I am thankful that in our contemporary evangelical culture that expository preaching is seeing something of a revival. This resurgence is not universal, but is nevertheless being seen more and more.
No doubt the increased interest in expository preaching is due to men like John MacArthur who’s forty plus years in the same pulpit has paved a road of faithful homiletically modeling for us to follow. Additionally, conferences like Together for the Gospel, The Shepherds’ Conference, Desiring God, and Ligonier have placed an emphasis on the pulpit ministry, particularly the need for exposition.
It is oftentimes through these conferences and other books that are increasingly being published that we hear much of the need for expository preaching in our day. This contemporary need is regularly demonstrated illustratively by connecting us back to the life and times of faithful men throughout church history.
However, there is something troubling that happens while you are at the conference, reading the books, or listening to audio of sermons that causes me to be unsettled. Guys talk about expository preaching but then too often do not do it. After all what preacher who swims in the Calvinist end of the pool would ever say, “Ya, I’m not really big on exposition. I’m more of a topical guy.” But is this not what happens?
Expository preaching is simply taking the biblical text and explaining the authorial intent while providing faithful and loving teaching and admonishment. We may say a lot of other things about the amount of text to be chosen, the tone of the preacher, and other things, but suffice it to say, in its simplest form, expository preaching is heralding what God has said in the text and heralding it in such a way that people understand and apply it to their lives to the glory of God.
Sadly what too often happens is a guy will walk up to the pulpit, open up the Bible and read a passage and then launch into a systematic theology or a counseling lesson. Now we give most of these guys a free pass because they are essentially reformed and their theology is right. We end up with good life application because their theology is biblical. However, they have not preached the text. I do not understand the passage better than when he walked up to the pulpit. I remember sitting in an auditorium and hearing a man make true biblical application, it was God exalting and man humbling; however, it was not in the text that he read. The text was a launching point to talk about what he wanted to talk about. I came away wondering how this text related to the rest of the book, what it taught me about God, my sin and how I needed to change. He did not preach expositionally.
Some may say, “Hey, you are being too narrow and hard on this guy. The question is were you edififed.” To this I would say, yes I was. But, this was a conference for pastors, and thousands of men just seen something modeled and called “expository preaching” that was not “expository preaching” and more than likely they will go and do the same type of thing in their congregations.
Why is this a problem? Well at the end of the day you are not teaching the Bible but instead you are teaching theology. What is the difference? The Bible shapes our theology and must always come first. When the preacher gives a tip of the hat to the text and then launches into something else he is not teaching his people to read, understand, and apply the Bible. Furthermore, if you take a text (which is the means that God uses to change us -2 Tim. 3.16-17) and you do not give its meaning do you really have the text at all? Do you really have its power? What are you giving your people? Your theology or the Bible, the power? This is much more than a preference issue, it actually strikes at the core of God’s design for the ministry of the word.
Let me tweak this a bit further. What is the difference between what this guy does (in my example above) and the uber-liberal female Methodist preacher-ette who reads John 3.16 and then tells you that we should not go to war because God loves the world? The only difference is that her theology is jacked up and the other guy is solid. So we give the Calvinist a free pass because he passes the test of orthodoxy? I would argue that there is little, if any, difference homiletically between the two. You cannot be a liberal and preach expositionally, it is impossible.
Men need to preach the word, not about the word but the word (2 Tim. 4.2). If we are going to keep having conferences that are supposed to center on expository preaching and speak about the need for expository preaching then the men need to preach expositionally or give some type of disclaimer so that folks don’t get confused and the term doesn’t get redefined and lost in our excitement about our “movement” and our contemporary Calvinist super-heroes.
(note:: as always, feel free to leave comments, but do not go after certain guys and their ministries, that is not the intention of this post)
