**Each Friday Preaching Truth looks at some aspect of preaching, inviting pastors and scholars to submit articles**
Today’s “Preaching Post Fridays” feature focuses upon attempts to define expository preaching. What exactly is it? What should be included in the definition?
Here’s my own attempt to define it:
“Expository preaching is unfolding the meaning of a passage of Scripture—studied contextually and applied responsibly—depending upon the Holy Spirit throughout.”
How would you define expository preaching? Here are a list of other definitions in no particular order:
“Expository preaching is that method of proclaiming the Scriptures that takes as a minimum one paragraph of Biblical text (in prose narrative or its equivalent in other literary genre) and derives from that text both the shape (i.e. the main points and sub-points of the sermon) and the content (i.e. the substance, ideas, and principles) of the message itself.”
—Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., “The Crisis in Expository Preaching Today,” Preaching II (1995-1996), 4.
“An expository discourse may be defined as one which is occupied mainly, or at any rate very largely, with the exposition of Scripture. It by no means excludes argument and exhortation as to the doctrines or lessons which this exposition develops. It may be devoted to a long passage; or to a very short one, even part of a sentences It may be one of a series, or may stand by itself We at once perceive that there is no broad line of distinction between expository preaching and common methods, but that one may pass almost insensible gradations from textual to expository sermons.”
—John A. Broadus, A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery Sermons, 7th ed. (New York: A. C. Armstrong and Son, 1891), 303.
“Expository preaching is the consecutive treatment of some book or extended portion of Scripture on which the preacher has concentrated head and heart, brain and brawn, over which he has thought and wept and prayed, until it has yielded up its inner secret, and the ~, spirit of it has passed into his spirit.”
—F. B. Meyer, Expository Preaching Plans and Methods (New York: George H. Doran Co., 1912), 29.
[The expository sermon derives] “its main points or the leading subhead under each main point from the particular paragraph or chapter or book of the Bible with which its deals.”
— Charles W. Koller, Expository Preaching Without Notes (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1962), 21.
“The expository sermon secures its major and first sub-points primarily from the text.”
—H. C. Brown, Jr.., H. Gordon Clinard, and Jess J. Northcutt, Steps to the Sermon: A Plan for Sermon Preparation (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1963), 54.
“An expository sermon is generally based upon a passage or unit of Scripture, and the theme with its divisions and development come from that passage.”
—Nolan Howington, “Expository Preaching,” in Review and Expositor 56 (January 1959): 58.
“An expository sermon is based on a Bible passage, usually longer than a verse or two; the theme, the thesis and the major and minor divisions coming from the passage; the whole sermon being an honest attempt to unfold the true grammaticalhistoricalcontextual meaning of the passage, making it relevant to life today by proper organization, argument, illustrations, application, and appeal.”
—Faris D. Whitesell, Power in Expository Preaching (Westwood, NJ: Fleeting H. Revell Co., 1967), vivii.
Expository preaching is “the communication of a biblical concept, derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, and literary study of a passage in its context, which the Holy Spirit first applies to the personality and experience of the preacher, then through him to his hearers.”
—Haddon W. Robinson, Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980), 19.
“Biblical preaching occurs when listeners are enabled to see how their world, like the biblical world, is addressed by the word of God and are enabled to respond to the word.”
—William D. Thompson, Preaching Biblically, Exegesis and Interpretation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1981), 91G.
“Preaching is biblical when a) the Bible governs the content of the sermon and when b) the function of the sermon is analogous to the text.”
—Leander E. Keck, The Bible in the Pulpit: The Renewal of Biblical Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon, 1978), 26.
“A sermon is biblical when the original meaning of the text intersects with the contemporary meaning of the text, when what the text meant becomes what the text means, when the `now’ of the text coincides with the ‘then.’ Assigning a length of text and a manner of treatment in order to label the sermon biblical or expository is a homiletical myth.”
—Harold T. Bryson, Expository Preaching (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1995), 29.
“Expository preaching is the art of preaching a series of sermons, either consecutive or selective, from a Bible book.”
—Bryson, 39.
“Expository preaching is an act wherein the living truth of some portion of Holy Scripture, understood in the light of solid exegetical and historical study, and made a living reality to the preacher by the Holy Spirit, comes alive to the hearer as he is confronted by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit in judgment and redemption.”
—Donald G. Miller, The Way to Biblical Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1957), 26.
“The expository sermon is an effort to explain, illustrate, and apply the Scripture to life . . . Its purpose is to help the hearers find in the sacred writings the true interpretation of life.”
—Harold E. Knott, How to Prepare an Expository Sermon (Cincinnati: Standard, 1930), 11.
“In a sermon the theme or the doctrine is something that arises out of the text and its context, it is something which is illustrated by the text and context.”
—D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, Preaching & Preachers (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1971), 72.
“The best way to preach is ‘the grammatical-historical way, the expository method. It is proclaiming the message as it is in the Holy Scriptures.’”
—W. A. Criswell, Why I Preach That The Bible is Literally True (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995), 197.
“Expository preaching is `the method of selecting a large portion (a paragraph or more) of the Bible and expounding its meaning and applying the message before the people.”‘
—W. A. Criswell, Criswell’s Guidebook For Pastors (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1980), 42.
“The first and foundational criterion is that sermons must be biblical, that is, they must pass on the meaning and intent of Scripture. A second criterion, implied in the first, is that sermons must be Godcentered (or Christcentered) rather than human centered. If the Bible can indeed be characterized as God’s selfrevelation, then any biblical sermon will have to manifest that same quality by being Godcentered and not humancentered. A third criterion is that sermons must be good news. If one of the main New Testament words for preaching is `to announce good news’ (euangelizomai), and if one may characterize as `good news’ not only the Gospels but the entire Bible, then our sermons ought also to measure up to this standard so that they are indeed good news.”
—Sidney Greidanus, The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text: Interpreting and
Preaching Biblical Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 1988), p. 15.
“The discourse [sermon] should spring out of the text as a rule, and the more evidently it does so the better . . . A sermon, moreover, comes with far greater power to the consciences of the hearers when it is plainly the very word of God not a lecture about the Scripture, but Scripture itself opened up and enforced.”
—Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Lectures To My Students (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1954), 7273.
“The expository sermon is a sermon which faithfully brings a message out of Scripture and makes that message accessible to contemporary hearers . . . The great strength of expository preaching is that it reinforces the authority and centrality of scripture in the life of the church. It is a homiletical method that teaches scripture and enhances the knowledge and understanding of the Bible for both preacher and congregation. More than any other genre of preaching, expository preaching honors the desire of the hearer to understand and claim the meaning of the scriptures for life in today’s world.”
—Concise Encyclopedia of Preaching , 1st ed., s. v. “Expository Preaching,” by John S. McClure, p. 134.
“In preaching, exposition is the detailed interpretation, logical amplification, and practical application of Scripture.”
—Jefferson D. Ray, Expository Preaching (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1940), p. 71.
“Expository preaching is the explanation, illustration and application of a passage of Scripture deriving its central theme and main points from the passage itself with the truths applied to the lives of the hearers.”
—Pastor James Merritt
“An expository sermon is one that expounds a passage of Scripture, organizes it around a central theme and main points, and then decisively applies its message to the listeners.”
—Jerry Vines, A Practical Guide to Sermon Preparation (Chicago: Moody Press, 1985), p. 7
“Expository preaching is not merely preaching about the Bible but preaching what the Bible itself says.”
-Jerry Vines, 6.
“Expository preaching is text driven preaching which allows the words (and especially the verbs), clauses, sentences, paragraph and macrostructure of a passage to shape and direct the message so that the exposition, illustration, application and exhortation of the sermon is true to and grounded in the scriptural text being proclaimed.”
—Dr. Daniel L. Akin, President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
“Expository preaching is that mode of Christian preaching which takes as its central purpose the presentation and application of the text of the Bible. All other issues and concerns are subordinated to the central task of presenting the biblical text. As the Word of God, the text of Scripture has the right to establish both the substance and the structure of the sermon. Genuine exposition takes place when the preacher sets forth the meaning and message of the biblical text, and makes clear how the Word of God establishes the identity and worldview of the Church as the people of God.”
—R. Albert Mohler Jr., President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
“Expository preaching is the Spirit-empowered explanation and proclamation of the text of God’s Word with due regard to the historical, contextual, grammatical, and doctrinal significance of the given passage, with the specific object of invoking a Christ-transforming response.”
—Stephen F. Olford with David L. Olford, Anointed Expository Preaching (Broadman & Holman, 1998), 69.
“Expository sermons may be deductive or inductive; they may be propositional or narrative. The guiding rule is that they take their ideas and form from the text.”
—Michael Duduit, “Preaching at the End of the 20th Century,” The Tie vol. 65, #3 (July 1997).
” . . . the expository sermon must be controlled by a Scripture text or texts. Expository preaching emerges directly and demonstrably from a passage or passages of Scripture.”
—D. A. Carson, “Accept No Substitutes: 6 reasons not to abandon expository preaching.” Leadership (Summer 1996): 87.
“[Expository preaching is] . . . preaching in such a way that the meaning of the Bible passage is presented entirely and exactly as it was intended by God. Expository preaching is the proclamation of the truth of God as mediated through the preacher.”
—John MacArthur Jr., “The Mandate of Biblical Inerrancy: Expository Preaching” in Rediscovering Expository Preaching (Dallas: Word, 1992), 23-24.
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