2. Theological Foundations for Preaching
The secret of preaching is not mastering certain techniques but being mastered by certain convictions. In other words, theology is more important than methodology. Certainly, there are principles of preaching to be learned and skills to be developed, but it is easy to put too much confidence in these. Technique can only make us orators; if we want to be preachers, theology is what we need. If our theology is right, then we have all the basic insights we need into what we ought to be doing, and all the incentives we need to encourage us to do it faithfully.
True Christian preaching (that is, biblical or “expository” preaching) is extremely rare in today’s church. Thoughtful people in many countries are asking for it, but cannot find it. Why is this? The major reason must be a lack of conviction about its importance. So my task in this chapter is to try to convince my readers of the indispensable necessity, for the glory of God and the good of the church, of conscientious biblical preaching.
Let us consider five sets of theological convictions that support the importance of biblical preaching. Any one of these should convince us; the five together leave us without excuse.
Convictions about God
The kind of God we believe in determines the kind of sermons we preach. Three characteristics of God are particularly relevant.
First, God is light. “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light and in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). In John’s writing “light” frequently represents truth, as when Jesus claimed to be “the light of the world” (John 8:12). God is not secretive. He delights to make himself known. Just as it is the nature of light to shine, so it is the nature of God to reveal himself. The chief reason why people do not know God is not because he hides from them but because they hide from him. Every preacher needs to take encouragement from the fact that God is light and longs to shine his light into the listeners’ darkness (2 Cor. 4:4-6).
Secondly, God has acted and has revealed himself through his actions. He has shown his power and deity in creation, and heaven and earth display his glory (Ps. 19:1; Isa. 6:3; Rom. 1:19, 20). But God has revealed even more of himself in redemption. When humankind rebelled against him, he did not destroy us but instead planned a rescue mission. He brought Abraham out of Ur, the Israelite slaves out of Egypt, and the exiles home from Babylon. Each of these great acts of liberation led to the making or renewing of the covenant whereby Yahweh made them his people and pledged himself to be their God. The New Testament focuses on another redemption and a new covenant that is described as “better”, “more glorious” and “eternal” (Heb. 7:22; 8:6; 9:14-23; 13:20; 2 Cor. 3:4-11). This came about through God’s mightiest acts, namely the birth, death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ. So the God of the Bible is a God of liberating activity, coming to the rescue of oppressed humanity and revealing his grace or generosity.
Thirdly, God has spoken. God has actually communicated with his people by speech. The Old Testament prophets often stated that “the word of the Lord” came to them. Unlike idols which “have mouths, but cannot speak” (Ps. 115:5), the living God spoke to his people (Isa. 40:5; 55:11). He did so in order to explain what he was doing. He brought Abraham out of Ur and then he spoke to him about his purpose and gave him the covenant of promise. He led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and appointed Moses to teach them why he was doing this. He brought his people out of exile in Babylon and used his prophets to explain why his judgment had fallen upon them, under what conditions he would restore them, and the kind of people he wanted them to be. He sent his Son to become man, to live and serve on earth, to die, to rise, to reign and to pour out his Spirit. Then he chose and equipped the apostles to see his works, hear his words and bear witness to what they had seen and heard.
There are those who emphasize the historical activity of God but deny that he has spoken. They argue that God revealed himself in deeds, not words. They insist that the redemption is the only revelation. But this is false. Scripture affirms that God has spoken both through historical deeds and through explanatory words, and that the two belong together. Even the climax of God’s self-revelation, when the Word became flesh, would have remained incomprehensible if Christ had not spoken and his apostles had not recorded and interpreted his words.
This is the foundation on which all Christian preaching rests. How would we dare to speak if God had not spoken? By ourselves we have nothing to say. To speak without the assurance that we bring a message from God would be arrogant and foolish. But if we are convinced that God is light and wants to be known, that God has acted to make himself known, that God has spoken and explained his actions, then we must speak. If we are not sure of this, we would do better to keep our mouths shut. But once we are persuaded that God has spoken, we cannot and must not be silent.
Convictions about Scripture
Our understanding of God naturally influences our beliefs about the Scriptures. After all, Scripture is God’s word written. What would have been the point of God’s revelation of himself in Israel and his unique revelation in Jesus Christ if it had been forgotten over the centuries? So God made provision for a reliable record of his deeds and words to be preserved for all people in all ages and all places. Although 2000 years now separate us from Jesus’ deeds and words, we can still know and reach him through the Bible as the Holy Spirit witnesses to him in its pages. Only in the Bible can we find the full facts of Jesus’ birth and life, his words and works, his death and resurrection, and God’s own authoritative explanation of them. Here and here only is God’s own interpretation of his redeeming action.
What is the relevance of this to our preaching? Our responsibility as preachers is not primarily to give our twenty-first-century testimony to Jesus, but rather to relay to our listeners God’s own authoritative witness to Christ through the eyewitness accounts of the apostles. It is true that the New Testament documents were written in first-century Christian communities. It is true that the needs of these communities to some extent influenced what was preserved. It is true that each writer selected and presented his material according to his particular purposes. Yet neither the churches nor the writers invented or distorted their message. Nor does its authority rest on them or on their faith. None of the apostles or evangelists wrote in the name of a church or churches. Instead, they challenged the churches in the name and with the authority of Jesus Christ. Later, when it was being decided which books should be included in the New Testament, the church did not give authority to the chosen books. The church simply recognized that the chosen books already had authority because they contained the inspired teaching of the apostles.
We who recognize the authority of Scripture should be the most conscientious preachers. If the Scriptures were just a collection of human ideas reflecting the faith of the earliest Christians — with an occasional flash of divine inspiration — then a casual attitude would be excusable. However, in Scripture we are handling the very words of the living God, “not . . . taught us by human wisdom but . . . taught by the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:13). Nothing should be too much trouble as we study and expound them.
We also need to remember to reflect both the saving acts and the written words of God in our preaching. Some preachers love to speak about the mighty acts of God but present only their own interpretation of them. Others try to stick to God’s word but are dull because they have lost the excitement of what God has done in Christ. The true preacher enthusiastically and faithfully conveys both. When God spoke, his normal method was not to shout in an audible voice out of a clear blue sky. Inspiration is not dictation. Instead he put his word into human minds and human mouths in such a way that their thoughts and words were simultaneously and completely theirs as well as his. Inspiration did not contradict either their historical research or the free use of their minds. If we are to be true to what the Bible says about itself, we must recognize both the human and the divine authorship. Yet we must not allow either the divine or the human factor to take away from the other. Divine inspiration did not override the human authorship. Human authorship did not override the divine inspiration. The Bible is equally God’s words and human words. It is “God’s word written”, God’s word through human words, spoken by human mouths and written by human hands.
Recognition of the human element in Scripture means that we must read Scripture as literature. In saying this I am not saying that the Bible is no more than literature, which is the position of those who deny that it is either historically accurate or true and suggest that it consists merely of stories in which we can discover our story. They use the literary approach as an alternative to submitting to God’s word.
The point I am making is that the human authors of Scripture used a range of human methods to communicate God’s word. God could have moved them to write only lists of doctrines or commands, and the Bible certainly does contain these. But most of the time, God moved them to write history, stories, parables, poems and oracles. As preachers we need to remember that these literary forms are not incidental, accidental or irrelevant. They are part of what God intended. He arranged to have his truth conveyed through characters, settings, actions and images. Scripture aims to get the reader to share an experience, not just to grasp ideas. This may seem obvious, but many preachers need to be reminded of it for they treat the Bible as a mere storehouse of ideas. Such preachers impoverish it because they fail to see that the Bible is “human experience portrayed concretely”.
Once we are convinced that the literary form of the Bible is important, we who preach it should look at it even more closely. We are not just miners extracting ore and leaving the landscape desolate. We are skilled mapmakers, carefully observing the landscape of the text so that we can help our listeners see all its features and follow the paths and highways God has placed there. We often speak about ideas to our listeners — just as the Bible regularly does. But we should try to convey to our listeners as much of the tone and feeling, of the impressions and aims of the text as possible.
The expository preacher . . . approaches a biblical text on the premise that whatever was important enough for the writer to include in a text is important to the expositor as well. If rhetoric, style and special resources of language leap out at us from virtually every page of the Bible, we need to take note of them and do something with them when expounding the Bible.
A corollary of this belief is that we have to be alert to the genre of a text and familiar with the rules of that genre. If I were to say, “Once upon a time . . .”, Western readers would recognize that I was going to tell a fairy story. Biblical writers also give us clues about what they are doing, and we need to make the effort to learn to recognize these clues. For instance, if the text tells a story, we must pay close attention to setting, characters, dialogue and plot. We must ask what this story contributes to the message of the biblical book in which it is found and to the Bible as a whole. If a passage is poetry, we must notice such things as imagery, compactness and parallel structures. If the text comes from a letter, we must think carefully about the situation that called for that letter and what its writer was aiming to do in this pastoral visit by post.
This literary approach calls for humility; we study each text as it is instead of as we might wish it to be. This includes trying to discover what the original speakers, writers and listeners would have understood. But the fruit of this hard work is that we understand the text better and preach it more faithfully. We also help our listeners to learn to handle the Bible properly.
The second belief to which we must hold is that God still speaks through what he has spoken. God is neither dead nor silent. Scripture is not just a collection of ancient documents in which the words of God are preserved, nor is it a kind of museum in which God’s words are exhibited like relics or fossils. On the contrary, it is a living word to living people from the living God, a contemporary message for each generation.
The apostles clearly understood and believed this. They introduce their quotations from the Old Testament with one of two formulas. The one is “it is written”. In Galatians 4:22 Paul says, “For it is written that Abraham had two sons”. He is referring to something that was written down in the past and remains a permanent written record. The second is “it (or he) says”, using a Greek tense that implies that God is still saying these words. For instance, in Galatians 4:21 Paul refers to “what the law says” and in Galatians 4:30 he asks, “What does Scripture say?” The “law” and “Scripture” are ancient books — how can they still be speaking? This is only possible because God himself speaks to us through it.
This truth is further emphasized in Hebrews 3:7-11 where the author quotes Psalm 95:7-11, beginning, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts”. He introduces the quotation with the words “as the Holy Spirit says”, implying that the Holy Spirit is asking people to listen to him today just as he did centuries ago when the psalm was written. Notice the four different occasions on which God is said to speak here: first in the wilderness when God spoke but Israel hardened her heart; then when the psalmist urged the people of his day not to repeat Israel’s mistake; thirdly, when the Hebrew Christians of the first century a.d. were being encouraged; and, fourthly, as we read the Letter to the Hebrews today we hear God’s plea. God’s word moves with the times!
This principle also applies to the New Testament Scriptures. Each of the seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 concludes with an identical plea: “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Presumably each church heard its particular letter read aloud, and each knew that John had written that letter some time earlier on the island of Patmos. Yet each letter ended with the statement that the Spirit was still speaking to the churches. What was addressed to each church in particular also applied to all the churches in general. John’s words had originated with the Holy Spirit and that Spirit was still speaking with a living voice to every church member who had ears to listen.
Grasping the truth that God still speaks through what he has spoken protects us from two opposite errors. The first is the belief that God’s voice is silent today. The second is the belief that what God is saying today has little or nothing to do with Scripture. The truth is that God speaks through what he spoke. He himself makes his ancient word living and relevant to today.
Our final conviction about Scripture must be that God’s word is powerful. When God speaks, he acts. His word does more than explain his action; it is active in itself. God achieves his purposes by his word (Isa. 55:11). Given the glut of words that surround us every day, this may be difficult to believe. However, writers know that words are important and powerful. Alexander Solzhenitsyn — the Russian author who stood up to the power of the Kremlin and communism — knew this. In his speech as he accepted his Nobel Prize in 1970, he stated that “one word of truth outweighs the whole world”.
The other thing that may make us doubt the power of words is the accusation that the church talks too much and does too little. While we should examine ourselves to see if this is true, we should not abandon words. We need to remember that in the word of God speech and action are combined. God created the universe by his word: “he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Ps. 33:9). Jesus, the Word of God, both preached and worked (Matt. 4:23). And now through the same authoritative word, he recreates and saves. God uses his proclaimed message to save those who believe (1 Cor. 1:21, 1 Thess. 2:13).
The Bible presents many pictures of the power of God’s word. It describes it as sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating our mind and our conscience (Heb. 4:12). Like a hammer, it can break stony hearts; like fire it can burn up rubbish (Jer. 23:29). It lights our path, shining like a lamp on a dark night (Ps. 119:105). Like a mirror it shows us both what we are and what we should be (James 1:22-25). It is compared to a seed leading to birth (James 1:18), to milk causing growth (1 Pet. 2:2), to grain that nourishes whereas straw does not (Jer. 23:28), to honey which sweetens and to gold which enriches its possessor (Ps. 19:10).
These metaphors are not exaggerations. John Wesley’s journal is full of references to the power of the word of God affecting people who were initially hostile to his preaching. Billy Graham saw the same power at work in his rallies. While we may not have the remarkable gifts of these great men, God’s word is still powerful. We need to remember the parable of the sower. Not all our seed-sowing will bear fruit. Some ground is hard and stony, and the birds, the weeds and the scorching sun prevent the seed from growing. But we should be encouraged by the promise that some soil will prove good and will produce an abundance of lasting fruit. There is life and power in the seed, and when the Spirit prepares the soil and waters the seed, there will be growth and fruitfulness.
It can thus be said that “a true sermon is a real deed”. We enter the pulpit with a word in our hands, heart and mouth, and this word has power. We should expect results. We should look for conversions. Spurgeon urged pastors to “so pray and so preach that, if there are no conversions, you will be astonished, amazed and broken-hearted.”
Convictions about the Church
We have many convictions about the church, but here we focus on the firm belief that the church is the creation of God by his word and is dependent on his word. It is the word of God that keeps the church alive, directs and sanctifies it, reforms it and renews it. Christ rules and feeds his church through the word of God. Both as individuals and as a church, we “do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:3, quoted by Jesus in Matt. 4:4).
This point is made over and over again throughout the Scriptures as God addresses his people, teaching them his way, and appealing to them, for his sake and theirs, to hear and obey his message. The Old Testament constantly indicates that the welfare of God’s people depends on their listening to his voice, believing his promises and obeying his commands. The health of the church in the New Testament also depended on their attentiveness to God’s word.
This is still true today, despite the fact that we do not receive fresh, direct revelation as the prophets and apostles did. If we preach the Scriptures faithfully, the Holy Spirit will make the word of God live in the hearts of our hearers. Through his word God will give his people the vision without which the church will perish. First, they will begin to see that he wants his church to be his new society in the world. Then they will begin to grasp the resources he has given us in Christ to fulfil this purpose. Only by humble and obedient listening to his voice can the church grow to maturity, serve the world and glorify our Lord.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones pointed out that “the decadent periods and eras in the history of the church have always been those periods when preaching had declined”. A low level of Christian living is due, more than anything else, to a low level of Christian preaching. If the church is to flourish again, there is a need for faithful, powerful, biblical preaching. God still urges his people to listen and his preachers to proclaim his word.
Convictions about the Pastorate
Jesus Christ gives leaders to his church and intends them to be a permanent part of the church’s structure. We need to heed Paul’s words: “Here is a trustworthy statement: whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task” (1 Tim. 3:1).
The New Testament refers to the leaders of the church as overseers or elders (Titus 1:5). They are no longer Old Testament priests offering sacrifices, but are pastors or shepherds whose chief responsibility is to care for their flock (Acts 20:28). God rebuked the shepherds of Israel for feeding themselves instead of their sheep (Ezek. 34:1-3), but the Good Shepherd not only promised that his sheep would be safe in his care, but also repeatedly instructed Peter to “feed my lambs” and “feed my sheep” (John 10:9; 21:15-17). This was a command the apostles never forgot. Peter later wrote that the elders must “be shepherds of God’s flock” (1 Pet. 5:2), and Paul told the elders of the Ephesian church: “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God” (Acts 20:28). What a privilege to be asked by the Chief Shepherd to care for those whom he had bought with his own blood!
To feed God’s flock means to teach his church, which is why the requirements for being an elder include both loyalty to the apostolic faith and a gift for teaching (Titus 1:9; 1 Tim. 3:2). This teaching must not be done in such a domineering way that the congregation becomes more dependent on the elder than on the Spirit of truth (Matt. 23:8). After all, God’s new covenant promises that “they will all know me” as the Holy Spirit is given to all believers. All “have an anointing from the Holy One” and “have been taught by God” and therefore in a sense we do not need human teachers (Jer. 31:34; 1 John 2:20-27; 1 Thess. 4:9). It is also true that all church members have a responsibility to “let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom” (Col. 3:16). Yet all these truths do not contradict the fact that pastors are called and set apart to devote themselves to a work of preaching and teaching (1 Tim. 5:17).
The fact that the Lord’s gifts to his church include “pastors and teachers” (Eph. 4:11) indicates that God wants every local church to have the benefit of pastoral oversight. This oversight should be exercised by a team, for the word “elders” is nearly always in the plural in the New Testament (Acts 14:23; 20:17; 1 Tim. 4:14; Titus 1:5). The elders’ task includes preaching and teaching, and at least one team member should embrace the demanding work of preaching the word. This task demands much time and energy, but without such commitment the congregation is likely to be weak and unfed.
The question sometimes arises of whether there is a difference between teaching and preaching. If there is, it is very minor. Jesus both taught and preached (Matt. 4:23) and the Apostle Paul described himself as both a preacher and a teacher of the gospel (Titus 1:3; 2 Tim. 1:11). His preaching may have been aimed at sinners and his teaching at his converts. But the content of his preaching does not seem entirely different from the content of his teaching. There was probably a good deal of overlap.
It is also sometimes said when the New Testament refers to preaching, it is referring to evangelism and that what we call preaching (a sermon to a Christian congregation) does not occur in the New Testament. But a brief historical survey will show the weakness of this argument.
The practice of bringing the people of God together to have his word explained to them goes back to the Old Testament. Moses instructed the priests to gather the people and read the law to them, presumably explaining and applying it as they went along (Deut. 31:9-13; see also Mal. 2:7-9). Ezra “brought the Law before the assembly” and “read it aloud”. The Levites shared his ministry and “read from the book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people understood” (Neh. 8:1-8). Later, the synagogue services included readings from the Law and the Prophets, after which somebody preached. When Jesus was in the synagogue at Nazareth, he first read from Isaiah 61 and then in his message announced that he was the fulfilment of this Scripture (Luke 4:16-22). Likewise when Paul attended the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, the worshippers first listened to a reading “from the Law and the Prophets”, after which Paul was invited to preach (Acts 13:14-43).
When believers either left or were thrown out of the synagogues and began to arrange their own Christian meetings, they kept the same form of service. However, they added to the extracts from the Law and the Prophets a reading from one of the apostles’ letters (e.g. Col. 4:16; 1 Thess. 5:27). Luke gives us a glimpse of a Christian assembly at Troas where the worship included the breaking of bread and a sermon from Paul who “kept on talking until midnight”, with disastrous consequences (Acts 20:7-11).
Although this is the only Christian worship service in the New Testament that is specifically said to have included a sermon, there is no reason to suppose that it was exceptional. On the contrary, Paul gives Timothy specific instructions about preaching: “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching” (1 Tim. 4:13). It is clear that the reading from the Bible was to be followed by both preaching and instruction based on the Scripture passage. Probably there was some evangelism as well, for those present would have included fringe members (known as “God-fearers” in the synagogues), those who were preparing for baptism, and even unbelieving visitors (1 Cor. 14:23). Yet the emphasis was on teaching the faithful.
If today’s pastors were to take the New Testament emphasis on preaching and teaching seriously, they would find their work extremely fulfilling. Instead, sadly, many pastors are more involved in administration. The symbols of their ministry are the office rather than the study, and the telephone, computer and Blackberry rather than the Bible. Making “prayer and the ministry of the word” our priority, as the apostles did (Acts 6:4), might involve a radical restructuring of our daily and weekly tasks. We would have to delegate more responsibilities to lay leaders. But it would show a truly New Testament attitude and approach to the pastorate and would greatly improve the health of the church.
Convictions about Preaching
What sorts of sermon should pastors preach? Textbooks tend to list options, one of which may be an expository sermon. But I cannot agree that this is just one possible type among many. All true Christian preaching should be expository. We misuse this word if we think it applies only to a verse-by-verse explanation of a lengthy passage of Scripture. In reality, “expository” refers to the content of the sermon rather than its style. To “expound” Scripture means to bring out what is in the text, to reveal it. The expositor opens what seems to be closed, makes plain what is confusing, unravels what is knotted, and unfolds what is tightly packed.
This “text” might be a word, a verse or a sentence. Sometimes it will be a paragraph or two. It might even be a whole chapter or book. The size of the text does not matter, so long as it is from the Bible. What matters is what we do with it. Whether it is long or short, our responsibility as expositors is to open it up in such a way that it speaks its own message clearly, plainly, accurately, relevantly, without addition, subtraction or twisting. In expository preaching the biblical text is not a launching pad for a sermon that goes on to handle a very different theme. Neither is it a convenient peg on which to hang a jumble of thoughts. The text is a master which dictates and controls the content, tone and aim of our sermons. Philip Ryken says it well:
Expository preaching is not so much a method as it is a mind-set. A minister who sees himself as an expositor knows that he is not the master of the word but its servant. He has no other ambition than to preach what the Scriptures actually teach. His aim is to be faithful to God’s word so that his people can hear God’s voice. He himself is only God’s mouthpiece, speaking God’s message into the ears of God’s people, and thus into their minds and hearts. To that end, he carefully works his way through the Scriptures, reading, explaining, and applying them to his congregation.
David Hubbard captures how this humble attitude works in practice:
Interpreting the Bible is like safecracking. Not the kind where you go in with crowbars and dynamite, but the kind when, with filed fingers, you feel the knob until the tumblers drop. You let the safe give you its own combination. As we deal with the Scripture in our preparation we have to be honest with it. Our tendency is to have an idea . . . And then we say, “Now if I can find a text or a passage to support that idea.” A great deal of our preaching falls into the trap of putting the Bible to a utilitarian purpose. We use the text as an instrument to back up some ideas that we want to put across rather than going to the text and letting that text inform us.
Let us consider some of the main benefits of this disciplined approach.
First, exposition sets us limits. It restricts us to the scriptural text. We are not expounding a passage from the world’s literature, or from a political speech, or even from a religious book. Nor are we presenting our own opinions. No, our text is always taken from God’s word. The very first qualification for expository preaching is the recognition that we are guardians of a sacred “deposit” of truth (1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 1:12-14), trustees of the gospel (1 Thess. 2:4), “stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4:1, 2 kjv).
Secondly, exposition demands integrity. Sadly not everybody is convinced of this. It is said that the Bible can be made to mean anything one wants, but this is only true if one lacks integrity and does not engage in disciplined study.
The description of what we do as grammatico-historical exegesis reminds us that we have to interpret the text in the light of its historical origin and its grammar. When the sixteenth-century Reformers began to refer to the “literal” interpretation of the Scriptures, they were not denying that some passages are poetic and figurative, but were contrasting their approach with the fanciful allegorical style of interpretation. They were emphasizing that every Bible student must look for the plain, natural, obvious meaning of each text. What did the original author intend his words to mean? That was the question — a question which can be answered confidently, if we work patiently. The biblical authors were honest men, not deceivers, and they intended their writings to be understood.
The Reformers also argued that Scripture has a unity given it by God and that it must, therefore, be allowed to interpret itself. One passage will shed light on another. Christians must respect this harmony and should not interpret any passage in a way that contradicts another. We recognize that there are difficult passages, but we should seek to harmonize them in a responsible way.
It would be a good thing if every Christian preacher could say with John Calvin, “I have not corrupted one single passage of Scripture, nor twisted it as far as I know . . . and I have always studied to be simple”.
John Bright also tackles the problem of integrity when he says that a biblical preacher must begin by taking the trouble to determine exactly what his text means:
not what he had always thought it meant, not what he would prefer it to mean, not what it may seem on the surface to mean, but what it actually means. There can be no biblical preaching if the text is not taken with utmost seriousness. If the preacher feels free to disregard his text, if he allows himself to twist or slant its meaning in order to have it support some point he wishes to make, or if he is content to derive incidental lessons from it while ignoring what it principally intended to say, he should give up all pretense of doing biblical preaching. Biblical preaching is a preaching that aims to bring the text’s own word to bear on the contemporary situation; it must therefore begin with the text’s own words. It demands that the preacher make a manful effort to ascertain as precisely as he can what the text intended to convey to those to whom it was originally addressed. If he will not trouble to do that, he can derive no legitimate message from the text for his congregation. His sermon may be interesting, perhaps even edifying; but let him not advertise it as the authentic biblical word to his people. It represents no more than his own words, his own reflections, perhaps as these were suggested by the biblical word, and he ought frankly to admit it.
Thirdly, exposition identifies the traps we must avoid. The two main pitfalls are forgetfulness and disloyalty. The forgetful expositor loses sight of his text when he follows his own ideas and forgets to follow what the text says. The disloyal expositor appears to stick to his text, but strains and stretches it so that it means something quite different from its original and natural meaning. The New Testament writers themselves use word pictures to warn us against this wickedness. False teachers are condemned for “swerving” from the truth, like an archer who misses the target (2 Tim. 2:18, esv); They “peddle” God’s word, like a tradesman who sells by trickery (2 Cor. 2:17). They “pervert” the gospel by altering its content, and “distort” or twist the Scriptures into an unrecognizable shape (Gal. 1:7; 2 Pet. 3:16). By contrast Paul declares that he has “renounced secret and shameful ways”, that he utterly refuses to “distort the word of God”, and that instead he sets “forth the truth plainly” (2 Cor. 4:2).
Fourthly, exposition gives us confidence to preach. If we were offering our own views or those of some imperfect fellow human being, we would do so hesitantly. But if we are honestly expounding God’s word, we can be very bold. Whoever speaks, wrote Peter, should do so “as one who speaks the very words of God” (1 Pet. 4:11). We, like the Jews, have been “entrusted with the very words of God” (Rom. 3:2). Our main task is to handle these words so faithfully that God can still speak through them.
The truths that have been presented in this chapter about God, the Scriptures, the church, the pastorate and biblical exposition should strengthen our trembling beliefs. Today’s objections and challenges to preaching should not put us off. Instead, we should give ourselves to this ministry with fresh energy and determination. Nothing should distract us from our great task.