Expository Preaching (part one)

Preaching in churches can look a number of different ways as you’ve probably noticed. The experience you’ll have in our church is teaching through a book of the Bible one section at a time and applying the message of those verses to our lives. It is a practice as old as Jesus and the apostle Paul (see Matthew 13:14-17 and Acts 28:23-28 for examples). Many of the most influential preachers in church history have used the messages of scripture as the basis for their content. D Martyn Lloyd-Jones spent 7 years preaching through Romans taking only a verse or two each Sunday. Charles Spurgeon, John Stott, John MacArthur, and Mark Driscoll also teach expositionally.

Alternatives to expository preaching are far outweighing it in recent days. Preachers are more often using personal stories and anecdotes to teach moral lessons. Topical preachers take an issue people have questions about and find verses that help advise. The unfortunate result of such preaching is that the message is limited to the preachers understanding and opinion.

An expository preacher spends hours each week studying what the scripture has to say. If his purpose is to listen to the text and apply it, God’s voice will be heard as the preacher hears it afresh each week. The choice of topics are also governed by God as the books of scripture set this schedule.

I personally began preaching expositionally as a pastor to high school students and found it to be effective. As a college student my pastor (and now father-law) told me that if I preach out of my own experiences and understanding I will exhaust them and have nothing left to say, but I will never be able to exhaust what is in the Bible. It has also come from my personal spiritual life. Christ began regenerating me when reading the epistles in high school. Since then I have read through books of the Bible applying their truths to my life.

The experience of the listener ought to focus on the text and then the heart. Working through the verses with the pastor is the listeners work. This involves shifting from weighing whether he or she agrees with the pastor to studying the verses to discover what God says. Once we have discovered this, open up your heart to apply this message to your life. Since preaching is done to a group, the application will be directed in a general sense. It is the listeners responsibility to deeply apply this application into their whole being.

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” Hebrews 4:12