Exspository Preaching and How It's Applied

The truth, the message, theology, and clear explanation of the text assembled by the sovereign hand of God are a few things left out of the pulpit in these last days. Part of the problem is that fact that there are “unqualified persons” filling the place of men who should be teaching God’s word. Among these “unqualified persons” are those who should not teach (James 3:1-12) and women (1 Timothy 2:11-14). These are issues that can be addressed on their own and must be given full attention in order to straighten out some of the disorder among the church of Jesus Christ. In order to experience the fullness of God’s word through the exaltation of Jesus Christ by preaching, the qualified teachers need to be addressed as well. For those who fit into this genre of “qualified teacher” (1 Timothy 3:2; “able to teach” and Titus 1:9), there is a huge burden on our shoulders. I read a story of a preacher who walked into the sanctuary one Sunday morning and immediately left the sanctuary, ran into his office, locked the door and hid under his desk as he began to cry. He was overwhelmed by the shear magnitude of the task before him of being called and used to proclaim God’s infallible word as a fallible man. I am not suggesting that we, as preachers, follow his response but I am suggesting that we come to grips with the same burden he felt.

Part of our responsibility as preachers is to proclaim the whole counsel of God. We are not to leave out the “hard texts” or only preach the text’s that are easier for His people to swallow. Our primary responsibility is to teach our people everything about our sovereign God and that requires teaching everything He has provided us in His word. The idea of expository preaching is one left out of the pulpit by even the qualified teachers. For those of you who are ignorant to expository preaching, it is the exaltation of God’s word by teaching through the text. An example would be teaching the entire book of Ephesians from Paul’s opening greeting in 1:1 to his final greeting in 6:24. Not skipping a verse or avoiding the “hard texts”, we are called to give God’s people every word. If we feel the weight of God’s call, like the aforementioned preacher, then we are responsible to how we teach his word.

Topical preaching, though not bad, is the nemesis of expository preaching. There is nothing wrong with preaching a topic at the pulpit as long as it is not done regularly. The problem with preaching topically on a regular basis is that you can easily fall into the trap of missing the context of your text. The context is the core of expository preaching. We had a motto at my old school; context is king. We have to understand the context of the text we are preaching and feed that to our people. There is only one interpretation of a particular text though many applications. In order to accurately preach the text there must be understanding of its context. Its context contains the surrounding passages, historical backdrop, cultural relevance of the time it was originally written, and understanding of the author’s perspective and situation as well the original readers. To abandon the context you are abandoning the interpretation. Once the interpretation is abandoned the application is misapplied. If our desire is to see transformation in the hearts and lives of our people then the application cannot be misappropriated. Which leads us back the beginning where it starts with understanding and teaching in light of the context of the text you are preaching.

I have seen to many topical preachers throw an array of verses at their congregation. The people leave hearing the main topic but have no solid text to stand on. You will find these people arguing their Biblical stances on many misinterpreted texts.

For example:
I had a discussion with a friend who grew up under topical preaching and defended his point of view that God desires everyone be saved using 2 Peter 3:9. The problem with his understanding stemmed from the preacher who tossed out this verse to his congregation while defending this same point without explaining that particular text in 2 Peter. Clearly upon understanding the context you can see that Peter is speaking to believers, he calls them “beloved” in verse 8. Verse 9 continues to say that the Lord is patient toward believers, and wishes that none of them should perish (eternally). If the context of the letter is written to believers then clearly God does not wish them to perish if He has chosen them before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). And as chosen ones, Peter is telling them that God is patient towards them and awaits His return for His chosen few to personally experience a regenerated heart in Jesus.

You can see the damage topical preaching has on the theology of God’s people. And when it affects our theology to that degree it also affects the way we live out our theology. When a preacher teaches topically and uses tons of verses to support his Biblical claim, he is, in essence giving his congregation pebbles for theology and life. He is throwing them stones and each verse he gives without context and or explanation is another pebble he gives into the hands of his people on which to build their theology. When we preach expositional, we focus on one particular text and in essence give our people one large stone on which to build there theology. You can see the problem rising as people build on top of many pebbles and the rains come down, their theology comes crashing down with it and most times there lives follow in catastrophe as well. But the storms of life cannot bring down a house that is built on a solid stone. When their theology is strong, and founded on the rock of well thought out understanding of God’s word by expository preaching, their house withstands the rain. There needs to be a call for preachers to examine, study and explain the text they are preaching. If we want to see true transformation in the hearts and lives of our people then we must give our attention the context of our texts. We must be expository preachers!