Whatever Happened to Expository Preaching (pt. 2)

In his book, He Is Not Silent, Dr. Al Mohler raises a provocative question: “If you picked an evangelical church at random and attended a Sunday morning service there, how likely is it that you would hear a faithful expository sermon, one that takes its message and its structure from the biblical text?”  In most communities the odds would not be very good. As Dr. Steven Lawson has suggested, when it comes to solid Bible preaching there is nothing short of a famine in the land.

In the eyes of many, expository preaching is simply no longer relevant because it fails to connect in any kind of meaningful way with the average person in today’s culture. This criticism, of course, is hardly new. Back in 1928, a prominent liberal Baptist minister named Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote an article for Harper’s Magazine entitled, “What’s the Matter with Preaching?” In the article, Fosdick wrote:  Many preachers indulge habitually in what they call expository sermons. They take a passage from Scripture, and, proceeding on the assumption that the people attending the church that morning are deeply concerned about what the passage means, they spend their half hour or more on historical exposition of the verse or the chapter, ending with some attendant practical applications to the auditors. Could any procedure be more surely predestined to dullness and futility? Who seriously supposes that, as a matter of fact, one in a hundred of the congregation cares (to start with) what Moses, Isaiah, Paul, or John meant in those special verses, or came to church deeply concerned about it. Nobody else who talks to the public so assumes that the vital interests of the people are located in the meaning of words spoken 2000 years ago.

Fosdick himself died in 1969, but his view of expository preaching lives on. Many still see it as the epitome of dullness and futility. Many still insist that it fails to connect to the vital interests of the average person in the congregation. Many still believe it is doomed to failure because it hasn’t kept up with the evolving needs of contemporary culture.

According to Mohler, this rapid decline of expository preaching has been one of most troubling developments of the last several decades.  Numerous influential voices within evangelicalism are suggesting that the age of the expository sermon is now past. In its place, some contemporary preachers now substitute messages intentionally designed to reach secular or superficial congregations—messages that avoid preaching a biblical text and thus avoid a potentially embarrassing confrontation with biblical truth.

Various alternatives to expository preaching may indeed connect with the masses and fill the pews, but at what cost? Time will eventually tell.

Article written by Pastor by Matt Waymeyer

Whatever Happened to Expository Preaching (pt. 1)

In September of 1982—more than a decade before the rise of the Internet—journalist Allen Neuharth launched a newspaper that would revolutionize the world of print media. What made USA Today so unique is that its approach and design were based on the most thorough market research ever performed on behalf of a newspaper. By surveying readers about their likes and dislikes, Neuharth was able to present the news in a way that catered to the desires of his potential audience.

In his research, Neuharth discovered that people liked lots of color, lots of pictures, and lots of graphics. They wanted short, easy-to-read articles that didn’t continue on a later page. They wanted less international news and more human interest stories. In short, they wanted something that reminded them more of television than a newspaper. So that’s what he gave them. And even though critics began referring to USA Today as “the junk food of journalism,” the end product was an amazing success, at least in terms of circulation.

Unfortunately, many churches today have taken a similar approach to designing their worship services. The trends reveal that people want less doctrine and more drama, less preaching and more props, less declaration and more dialogue. They want short, easy-to-listen-to sermons that don’t get too deep and that don’t focus too much on God and not enough on me. In short, they want something that reminds them of the Sunday morning edition of USA Today. And that’s exactly what they’re given.

5 Myths about Preaching

Five False Dichotomies about preaching.  Which is your kind of preaching—expository or relevant? That is an example of a false dichotomy—a logical fallacy. False dichotomies operate under the assumption that there is no alternative, including no way to combine the qualities entailed in the so-called opposites.

One of Satan’s methods to mislead by means of the false dichotomy. By setting two valid ideas against each other when they really belong together, the devil can use the appeal of one truth to attack another. If we swallow the bait, then the devil’s hook and line pull us away from faithful preaching and we lose both sides of the truth. Here are five myths—false dichotomies—that can catch preachers and hearers alike.

Myth #1: Preachers must be either exegetical lecturers or church motivators.

The exegetical lecturer is the pastoral version of a Bible commentary. The preacher is determined to avoid subjectivism; his sermon will be only the pure Word of God... As the saying goes all truth without the Spirit and the church drys up.  All Spirit and little truth and the church blows up.  Truth plus the Spirit and the church grows up.  Expository preaching is not merely a collection of word studies, historical background, and fifty minutes of textual commentary.  A sermon is not a lecture though both should involve teaching and passion.

Offended by the barrenness of lectures (sometimes called expository sermons), the church motivator seeks not to inform but to transform by convincing people to adopt certain courses of action or programs. However, though he may lace his messages with Bible quotations, he sounds more like a motivational speaker or even a cheerleader than a messenger of God.

The faithful preacher takes the best from both sides of this dichotomy, for he strives—with the Spirit’s blessing—to have his expositions of the Holy Scriptures burn as fuel inflaming the church to holy affection and action.  Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said that preaching is "theology on fire!"

Myth #2: Preachers must be either spiritual directors or doctrinal instructors.

The spiritual director—a fatherly figure—doles out specific advice to his children in the Lord. His mouth is full of wise counsel and practical directions, but he does not bother much with lofty doctrines of the faith such as the Trinity, the holiness of God, or Christ’s atoning work.

The doctrinal teacher—knowing how shallow Christians can be if they do not know what they believe—thoroughly explains the system of Christian faith revealed in the Holy Scriptures. However, he says little to nothing about application...

In reality, we must avoid both extremes, since “All Scripture . . . is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). The faithful preacher must have his eyes on Christ as revealed in the doctrines of the Bible and his feet on the ground to apply that doctrine to the needs and lives of his hearers.  Let God’s Word shape your sermons into preaching that is faithful to Scripture and relevant to your congregations sanctification.

6 Keys to More Effective Sermon Preparation

To be the Senior Pastor is, among other things, to be the primary feeder of the flock.  It's to be the lead teaching shepherd (1 Timothy 5:17-19).  

Pastor Jason Allen highlights 6 Keys to More Effective Sermon Preparation (which hopefully leads to more soul-stirring, Textually precise, God-honoring messages).

"Every pastor knows the constant weight of sermon preparation. Sunday is a standing, unmovable deadline. It is like living in final exam week, with a massive deadline before you every Lord’s Day. But the preacher’s test is a public one, for all to see. He will be judged by God’s people. And, more importantly, he will be judged by God himself.

To weekly stand before God’s people, open his Word, and be his spokesman is a daunting responsibility. I question the judgement—if not the calling—of those who take it lightly. That is why pastors spend so much time each week preparing sermons. To be a preacher is to be a sermon preparer.

Given the neediness of the church, the cultural pressures we face, and the general social upheaval of our times, how we preach has never been more important. That means our sermon preparation has never been more important either.

Preaching Without Authority?

Preaching Without Authority? 

"In 1971, Fred Craddock rocked the preaching world. His book As One Without Authority proclaimed that preaching would continue “for another generation as ‘a marginal annoyance on the record of a scientific age’” if it did not change its methods. His underlying message was that the authority determining the value of any sermon was the hearer. The result was a radically altered presence in America’s pulpits. 

According to Craddock, preachers cannot preach with authority. He insists, “The preacher exists as one without authority.” Instead of preaching with authority, they had to appease the listeners with sermons that tickled their ears and made them feel good. In essence, Craddock was calling for a new homiletic. Preachers should no longer preach deductively from the Scriptures, but should preach inductively, targeting the hearer as the true authority on the quality, quantity, and content of the sermon. Craddock’s book was a kind of canary in the coalmine for biblical preaching. With the rise of the church-growth movement and emerging spirituality, authoritative preaching has fallen out of fashion.

Nevertheless, true preaching—biblical preaching—must be authoritative preaching. The nature of the message we preach necessitates authority. If we are faithfully exegeting and preaching the Scriptures, then our message necessarily comes with authority, because it comes from God.

How To Avoid Being Labeled a Boring Preacher

The goal of this short essay is to provide ten practical tips on how to avoid being labeled a boring preacher. 

First, preach the Word of God with passion and conviction.  As Alex Montoya points out, “Passion is the power, the drive, the energy, the life in the delivery of the sermon.  Without passion, the sermon becomes a lecture, an address or a moral speech.”[1] The apostolic mandate is to preach the Word not to merely teach the Scriptures (2 Tim. 4:1-4).  Lloyd-Jones once told someone, “If you do not know the difference between preaching and teaching then you have likely never heard a sermon before.”

Second, use vocal variety throughout your expository message.  If someone attempts to deliver a sermon in a monotone manner it will likely put the congregation to sleep during the first fifteen minutes.  

If the preacher goes back and listens to his sermons on their I Pod they should be able to determine if they employed good vocal variety throughout the sermon.  It should be noted here that an emphatic point can be made by lowering one’s voice (like Rick Holland) or by declaring the truth in a demonstrative way (like Paul Washer).

Third, prepare a sermon manuscript not academic lecture notes.  If one’s sermon notes could be mistaken for a theological journal something’s not right.  It is critical to remember that when writing a sermon you are preparing an oral manuscript to be heard with the ear.  John MacArthur’s sermon manuscripts on “Grace To You” look much different than his books on the same texts of Scripture.

3 Practical Tips re:Sermon Preparation & Application

Photo Credit: revchadbrooks.com

1) Study like a Scholar.

Do the hard book work (2 Tim. 2:15).  Including exegesis, hermeneutics, word studies, commentary helps, prayer for illumination (Psalm 119:18) and for wisdom to be kept from error.  See Walt Kaiser's Toward an Exegetical Theology, Roy Zuck's, Basic Bible Interpretation, and Don Carson's, Exegetical Fallacies.

2) Plan like a Shepherd (put your pastor hat on).

After the careful exegesis of the Text (scholar work) evaluate your congregants in light of it's truth (pastor work).  Think specifically about the types of people to whom you will be preaching (eg: the cynics, the moralist. the rebel, the immature babe in Christ, the new believer, the seasoned saint, the overwhelmed, the grieving, the retired, the eager, the singles, the gullible, the apathetic, the know it alls, the non-Christians, and the transgressors).  Pull out your church directory when reviewing a rough draft of your sermon.  Think about Joel Beeke's lectures on well-placed arrows.

The better you know your flock the more intentional you can be in the pulpit as you "reprove, rebuke, and exhort with great patience and careful instruction" (2 Tim. 4:1-5; 1 Pet. 5:1-4).  You should not start with the needs of the people when writing a sermon but you also must not ignore them in the process of sermon writing and preaching.  We must do more than lecture about the Bible.  We are pastor-teachers not seminary professors.  We must holy jealousy (2 Cor. 11:2) for our people's spiritual well being.  We should pray Colossians 1:9-10 for our congregation.  Spurgeon noted that too many preachers ignore, "the sins of the businessmen, the temptations of the times,and the needs of the age he scarcely ever touches upon.  Such preaching reminds me of a lion engaged in mouse-hunting." We are striving for preaching that changes lives.

We should ask the following questions when preparing your sermons: A) What would happen if they never apply this? B) What makes it difficult to believe? C) What makes this truth a challenge to live out? D) Why is this truth so important for this generation of Christians?  E) How will doers of this truth improve our church? (this can be a great appeal during your message if the flock buys into this or that).  F) How will doers of this truth impact our world?

How To Prepare an Expository Sermon: From A to Z

Photo credit: obrijrichardson.com

How do you prepare an expository sermon?

I generally begin by reading the portion of Scripture that I am going to exposit over and over again. I prayerfully ask God to help me come to know and love Him better as a result of my expository study. I also read the larger context asking, “how does the immediate literary context- the passages on both sides of the text-inform the meaning of the text? How does the passage fit the larger section? What was the historical situation faced by the original audience?” 

If the passage is short I try and memorize it. Regardless of size it is important to prayerfully meditate upon your sermon text throughout the week.  I try and have a blank sermon notebook with me so I can write down observations, questions, key quotes, potential illustrations, and thoughts from Tuesday to Saturday. 

Next, I examine the Greek text often utilizing my Logos Bible Software and Bibleworks tools. My grammars, bible dictionaries, and lexicons on Logos help with grammatical, syntactical, and lexical analysis. During this stage I often do key word studies as well. As I study God’s Word I am prayerfully trying to discern what the flow of the text is, how it is interconnected, in order to figure out what the main point of the passage is. The main idea of the text is generally the main point of your sermon exposition.  At this point I often develop a tentative outline. The goal of course is to move from exegesis to exposition.