Series Six: Expository Preaching

“Many preachers, for example, indulge habitually in what they call expository sermons. They take a passage from Scripture and, proceeding on the assumption that the people attending the church that morning are deeply concerned about what the passage means, they spend their half hour or more on historical exposition of the verse or chapter, ending with some appended practical applications to the auditors. Could any procedure be more surely predestined to dullness and futility? Who seriously supposes that, as a matter of fact, one in a hundred of the congregation cares, to start with, what Moses, Isaiah, Paul, or John meant in those special verses, or came to church deeply concerned about it? Nobody else who talks to the public so assumes that the vital interests of the people are located in the meaning of words spoken two thousand years ago.”¹

Liberal ideologies put man at the center of the preaching event. We are told that if you aren’t packaging teaching in a way that gains an immediate audience response, then you are not really an effective teacher.

1. Modern preaching focuses on what people want to hear (2 Tim 4:3).
   1. This approach to preaching is rooted historically in the teaching of Harry Emerson Fosdick, which could be summed up in the following propositions:
      1. People know what is best for them.
      2. People automatically want what is best for them.
      3. People genuinely want to hear the truth.
      4. People reject truth because of the way we present it.
      5. People will listen if we change our approach.
   2. This view militates against the reality that God speaks authoritatively and makes the listeners accountable for their response.
      1. Relevancy and freshness is the goal.
      2. Authenticity becomes the ultimate trump card.
         1. The focus is on the packaging, not the content.
         2. The listener and what he wants take central stage in determining the content of the sermon.
         3. The reality is that this is nothing more than marketing strategy.
2. Two influences that have driven modern preaching
   1. A fearful response to the growing presence of evil around a historically conservative culture. The church has been concerned with losing influence in the culture.
      1. The church in America has historically enjoyed peace in the culture (not that this means there has been spiritual vitality).
         1. In post-World War II America, the “gospel” became “you can do whatever you want to do.”
         2. Democracy, freedom, and prosperity were the primary tenets.
         3. People went to church, and Christianity became associated and lumped in with this false gospel message.
         4. In the midst of this, however, there was never a decline of evil.
      2. The culture in America is becoming increasingly hostile to the true gospel. Today 2 Timothy 3:1–7 is in full measure.
         1. Difficult times of hostility and opposition are promised to the church (v. 1).
         2. Society disintegrates as the love and fear of God disappears (vv. 2–4).
         3. The church (using the word loosely) is full of those who hold to a form of godliness, but deny its power.
            • There is a denial of the necessity of stumbling over a sovereign Savior and a bloody cross.
            • If people are gathering together to hear what they want to hear, people will chafe at the authority of God’s Word.
            • The only way for pulpits that are giving people what they want to hear to be shut down is for Christianity to cost you something.
            • There is a sentimental desire to “go back to the way things used to be” when we were filling stadiums and people were going to conferences and churches were full.
   2. There is a perpetual desire to lower the bar.
      1. The answer to apathy and a lack of appetite is claimed to be to lower the bar.
      2. This is seen across culture—even in schools today.
      3. This goes against all rational thinking where the whole point of equipping and learning is to move from a place where you are to where to you need to be.
      4. The truth about man’s condition is that he needs truth to challenge and rescue him from his sinful mindset (Rom 1:18–21).
3. Much training of preachers focuses on the listener.
   1. The needs of the listener are considered sovereign. The listener has the authority.
   2. How do assess your own needs?
   3. What do you want to hear?
   4. This fosters bad hermeneutics because the focus becomes going to Scripture to find answers to the questions people are asking.
4. Some pastors misuse Scripture to validate their felt needs preaching model.
   1. Luke 4:16–22 is used as a proof text that Jesus was focused on meeting the felt needs of His hearers.
      1. Jesus begins teaching in the synagogue (vv. 16–17).
      2. Jesus identifies Himself as the fulfillment of the promised Messianic ministry as recorded in Isaiah (vv. 18–21).
      3. Jesus almost gets thrown off a cliff after the people listening are filled with rage at His teaching (vv. 28–30).
   2. But the entire context is ignored by this modern interpretation.
      1. The catchwords become the focus and are transported into our immediate context: poor, captives, blind, oppressed (i.e., burdened and downtrodden).
      2. The conclusion is drawn that Jesus is encouraging people and focusing on relieving their burdens (i.e., felt needs). He touched upon what they wanted to hear.
      3. The context is completely violated. The takeaway according to these interpretations is that Jesus was an effective communicator.
      4. The claim then is that if I meet people where they are (as it is claimed that Jesus did) then I will have a full church and be an effective communicator.
5. Two devastating assumptions that put an unnecessary burden on the preacher:
   1. People have innate needs that must be met in order for people to reach “wholeness.”
   2. We are to assume that everyone has spiritual inclinations toward what is best. It isn’t a heart problem that prevents people from accessing preaching, but it is external, environmental problems that keep them from truth.
   3. Example: forgiveness
      1. In this model, the listener is assumed to be good. So the preaching about motivations for forgiveness becomes:
         1. You don’t want someone else “renting space” in your mind.
         2. You will be destroyed if you let bitterness control you.
      2. The sinful inclinations of the heart are undealt with.
      3. The motivation for forgiveness (i.e., exemplifying the forgiveness you have received) is ignored (Matt 18:21–35; Eph 4:32; Col 3:13).
6. What about people’s appetite for faithful exposition?
   1. Many people don’t have an appetite.
      1. People spend their time cultivating an appetite for television and movies all week.
      2. People crave humor and light messages.
      3. People are used to snippets from online posts and social media.
      4. People complain about inaccessibility.
         1. People consider biblical terminology and substantive preaching as inaccessible.
         2. When someone says, “I can’t understand those words,” it’s not that they can’t, but that they won’t. They aren’t willing to work at the most basic level to learn something.
      5. Yet even brand new Christians love God’s truth and can access biblical preaching.
   2. The desire to talk about theology is not an indicator of appetite.
      1. People love to debate topics.
      2. People love to talk about theology.
      3. Matthew 7:21–23 is concerning in light of our current evangelical subculture.
      4. When you open the pages of Scripture and go deeply into a passage, many times people will begin to shut it out.
      5. People want practical counseling advice, but when it comes to walking through a passage, they don’t want to hear it
      6. You can tell a lot about people based upon where they go and what preaching they sit under.
   3. Pastors must model exposition to help cultivate an appetite for exposition.
7. Satan’s schemes against the power of faithful preaching are many.
   1. Satan finds subtle ways to attack the authority of Scripture because this is where the power for change exists (1 Thess 2:13). Satan works against this to undermine:
      • the power of the Scripture.
      • the faith of individuals in the power of the Scripture.
      • the commitment that believers have to one another in body life.
      • the clarity of authoritative, propositional truth coming from the pulpit.
      • the hearers’ awareness of his obligation to truth every time he hears it, regardless of how he feels about it.
      • the heralding of God’s Word with the force and weight and conscience-binding implications that God ordained it to have.
      • the boldness that Christians ought to have in order to silence them by labeling them as critical or narrow or bigoted.
      • the accountability that men have for the content that they preach and write and speak and blog about.
   2. Satan’s schemes in the last half century have brought in new approaches to preaching (e.g., story-telling preaching, dialoging, surface-level teaching, etc.). Satan accomplishes his plan by feeding lies to the evangelical church:
      • You shouldn’t have to come under the oppressive authority of a preacher.
      • You can’t know for sure what God meant by what He said.
      • People have less ability to understand literature and verbal communication as we have become a visual culture.
      • Story-telling preaching is a more accessible approach to communicating truth.
      • Human experience holds the authority for change, and everyone’s voice matters equally.
      • As an individual I am in a position to judge truth.
8. Faithful expositors are protected by the very truth that Satan attempts to undermine. God has already anticipated Satan’s attack and has given instructions for conducting ministry.
   1. The conviction that faith comes only by hearing the Word, and that nothing else transforms men (Rom 10:17)
   2. The same preaching will be foolishness to some, and to others the power of God (1 Cor 1:18).
   3. The gospel itself is the power of God for salvation (Rom 1:16).
   4. The ministry of proclamation must happen in season and out of season, regardless of appetite and unaltered by audience response (2 Tim 4:1–3).