Benefits Of Expository Preaching

Each Friday we take a look at some aspect of preaching, featuring the research and writings of pastors and scholars who have been invited to submit articles. 

Today’s post comprises a number of benefits of expository preaching that I put together years ago to use in teaching and writing.

Benefits of Verse-Verse-Expository Preaching…

• It is the method least likely to stray from Scripture.
• It teaches people how to read their Bibles.
• It gives confidence to the preacher and authorizes the sermon.
• It meets the need for relevance without letting the clamor for relevance dictate the message.
• It forces the preacher to handle the tough questions.
• It enables the preacher to expound systematically the whole counsel of God.

—D. A. Carson, “Accept No Substitutes: 6 reasons not to abandon expository preaching.”  Leadership (Summer 1996): 87-88.

• Using the expository method makes it possible for the preacher to learn the Word.
• Preaching expository messages through books of the Bible keeps the preacher out of a rut.
• Expository preaching enables us to deal with passages that might otherwise have been overlooked or even intentionally avoided.
• The expository method makes the preacher work.
• Preaching through books of the Bible removes anxiety about what to preach.
• Expository preaching gives great confidence to the preacher.
• Expository preaching gives people strength.
• Expository preaching encourages the people to become students of the Word themselves.
• Expository preaching has a way of broadening people’s horizons.
• Expository preaching will provide the preacher with an increasingly maturing congregation.

—Jerry Vines, A Practical Guide to Sermon Preparation.  (Chicago: Moody Press, 1985), 20-24.

• It best achieves the biblical intent of preaching: delivering God’s message.
• It promotes scripturally authoritative preaching.
• It magnifies God’s Word.
• It provides a storehouse of preaching material.
• It develops the pastor as a man of God’s Word.
• It ensures the highest level of Bible knowledge for the flock.
• It leads to thinking and living biblically.
• It encourages both depth and comprehensiveness.
• It forces the treatment of hard-to-interpret texts.
• It allows for handling broad theological themes.
• It keeps preachers away from ruts and hobby horses.
• It prevents the insertion of human ideas.
• It guards against misinterpretation of the biblical text.
• It imitates the preaching of Christ and the apostles.
• It brings out the best in the expositor.

—Richard L. Mayhue, “Rediscovering Expository Preaching,” in John MacArthur, Jr and the Master’s Seminary Faculty.  Rediscovering Expository Preaching (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1992), 20.

• It gives glory to God, which ought to be the ultimate end of all we do.
• It demands that the preacher himself become a student of the Word of God.
• It enables the congregation to learn the Bible in the most obvious and natural way.
• It prevents the preacher from avoiding difficult passages or from dwelling on his favorite texts.
• It assures the congregation of enjoying a balanced diet of God’s Word.
• It liberates the preacher from the pressure of last-minute preparation on Saturday night.

—Alistair Begg, Preaching for God’s Glory (Wheaton: Crossway, 1999), 33-39.

• It gives the preacher authority and power.
• It provides an inexhaustible store of sermonic material.
• It meets human needs.
• It produces mature well-taught Christians.

—Merrill F. Unger, Principles of Expository Preaching (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1955), 24-31.

• It saves the preacher from getting into ruts.
• It compels the preacher to handle big themes.
• It creates a well-instructed congregation.
• The expositor will be led to handle subjects which would not otherwise occur to him.
• It honors the Word of God and gives immense force to the ministry that is based upon it.

—F. B. Meyer, Expository Preaching, Plans and Methods (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1910), 49-72.

• It is more interesting for people to come and be taken through passages of Scripture.
• It saves a man from the uncertainty of wondering what he is going to preach on.
• It [keeps the preacher] from the danger of always falling back on old material at the last minute or going to a magazine and finding some outline with a few stories.
• It drives [the preacher], it makes [him] a man of the word.

—Geoff Thomas in David Porter, ed. “An Interview with Geoff Thomas.”  The Southern Seminary Magazine (The Tie), (July 1997) Vol. 65, no. 3: 22.