The strongest reason for a commitment to expository preaching lies not in reason or logic – though expository preaching is undoubtedly the most logical and reasonable way to communicate Scriptural truth; nor in pragmatism – though expository preaching is the most effective antidote to the many current weaknesses seen in the Church of Jesus Christ. The strongest reason lies in the very teaching of Scripture which is the ultimate authority of the Church.
It is clear from the Nature of Scripture, the Commands of Scripture and the Examples of Scripture that it is God’s plan that his Word be preached expositionally. Over the next weeks in this series of posts on the biblical basis of expository preaching, we will look at these three areas, beginning today with :
The Nature of Scripture
There are certain truths about Scripture that demand expository preaching.
a. Inspiration
The internal witness of the Bible is that that “All Scripture”, literally every word of it, is “theopneustos” – “breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3v16). Historic, evangelical Christianity has always taught the plenary and verbal inspiration of Scripture.
- plenary, meaning full, and indicating that every part – doctrine, history, geography, science, dates, names etc is breathed out by God.
“The view which I maintain is that every book, chapter, verse and syllable of the Bible was given by inspiration of God. I believe the narratives and statements of Genesis were as much written under divine direction as the twentieth chapter of John or the eighth of the Romans. I do not say that all these parts of the Bible are of equal importance to our souls but I do say that they were all equally given by inspiration.”[1]
- verbal, in that every single word of Scripture is inspired – the precise and literal claim of 2 Timothy 3v16
If we agree that “Preaching is not speaking about truth before the congregation, but rather speaking truth to the congregation”[2] then the truth that is preached must be the timeless, unchanging truth of Scripture.
God has spoken (Hebrews 1vv1-2), through the spoken Word, (the prophets of old), through the living Word, (Christ), and through the written Word, (Scripture). God’s Word comes in words and “Scripture is God preaching.”[3] As the Second Helvetic Confession (1566) puts it, “The preaching of the word of God is the word of God.”
A belief in the inspiration of Scripture demands expository preaching.
b. Inerrancy
It follows inescapably that if Scripture originates with and is breathed out by God it must, by very nature, be inerrant – completely free from any error, inconsistency or contradiction.
The only logical way to teach and preach God’s Word is to do so expositionally – communicating exactly and entirely what is in God’s Word. “Expository preaching is the declarative genre in which inerrancy finds its logical expression and the church has its life and power…..An inerrantist perspective demands expository preaching, and a non-inerrantist perspective makes it unnecessary.”[4] Only by preaching God’s Word in this way can we be faithful to the content of God’s Word.
“The principle that Christian preaching is proclamation of the Word must obviously be determinative of the content of the sermon.”[5]
That is why the expositional preacher makes such an effort to follow the principles of hermeneutics and exegesis; taking great care to bring out of the text its real and original meaning. If every word of the biblical text finds its source in God and is therefore inerrant and free from error, the task of the preacher is to communicate that and only that to his hearers.
“A man cannot hope to preach the Word of God accurately until he has first engaged in a careful, exhaustive exegesis of his text. Herein lies the problem, for competent exegesis requires time, brain power, ‘blood, sweat and tears’, all saturated with enormous doses of prayer.”[6]
“an exegete is like a diver bringing up pearls from the ocean bed; an expositor is like the jeweller who arrays them in orderly fashion and in proper relation to each other.”[7]
A belief in the inerrancy of Scripture demands expository preaching.
c. Sufficiency
Everything that is needful for salvation and godly living is found within the pages of Scripture either by explicit statement or by implicit principle. Believing this keeps us from the need to add to or supplement the Word of God with psychology, worldly philosophies or my own opinions. If we do not preach expositionally we are, in effect, declaring that what God has said is neither sufficient nor relevant and therefore we need something else that will be more helpful to us and to our hearers.
“Preaching is not the proclamation of a theory, or the discussion of a doubt. A man has the perfect right to proclaim a theory of any sort, or to discuss his doubts. But that is not preaching……We are never preaching when we are hazarding speculations…..Speculation is not preaching. Neither is the declaration of negations preaching. Preaching is the proclamation of the Word, the truth as the truth has been revealed.”[8]
A belief in the sufficiency of Scripture demands expository preaching.
[1] J C Ryle
[2] Bettler, J in Logan,S T The Preacher and Preaching: Reviving the Art in the Twentieth Century Welwyn : Evangelical Press 1986 p333
[3] Packer, J I
[4] MacArthur, J Rediscovering Expository Preaching Dallas : Word, 1992, p24
[5] Kuiper, R B in The Infallible Word ed by Woolley, P Philadelphia : Presbyterian and Reformed, 1967, p217
[6] Sproule, J A Biblical Exegesis and Expository Preaching (unpublished lecture given at Grace Theological Seminary, Winona Lake, Indiana, 1978 p1
[7] Howington, N ‘Expository Preaching’ in Review and Expositor 56, 1959, p56
[8] Morgan, G C Baker, 1937, p21
Useless Commentaries?
Tim Challies has a stimulating post, quoting from a piece written by Phillip Jensen, including this snippet:
Read the whole article here