7 blessings of having consecutive expository preaching as the staple diet for God's people

In his helpful little book “the Priority of Preaching” Christopher Ash provides “7 blessings of having consecutive expository preaching as the staple diet on the menu for the people of God.”  Verse by verse preaching (aka sequential expository preaching) has a number of built in benefits.  

Ash highlights the following 7 benefits:

1) Consecutive Expository Preaching Safeguards God's Agenda Against Being Hijacked by Ours. 

 In biblical ministry I want to get rid of three demons. They are called Relevance, Entertainment, and Immediacy…To preach through a Bible book is to trust that the agenda of God is the right, the deepest, and the best agenda" (pp. 111-12).

2) Consecutive Expository Preaching Makes It Harder For Us to Abuse the Bible by Reading It Out of Context.

Consecutive Bible exposition helps us understand the Bible in its context and therefore understand it correctly, and not to abuse the Word of God by twisting it to mean something other than what God has made it mean" (p. 116). 2 Timothy 2:15.

3) Consecutive Expository Preaching Dilutes the Selectivity of the Preacher. 

This does not mean the pastor should never address a particular need within his unique ministerial context. One need not be slavishly committed to the ‘lectio continua’ method of preaching. We simply need to give God the microphone and trust that 2 Timothy 3:15-17 is really not a typo. If all Scripture is divinely inspired and profitable then our people need to hear the full counsel and revealed will of God.

4) Consecutive Expository Preaching Keeps the Context of the Sermon Fresh and Surprising.

Reformation: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

When I read Carl Trueman’s Reformation: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow I found it to be quite insightful. This short book offers some great insights into various topics including preaching. Here are a few excerpts from Professor Trueman’s book (republished by Christian Focus Publications).

The sermon: God’s Method

For those, however, standing in the line of the Reformers, humanity, even in its highest natural spiritual exercises, is in a state of utter rebellion against God, and no elaborate string of words, no compelling argument, no passionate speech will ever bring a single individual to Christ. It is only as those words bring with them the Holy Spirit of God bearing witness to Christ that the sermon becomes adequate to its task. Thus, we preach, we speak the words of God not because this is the marketing method most likely to appeal to the unbeliever but simply because this is God’s appointed means of coming to individuals and bringing them to faith. Indeed, precisely because it is so weak and hopeless by the world’s standards, it brings that much more glory to God when souls are saved and lives turned round through this medium.

Of course we must use language with which the congregation is familiar; of course we must be aware that we are talking to people in the twenty-first century and not the sixteenth; and of course we must be culturally sensitive in what we say; but preach we must because this is God’s chosen means of spreading the news of the kingdom. Preaching is not just a communication technique, and must never be considered as such; it is bringing the very words of God to bear upon the life and needs of sinners and of the congregations of God’s people. For this reason, if for no other, the sermon must remain central in our worship…..

When preaching fails

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.

A Reformation of the Pulpit: The Greatest Need in America Today

"If a Reformation is to come to the (American) Church, it must be preceded by a reformation of the pulpit."

To which John Piper adds, "George Whitefield believed in preaching and gave his life to it. By this preaching God did a mighty work of salvation on both sides of the Atlantic. His biographer, Arnold Dallimore, chronicled the astonishing effect that Whitefield’s preaching had in Britain and America in the eighteenth century. It came like rain on the parched land and made the desert spring forth with the flowers of righteousness. Dallimore lifted his eyes from the transformed wasteland of Whitefield’s time and expressed his longing that God would do this again. He cries out for a new generation of preachers like Whitefield. His words help me express what I long for in the coming generations of preachers in America and around the world. He said,

Yea . . . that we shall see the great Head of the Church once more . . . raise up unto Himself certain young men whom He may use in this glorious employ. And what manner of men will they be? Men mighty in the Scriptures, their lives dominated by a sense of the greatness, the majesty and holiness of God, and their minds and hearts aglow with the great truths of the doctrines of grace. They will be men who have learned what it is to die to self, to human aims and personal ambitions; men who are willing to be ‘fools for Christ’s sake’, who will bear reproach and falsehood, who will labor and suffer, and whose supreme desire will be, not to gain earth’s accolades, but to win the Master’s approbation when they appear before His awesome judgment seat. They will be men who will preach with broken hearts and tear-filled eyes, and upon whose ministries God will grant an extraordinary effusion of the Holy Spirit, and who will witness ‘signs and wonders following’ in the transformation of multitudes of human lives. (George Whitefield, Vol. 1, 16)  Mighty in the Scriptures, aglow with the great truths of the doctrines of grace, dead to self, willing to labor and suffer, indifferent to the accolades of man, broken for sin, and dominated by a sense of the greatness, the majesty, and holiness of God. 

Dallimore, like Whitefield, believed that preaching is the heralding of God’s word from that kind of religious affection. Preaching is not conversation. Preaching is not discussion. Preaching is not casual talk about religious things. Preaching is not simply teaching. Preaching is the heralding of a message permeated by the sense of God’s greatness and majesty and holiness. The topic may be anything under the sun, but it is always brought into the blazing light of God’s greatness and majesty in his word. That was the way Whitefield preached.

How to Listen to a Sermon

How To Listen to a Sermon

The following article by Reagan Rose on How to Listen to an Expository Sermon was so helpful I wanted to share it with you on P.T.L.

It is a wise practice for pastors to read at least one book on biblical preaching each year.  Yet very few Christians have ever been taught how beneficial it would be to do the same thing with regards to expository listening.  Even if a believer desired to do this they may have a difficult time seeing their are not a ton of books that encourage this important spiritual discipline.  The best resources I know of are Ken Ramey's Expository Listening and Christopher Ash's, Listen Up! A Practical Guide to Listening to Sermons.  Rose's article will be added to my list of helpful works on this very important subject.

"The last couple of decades have seen a resurgence in expository preaching in churches—sermons which truly explain and apply the biblical text. But an expository sermon is hard work to prepare. That’s why Paul writes that faithful elders, and especially those who labor hard at preaching and teaching, are worthy of double honor (1 Tim. 5:17). With all that effort from faithful preachers, is there more that those of us in the pew can be doing to ensure we are being faithful listeners?

The Text-Driven Preacher...

Preaching with the Culture in View- Dr. Ligon Duncan

"I think the time in which we are preaching in the United States is as toxic of time for the faith as have ever existed in my lifetime."  The follow notes are excerpts from a Ligon Duncan Q and A session that I have edited and expanded.

The surrounding culture, by in large, is hostile towards the orthodox Christian faith.  Preachers need to remember this every time they preach the timeless Word of God.  We are living in days similar to Jude.  Apostasy is ever present.  The secular culture is very cynical and snarky.

Over the last 70 years Liberal Protestantism lost the "church" but won in the larger culture.  Having said that, atheism has more in common with Liberal Christianity than Liberal Christianity has with the historic Christian faith.  Suffice it to say, pastors need to be wise and authentic as they seek to minister the Word in season and life.  The truth must have an impact on us before we have an effect on others.  Our deep and true conviction must show every time we ascend the sanctuary steps!  As we preach we should try and present a biblical argument.

Their is a deep suspension in our culture concerning absolute truth claims.  We must never back down on this but we must also connect the importance of truth and love (1 Tim. 1:1-5).  "The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and a sincere faith."  We need to be known as the people of truth and as a loving Christians.  Dr. MacArthur puts it this way, "Hard preaching creates soft hearts while soft preaching often creates hard hearts."  Like Loyd-Jones we need to lions while in the pulpit and lambs outside it.

A Theology of Preaching: Reformation History

A theology of preaching can help one to preach better.  During the Protestant Reformation the emphasis moved from the sacraments to the Word preached.  If you go into a medieval cathedral the architect placed the alter front and central in order to emphasize the mass.  During the Reformation the eye was drawn to the pulpit; (which is the throne of God's Word).  The design of a church sanctuary (past and present) reflects our theological convictions (good and bad).

The priority of preaching is not first and foremost a technical issue.  We preach because it is the God-ordained way of communicating the gospel and building up the saints (2 Timothy 4:1-5; 1 Cor. 1:18-31; Col. 1:26-28).  God is pleased to use the foolishness of preaching in order to accomplish His purposes on earth.

Martin Luther helped establish the centrality of the Word preached.  In part, because Luther was committed to "nominalism" (as opposed to realism).  This philosophical matter answers the following question, "Do words reflect reality or do they create reality?"   Luther came to understand that justification is the declaration of God that a sinner is righteous having received the imputed righteousness of Christ (see 2 Cor. 5:21).  The Latin expression of this is, “Simul Justus et Peccator” (simultaneously righteous and sinner).