I’m thankful for the resurgence of expository preaching in recent years.  In fact, in He is Not Silent, Al Mohler has gone so far as to say that, “the only form of authentic Christian preaching is expository preaching.”  But, there continues to be much confusion in many circles about what exactly expository preaching is.  For many, expository preaching is NEVER topical, and always involves preaching through entire books of the Bible.  In some circles, to suggest anything less is nearly heretical.  For these folks, expository preaching is a method or a style.

I would like to suggest, however, that expository preaching is much more about conviction–a conviction that the Word of God is sufficient and that it accomplishes all that God intends for it to accomplish–than it is about method.  Ligon Duncan has this to say in Preaching the Cross:

By expository preaching, I don’t mean one particular style or method of preaching, but a self-conscious, principled commitment to preaching in such a way that the Scripture itself is supplying the main theme, principle headings, and central application in our proclamation.

In other words, a commitment to expository preaching is a commitment to allowing the text speak for itself.  It is a conviction that God’s word says it better than I can and that “good” preaching happens when the preacher gets out of the way and allows the Word of God to be heard clearly.  You may preach expository sermons in a strictly systematic outline, you may preach in narrative form, you may wear a suit or you may wear flip flops.  Your sermons may be built around 4-6 week themes or you may elaborate for years from the book of Romans.  The most important factor is that the Scripture sets the agenda for your messages and that it is allowed to speak clearly in the lives of your hearers.

As pastors, how can we raise the bar for biblical understanding and practice in our local churches? Collin Hansen at Christianity Today recently interviewed Pastor David Platt, to answer how he is seeing this happen in his congregation, The Church at Brook Hills, in Birmingham, AL. Concerning the problem of biblical illiteracy amongst church attendees, Platt had this to say:

We have severely dumbed down the Word, and shown a lack of trust in the sufficiency of the Word in the way we preach. We find it necessary to supplement it with entertaining stories and quips or good practical advice for living the Christian life that are not based in the Word. This deficiency transfers into people content with a little “Word for the Day,” in a devotional book at best, as opposed to deep knowledge of Scripture.

The whole interview is well worth reading. Read it in it’s entirety over at Christianity Today online.

Also, if you have never heard David Platt preach, we at P4P highly recommend the sermon that Platt preached at this past SBC pastor’s conference.  The message was titled, ““Are we going to die in our religion or are we going to die in our devotion?”:

David Platt: SBC Pastors Conference 2009 from Todd Thomas on Vimeo.

We have recently added some more links to our blogroll on the right hand side of our homepage.  One of these is Biblicalpreaching.net.  Peter Mead, who trains pastors and preachers based out of London, UK, operates the site, and describes his site as “a blog for discussing anything related to preaching. We hope to generate discussion of how to preach specific Biblical passages, aspects of delivery, preaching theory and also book reviews. The goal is to stimulate better Biblical preaching.”

We at P4P encourage you to check out the work of this brother in Christ at biblicalpreaching.net.

“Authentic expository preaching takes the presentation of the Word of God as its central aim. The purpose of the preacher is to read the text, interpret the text, explain the text, and apply the text. Thus, the text drives the sermon from beginning to end.”

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. The Disappearance of God: Dangerous Beliefs in the New Spiritual Blindness (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah, 2009), 194.

Piper, John.  The Supremacy of God in Preaching. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2004.  109 pp.  $12.99. 

Introduction

            John Piper is the pastor of preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church.  His expository preaching style is known for it’s powerful focus on the glory of God.  The Supremacy of God in Preaching could just as easily have been a prescriptive book about his preaching style as it is a descriptive book about preaching in general.  The book draws heavily from Piper’s understanding of Scripture and the glory of God as well as from the preaching and ministry style of Jonathan Edwards. 

Summary

This book is divided into two major categories.  The first explores why God must be supreme in preaching.  This section finds its foundation in the Word of God as Piper cites many Scripture references to prove his point.  The second section focusing on “Why God should be supreme in preaching,” is practical advice from the life of Jonathan Edwards.  The two sections work together to prove that true preaching finds its content and its end in the person and glory of God.  Piper does a great job defending his Thesis with every section and chapter of this book. 

The Goal of preaching is first and foremost the glory of God.  On page 25, Piper quotes Cotton Mather who said, “The great design and intention of the office of a Christian preacher [is] to restore the throne and dominion of God in the souls of men.”  Bringing the lost to Christ is not the objective of preaching, neither is edification of the believer.  These are means to an end, each of these activities have purpose within the sermon only as they are seen as ways of glorifying God. 

The ground of preaching is the Cross of Christ.  The preacher stands firm only when his feet are planted at the foot of the cross.  Only the cross gives the preacher a reason to stand before the people and open his mouth, because only the cross provides hope to a lost and dying world, “without the cross, the righteousness of God would demonstrate itself only in the condemnation of sinners.  For Piper, the cross is more than the ground of preaching, it is evidence of God’s glory: “The biblical perspective is that the cross is a witness to the infinite worth of God’s glory” (35).  His outline is tightly tied together by showing that the ground for preaching, the cross, gives way to the glory of God. (more…)

Spirit-filled preaching is not a new concept.  It was in the power of the Holy Spirit that Peter preached the great Pentecost sermon recorded in Acts.  However, I fear that the prominence of faith-healers and health and wealth preachers that often appeal to miraculous signs and wonders and power from the Holy Spirit has caused many to shirk away from seeking the filling of the spirit in preaching. 

            Modern era preachers ranging from Spurgeon to Lloyd-Jones and even Vines speak of this power using terms like “unction” of the Spirit.  The book of Acts records that the apostles’ preaching was accompanied by signs and wonders.  Those signs were not intended to draw attention to the preachers, but rather to validate the message from God.  We have become so leery of the frauds in our society that many preachers have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. 

  (more…)

How does one practice expository preaching in light of one’s understanding of the larger biblical-theological story of redemption? The answer to that question, of course, relies largely on one’s understanding of the larger biblical-theological story of redemption. In other words, the conclusions drawn by any preacher’s particular views of biblical theology will have a profound impact on the expository preaching practiced by that man. For the sake of this paper then, it is necessary to identify the one theme that the author believes to dominate the story of redemption in the Bible, and that theme is Christ. All of Scripture before the cross builds to that climax and all of Scripture written after the cross looks back to it as the centerpiece of redemption and salvation. The Bible is essentially a book about one thing, Christ and the cross. The purpose of this paper, then, is to show that since Christ on the cross is the climax and centerpiece of Scripture, it must also be at the center of all truly expository preaching.

Richard Baxter once said, “A preacher must be oft upon the same things, because the matters of necessity are few.”[1] Jesus said something similar when asked about the greatest commandment. In reply, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”[2] Preaching was once a respected calling, but in recent years, the art of preaching has come under much scrutiny and attack. The calls from many are to make preaching more needs based and consumer driven. However, in response to this call for variety and application, the preacher would do well to remember the words of Baxter and of Christ; for God’s word is a book that testifies to one great thing, and that great thing is the crucifixion of Christ. (more…)