core is more a philosophy than a method. Whether or not we can be called expositors starts with our purpose and with our honest answer to the question:

“Do you, as a preacher, endeavor to bend your thought to the Scriptures, or do you use the Scriptures to support your thought?”

This is not the same question as, “Is what you are preaching orthodox or evangelical?” Nor is it the same as, “Do you hold a high view of the Bible or believe it to be the infallible Word of God?” As important as these questions may appear in other circumstances, a passing grade in systematic theology does not qualify an individual as an expositor of the Bible. Theology may protect us from evils lurking in atomistic, nearsighted interpretations, but at the same time it may blindfold us from seeing the text. In approaching a passage, we must be willing to reexamine our doctrinal convictions and to reject the judgments of our most respected teachers.

Adopting this attitude toward Scripture demands both simplicity and sophistication. On the one hand, expositors approach their Bible with a childlike desire to hear the story. They do not come to argue, to prove a point, or even to find a sermon. They read to understand and to experience what they understand. At the same time, they know they live not as children but as adults locked into presuppositions and worldviews that make understanding difficult.

The Expositor Communicates a Concept#

While an orthodox doctrine of inspiration may be a necessary plank in the evangelical platform on biblical authority, this sometimes gets in the way of expository preaching. Although we examine words in the text and sometimes deal with particular words in the sermon, words and phrases should never become ends in themselves. Words are stupid things until linked with other words to convey meaning. In our approach to the Bible, therefore, we are primarily concerned not with what individual words mean, but with what the biblical writers mean through their use of words.

If we desire to understand the Bible in order to communicate its message, we must grapple with it on the level of ideas. If we are ever to get sermons, therefore, we must get them first as ideas.

The Concept Comes from the Text#

This emphasis on ideas as the substance of expository preaching does not in any way deny the importance of vocabulary or grammar. Ultimately the authority behind expository preaching resides not in the preacher but in the biblical text. For that reason expositors deal largely with an explanation of Scripture, so that they focus the listener’s attention on the Bible. Listeners also have a responsibility to match the sermon to the biblical text. Effective expository preaching requires listeners with ears to hear. Since the souls of listeners depend upon it, we must offer our hearers sufficient information so that they can decide for themselves if what they are hearing is indeed what the Bible says.

If the listeners in the pew must work to understand the preacher, the preacher must labor to understand the writers of the Bible. Communication means “a meeting of meanings,” and for communication to occur across a sanctuary or across the centuries, those involved must share things in common—a language, a culture, a worldview, communication forms. Though we may not master the languages, history, and literary forms of the biblical writers, we should appreciate the contribution of each of these disciplines.

As much as possible, expositors seek a firsthand acquaintance with the biblical writers and their ideas in context.

The Concept Is Applied to the Expositor#

Our definition of expository preaching goes on to say that the truth must be applied to the personality and experience of the preacher. This places God’s dealing with the preacher at the center of the process. As much as we might wish it otherwise, we cannot be separated from the message.

Distinctions made between “studying the Bible to get a sermon and studying the Bible to feed your own soul” are misleading and even false. A scholar may examine the Bible as Hebrew poetry or as a record of the births and reigns of long-dead kings and yet not be confronted by its truth. Yet no such detachment can exist for one who opens the Bible as the Word of God. Before we proclaim the message of the Bible to others, we should live with that message ourselves.

One common recipe found in homiletical cookbooks reads something like this: “Take several theological or moral platitudes, mix with equal parts of ‘dedication,’ ‘evangelism,’ or ‘stewardship,’ add several ‘kingdoms’ or ‘the Bible says,’ stir in a selection of stories, add ‘salvation’ to taste. Serve hot on a bed of Scripture verses.” Such sermons not only leave a congregation undernourished, but they also starve the preachers. They do not grow because the Holy Spirit has nothing to feed them.

The Concept Is Applied to the Hearers#

Not only does the Holy Spirit apply His truth to the personality and experience of the preacher, but according to our definition of expository preaching, He then applies that truth through the preacher to the hearers. Expositors think in three areas.

• First, as exegetes, we struggle with the meanings of the biblical writer.

• Then, as people of God, we wrestle with how God wants to change us.

• Finally, as preachers, we ponder what God wants to say to the congregation through us.

Application gives expository preaching purpose. As shepherds, we relate to the hurts, cries, and fears of our flock. Therefore we study the Scriptures, wondering what they can say to people living with grief and guilt, doubt and death.

Dull expository sermons usually lack effective applications. Boring sermons evoke two major complaints.

First, listeners grumble, “It’s always the same old thing.” The preacher gives all passages the same application, or worse, no application at all. “May the Holy Spirit apply this truth to our lives,” incants a minister who does not have a ghost of a guess as to how the biblical content might change people.

A second negative reaction is that the sermon does not relate to the world directly enough to be of practical use: “It’s true enough, I guess, but so what? What difference does it make?” After all, if a man or woman decides to live under the mandate of Scripture, such action will normally take place outside the church building. On the outside, people lose jobs, worry about their children, and find crabgrass invading their lawns. If the sermon does not make much difference in that world, they wonder if it makes any difference at all.

After all, when God spoke in the Scriptures, He addressed women and men as they were, where they were. The letters of the New Testament, like the prophecies of the Old, were addressed to specific assemblies struggling with particular problems. Our expository sermons today will be ineffective unless we realize that our listeners, too, exist at a particular address and have mind-sets unique to them.

SUMMARIZE#

We have studied a passage in its context, giving attention to its historical, grammatical, and literary setting;

We have in some way experienced, through the work of the Holy Spirit, the power of our study in our own lives;

And from this, we shape the sermon so that it communicates the central biblical concept in a way that is meaningful to our hearers.