Maintaining Balance
in
Expository Preaching
These extremes need to be avoided like the plague.
1. 1. All Exposition, No Preaching (EG. all information, no
exhortation, and very little transformation; this kind of preaching produces tadpole Christians with big heads and little bodies. Cerebral preaching-produces full
heads/empty hearts; or all hearing but little doing; or enlarged brains but paralyzed
feet/hands)
2.
All Preaching, No Exposition (all
theatrics and no theology; this preacher fills the building and the building is
full but the preacher never fills the pulpit).
B.
Merging
Together Exposition and Preaching (a perfect marriage)
1.
Paul: “Preach the Word”
“Preach the Word” (2 Timothy
4:2). Biblical preaching involves teaching but it is not just teaching. We are called to herald the word. We have a message from the King! Do a word study on the Greek word kerusso if you are still confused.
2.
The Puritans: “Fire in the Pulpit”
Expository preaching involves "LIGHT AND HEAT" per Martyn Lloyd-Jones (see MLJ's Logic on Fire film).
Expository preaching involves "LIGHT AND HEAT" per Martyn Lloyd-Jones (see MLJ's Logic on Fire film).
·
Jonathan Edwards understood that these two
elements–illuminating light with intense heat—accompanies the authentic
preaching of the word. This great preacher explains:
If a minister has light without heat, and entertains his
(hearers) with learned discourse, without a savour of the power of godliness,
or any appearance of fervency of spirit, and zeal for God and the good of the
soul, he may gratify itching ears, and fill the heads of his people with empty
notions; but it will not be very
likely to reach their souls.[1]
·
Charles Spurgeon and said, “When I preach, no one
comes to hear me. What should I do”? With dry wit, Spurgeon responded, “Douse
yourself with gas, strike a match, set yourself on fire. People will come to
see you burn.” Such fiery passion is absolutely essential for any preacher."
From TMS D. Min lecture notes
Dr. Steve Lawson
·
If
there is no fire, there is not preaching. Martyn
Lloyd-Jones aptly called preaching, “theology on fire.”
Such a burning
flame to needs to be built in every pulpit today!
C.
John
Stott: “Between Two Worlds”
·
In
Between Two Worlds, John Stott
explains how the expositor first reaches
back two and three thousand years to the ancient world of the biblical text
and lays hold of the biblical message and the times in which it was written.
[1] Jonathan Edwards, The
Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume II (1834, repr.; Edinburgh: Banner of
Truth, 1979), 958.
From TMS D. Min lecture notes
Dr. Steve Lawson
