The expository preaching trap causes great damage.
Warning to Preachers:
Beware of The Expository Preaching Trap
Col 1:27-29 ...which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: 28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: 29 Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
2Tim 4:2-5 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
Acts 20:20-21 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, 21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
1Cor 11:23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you
1Cor 2:11-13 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
Jer 23:21 I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
John 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
Eph 4:21 If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:
John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
Jer 1:17 Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.
Mic 3:8 But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the LORD, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.
2Tim 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
It seems to be almost the holy grail in Reformed churches that preaching during the worship services of the church are supposed to follow an exegetical pattern of expository preaching, chapter by chapter and verse by verse, so that entire books and groups of books of the Bible are covered and thoroughly expounded in the order and context in which they are written. The assumption is that since the Bible was written this way, it should also be taught and preached this way. The idea sounds very good and very logical. Theoretically this forces the preacher to cover every nuance and shade of meaning, so that he neglects nothing, as he handles the word with detailed exegesis of each pertinent point. It certainly sounds good, but is this what preaching actually is?
I have taught in other articles, that this is not actual preaching at all. This is nothing more than basic Bible teaching. It is basically material that is suited for, and belongs in, the Sunday School or Bible class. But it is not preaching at all, and therefore should not occupy our Lord's Day Worship services. True, it is exegesis, which is very important. True, it is Bible study, which is an essential part of the Christian life. True, it is organized teaching according to context, so that nothing is ripped out of context; but is this what the apostles and prophets of the Bible considered to be preaching?
I submit to you that it is not.
Here are just a few reasons why the verse by verse expository method is not preaching, and should never be used as a substitute for preaching.
1. Jesus Christ never once utilized it in any of His sermons. Look at the sermon on the mount as an example. That is not an exposition of an Old Testament book, or even a chapter of a book. It is not even an exposition of a single paragraph. Preaching involves the delivery of special content that cannot be derived by simply reading the chapters and paragraphs of the Bible. Preaching is therefore something different than exposition.
2. There is no example of any Apostle ever preaching according to an expository fashion. There are examples in the book of acts, such as Peter's sermon on the Day of Pentecost, when substantial references to Old Testament historical events are used, but not as an exegesis of a text. Peter referred to the history of Israel to illustrate and prove the new and unique truths which He was embodying in the Spirit derived sermon which he delivered on that occasion. Again, the actual sermon, involved the delivery of special content which could not be derived by simply reading a chapter or book of the Bible. His sermon in Acts two illustrates the essential concept of what an actual sermon is, and how it is to be preached. Preaching, if it follows the Acts pattern, would be dynamically shaped and directed through the direct agency of the Holy Spirit delivering a specific content, to a specific people, for a specific purpose, at a specific time.
3. The expository method virtually eliminates the need for specific direction from the Holy Spirit. When He is eliminated from the preaching dynamic, true preaching no longer exists. The message preached in an actual preaching act comes directly from the Holy Spirit and is passed through the agency of the preacher to meet an immediate spiritual need, or to open up a particular truth that the Holy spirit wants the preacher to speak about. Sometimes the Spirit directs the message to achieve Divine objectives, such as hardening the heart, enlightenment on a specific point, calling sinners, or increasing discernment on a particular issue. The trend for eliminating the Holy Spirit from the preaching process is consistent with the false concept of cessationism. Booting the Holy Spirits right to control and direct the lips of a preacher, makes exposition instead of preaching a great way to control any unwanted Spirit activity in a service. We tell the Holy Spirit what we will be preaching on, because we determined in advance, sometimes many months in advance, the expository plan...on May 15th we will be on verses 4-8, May 22 verses 9-10 etc. The plan is arranged well in advance, so that the Holy Spirit is forced to preach on the pre-determined topic. This is perhaps the biggest flaw in the expository method.
4. The expository method always becomes labored and boring to the congregation. The normal plan each week generally follows the same old plan with a brief review of what has already been covered, bringing people up to date on what they might have missed, and an exposition of the current passage, which may or may not include some attempt to offer something resembling sermon points that might seem relevant to the people, and an application section at the end where some effort is actually made to show how the text might be used in daily life. This, or something close to this occurs week after week, month after month, and even with the most skilled of expositors, the congregation is generally lulled into sleepy the feeling that this is more of the same old stuff. Usually at that point there is some attempt to acknowledge the Holy Spirit, to ask Him for enlightenment and success in applying the verses. The problem comes however from the fact that those verses may not be the verses that the Holy Spirit really wants the preacher to speak about at all. Asking for His blessing and enlightenment like that is tantamount to to asking Him to bless our thoughts, our ways and our desires, and to ignore His own. The Holy Spirit serves us, and we do not serve Him under this arrangement. How can that possibly be glorifying to God? How could that ever be true preaching?
5. The expository sermon always ends up being the delivery of the preachers message while simultaneously ignoring direct guidance from the Holy Spirit. When we preach like that we are always saying that we have no confidence, or belief, that the Holy Spirit is still guiding the church and leading it into all truth (John 14:26; John 16:13). The terms guide, speak, lead, hear, comfort, and bring things to remembrance, are all in the active voice and all indicate that the Holy Spirit is actually and vitally involved in the entire process of presenting the truth of Jesus Christ to men. These verbs do not mean that the Holy Spirit follows us, and nods His approval to our preplanned messages. They indicate that He must be the teacher, the leader, and that He is the one who actually speaks His mind in every sermon. He guides according to His agenda, not ours, and that is why it is called guiding and leading and calling to remembrance. These words absolutely mean that preachers must be guided, taught, shown, and spoken to directly by the holy Spirit in order to comfort and teach Jesus Christ to the congregation. Paul said it quite clearly:
1Co 11:23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you.
The message was directly received from the Lord, and this was by actual experience and not just reading about it from the ancient texts. The texts are certainly important, and the Holy Spirit will never contradict Himself or the things He has written. But He is the sole interpreter and applier of the Scriptures, that's why direction must come from Him in every sermon. And it must come before we ever decide what texts to preach about or use in the message that He wants us to deliver. If you decide to preach about something before He has actually told you what speak about, and before you have even asked His direction and guidance, how can that be preaching? and how can you expect Him to bless your message and show up at your worship service? You have neglected His direct guidance in the preparation of the service and the message, and yet you expect Him to bless you and actually speak to your flock, while restricting the manner in which He can speak. That is bizarre thinking, and it can be found in no relevant passage dealing with the preaching issue. It is purely man-made non-sense.
Under an expository system, a man could preach 468 sermons on Leviticus, without ever being guided or spoken to by the Holy Spirit even once. How is that bringing all things to remembrance concerning Christ? How is that following God's plan for the church? Christ said this is the primary purpose He sent the Holy Spirit. Yet we want to have church without any of this, and then we want to pretend that our endless tedium and mindless following of a man made script are from Him. They are not from Him in the least, other than the in fact that He did inspire the ancient texts which we are wading through. They were inspired, but that kind of preaching is less than inspiring.
Let me show you an example of how stupid and insulting to the Holy Spirit an expository preaching system actually is. The pastor is involved in a detailed exposition, week by week, and verse by verse through the book of Amos. A terrible tragedy hits his congregation when a fishing boat that 12 of his people were Tuna Fishing on sinks in rough seas off the coast of Massachusetts. The mourners gather at the church on Sunday, looking for some actual comfort from the Comforter, but their ignorant preacher decides that the best way to honor God is to continue preaching through Amos, because God is capable of fully providing exactly what his congregants need through the faithful handling of the texts of Amos. Six months ago God supposedly laid that upon his heart to preach, and we will not stop till the Holy Spirit is done teaching us directly from this wonderful portion of His word. He gets up to read the text for the mourners, and perhaps they read it themselves during the week, because everybody knows where the sermons are going. Here is the text He reads:
Amos 4:2 The Lord GOD hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.
Twelve members died on a fishing trip with hooks in the hands! Is that the text from the Holy Spirit which will bring them comfort, direction, guidance or show them something about Christ? Of course not. And every expository preacher if He is a man of God, will readily recognize that something else must be delivered, rather than exposition. That text, if used on that Sunday, would disgrace God, insult the people, show the absolute ignorance of the preacher, and provide no comfort whatsoever. The sermon would clearly not be what God wants the preacher to speak to the people about, because the preach has left the voice of the Holy Spirit out of the preparation. He has not even allowed the Holy Spirit to guide Him through the acts of Divine providence operating right in His congregation. Expository preaching keeps the preacher from being in touch with the needs of His congregation, and makes Him Blind to the eye which beholds Gods hand, and deaf to the ear which He is required to listen to as a preacher. The mourners would probably never set foot in church again. Could you blame them? I would never return either, because specific and dire needs that they had as worshipers were clearly ignored, and a heartless, and meaningless preaching ritual was placed above any actual direction, guidance, teaching, leading and comfort from the Holy Spirit. That is the way that expository preaching functions each and every week when followed book by book, chapter by chapter and verse by verse. That is not of God. In fact I think it is an invention of Satan to lure pastors into the trap of not obtaining each and every sermon fresh and directly at the throne of Grace. Verse by verse exposition is the lazy mans way to keep from wresting with God for the blessings every Sunday. It is essentially a non-spiritual means to conduct the business of church. Might as well preach out of the Catholic missal, or just spend the entire service reading verses with no exposition at all. After all it is the texts that are inspired not anything I could ever say. Every argument used to support verse by verse exposition can also be used for simply reading the Sacred words themselves, and the argument would actually make more sense.
6. Exposition comes under the term teaching, not preaching. These terms are frequently used side by side, and in some cases are interchangeable, but in all case they indicate functions that are distinguishable from each other, even when teaching might be included in preaching. We are not saying that preaching does not contain teaching. What we are saying is that preaching goes far beyond teaching and includes stuff like this stuff which the verses of the texts above indicate in addition to and sometimes in contrast with just teaching... Check out these ideas. These make preaching something different than just teaching about the books and verses of the Bible. True preaching includes these things also.
warning every man.
presenting every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
being instant in season, out of season (i-e ready to preach anything anytime).
reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine (These are functions of preaching not teaching, and they clearly indicate some important differences between the two).
watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry (these things show that watching afflictions and evangelism are all part of preaching).
I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable. (How did he know what was profitable and what he was not supposed to shrink from, if the Spirit did not guide him in the matter?)
testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ ( testimony and the objective of producing repentance and faith seem to be both important aspects of preaching).
For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you (preaching involves delivering a message that was received from the Lord Himself. The Lord is not the Bible. The message is not received from a book it is received from a person.)
God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. (We speak what is given to us by God, by the direct teaching of the Holy Ghost not by simply readin what He wrote. The writings of God are not mentioned or implied here. The entire process is actively spiritual, not just locked into some ancient texts.)
when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
ye have heard him, and have been taught by him (People ought to know this at the end of every real sermon. Preaching is supposed to be just like Christ stepping to the pulpit and teaching the people directly. That is real preaching, bringing the Living Christ to the congregation every Sunday, and allowing Him to teach preach and direct all things. God in a box is not preaching.)
My sheep hear my voice,... and they follow me. (There is only three possible ways that men can hear Christ's voice today.
1. As they read it in the Bible and He speaks through the written record.
2. Or as they hear it directly in some sort of direct intelligent communication with their brain and heart.
3. In preaching... "how shall they hear without a preacher" (Rom 10:14).
Preaching is Christ teaching, admonishing, pleading and directing men from the pulpit of a church. While it could involve teaching about specific Biblical passages, it seems more likely that He would continue to use the same methodology of preaching now, that He used when He was here on earth. The Lord does not change, even though we do. If He is not the one preaching in your pulpit, directly through you, then you are not preaching at all! You are occupying a pulpit in the flesh, and you will be held accountable for all those idle words that you speak there, which do not come directly from Him.
I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. (That's quite clear. When a preacher speaks without first being spoken to, he violates the basic rule of preaching...i.e. direct authorization for the message. Unauthorized messages, which come when God has not spoken directly to the prophet, commanding Him what to say, are nothing more than false prophecies, even if they are based upon the Bible! They are false, because they are not what God wants the man to be saying. The man who does not receive an authorized message before he opens His mouth, is a false prophet! God has to speak to Him and tell Him his message. It is not up to the preacher to invent His own sermon material or preaching systems, even if they appear to follow the Bible. Preaching is a highly spiritual exercise, transferring a message directly from God to the hearers, through the human agent with whom God has personally spoken. The man who preaches thus is a prophet. Nobody else is authorized to preach, and nothing else should ever be accepted by God's people as preaching. If true preaching, thus described, does not happen, then there is no actual preaching at all, and the man is simply a false prophet. And he can be a false prophet, while preaching entirely from the Bible, if His message is not what God wants Him to tell the people. All unauthorized preaching is false by virtue of the fact that it contains the wrong message for that event, because it was not received before it was spoken.) Many good men, faithfully proclaiming the Bible accurately and book by book, stand in the place of false prophets, because they are not speaking exactly and only what God has directed them to speak by actual living commandment, and not just by Bible reading. The preacher, in order to have a genuine sermon, must have derived it from God in Heaven, and not just from the book on his coffee table. This may sound strange and controversial to you, because you have bought into the popular idea that preaching must come exclusively from the Bible. But Bible without Holy Spirit is dead, and is illegitimate True worship is supposed to be in Spirit as well as in Truth. If either one is absent, the worship is false, and is actually nothing but mountaintop worship, on this mountain or that mountain. Now is the time when true worshipers worship in both Spirit and Truth. True sermons come from the Spirit and not just from the Truth. They are received in heaven, not from the book of truth alone.
therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee. (A simple command that makes great preachers and great preaching. Stand up, speak up and shut up! But only speak what I have commanded you to speak.)
7. Exposition makes great teaching, but it is the voice of false prophecy when it it fills the pulpit , because it contains no direct message from The Holy Spirit and Christ. You can certainly allude to Christ, and deduce Him from every part of the Bible, but that is not the same as speaking the message that He wants you to preach this and every Sunday. When preachers seek His face, His guidance and His instruction each week, then they will always have fresh and relevant material to bring to church with them. Church will not be a tedium it will be a joy, and worship will be real and powerful, because Jesus will actually be there, and will actually be speaking to His congregation.
Here are some examples of
the severe damage this type of preaching can do.
1. It hinders the preachers communion with God. When you no longer need to struggle with God every week about what He wants you to tell your people, you are apt to lose the intimate communion which comes from just that sort of praying and searching at the throne of grace. This effect of verse by verse exposition is quiet serious, because it damages the preachers relationship with God. Many preachers who follow that method of preaching, actually become quite backslidden themselves because of it. Assuming that God always speaks only from the Biblical texts is a false assumption, that cannot be established from anything actually taught in the Scriptures themselves, or from any examples of the prophets, Apostles, and preachers in the Bible. I have many of these preachers preach, who are dry as tinder, and dead as a doornail. Their sermons are boring, there style is lifeless and un-animated, and the scope of doctrines and truths that they actually cover is extremely limited, because few single books cannot cover every aspect and every doctrine of Christianity. When preachers become backslidden, because of a false stricture in their communion with God, they damage themselves and their congregation. If you never seek from God what you should be preaching on any given Sunday, and you are assuming that He will speak to your congregation through the book you have chosen to study, you are sapping the life right out of the very Scriptures that you are trying to proclaim.
2. Your people may fall into the error of thinking God only speaks one way. This absolutely puts God in a box in their minds. They come to believe that every time they go to church the preaching and teaching has to be according to a set ritual or system. They then become hyper-critical and in some cases even hateful when somebody preaches outside of their comfort zone box. I have experienced it first hand many times, when I am guest preaching in the churches that follow the book by book, verse by verse approach. The people shut me off right from the start of the sermon when they see that my preaching style is different then that of their pastor. This indicates that they are preoccupied more with their traditions and rituals than with getting an actual blessing from Christ every time they attend a preaching service. They come expecting that God will meet them only in one way, and only in the way they have grown used to. This explains the coldness and general deadness in most of these types of churches. I have seen it over and over again. This is why so many of the Arminian's are deathly afraid of the Calvinistic doctrines. They assume that Calvinism makes dead, unevangelistic and unhealthy churches. And to a large extent they are right. They do not realize, however, that the problem is not with the theology, it is with the preaching and methodology.
3. This concept of preaching actually turns preaching into a saving sacrament. The reformed people speak of preaching as a "means of grace". There is some truth in the notion that faith comes by hearing the word of God as it is preached. But what happens is that an unconscious and serious mental leap is made from this doctrine. Preaching is a method whereby God creates faith and administers grace, but it is not a saving sacrament. Men can be saved without listening to your Sunday sermon, and in some cases your sermon might be more of a damning element than a saving one as when it hardens somebodies heart. The idea of sacramentalism and sacraments is a throwback to Roman Catholicism. It is a case where the reformers did not come out of Catholicism enough. They still believe in sacraments, and most of them even refer to the Lord's supper this way. Sacraments are rituals which convey salvation. And many reformed people view preaching just that way. As a so called "means of Grace" they attach saving magical power to the sermon. It has to be a certain way in order to be effectual. That is ridiculous hocus-pocus nonsense.
4. Book by book, and verse by verse preaching has turned many Baptist churches into Presbyterian churches, and this is a clear and real danger to be avoided. Presbyterians have many wonderful and godly people who inadvertently embrace many UN-wonderful and God-dishonoring principles. They handle the word of God dishonestly, and repeatedly, with reference to many doctrines and issues. I think this is one of them. Stuff like this makes me thankful that I am a Baptist, because we realize that the only means of grace is in a person, the Lord Jesus. He is the true means of grace and His hands are not tied, or His arms are not shortened that they cannot save in any and every manner in which He sees fit. Reformed Calvinistic theology tends to put God in a box, and to the extent that it does so I am opposed to it, just as I am opposed to any other false views of God. I use the term Reformed on my website, only because it shows my belief in the Sovereignty of God and the Doctrines of salvation by grace alone. But I much prefer the term Baptist, because the Baptistic people and doctrines existed long before the protestants ever decided to protest anything. I'm not saying Baptists are perfect, but they exhibit at their core a desire to always be reforming and conforming to the word of God. With Baptists it is not a static "we have arrived at all truth" concept. We believe churches must change and grow through living communion and actual direction from the Holy Spirit. The problem with protestantism as I see it, is that it did not protest enough, and it quit protesting. They thought they had arrived when they had only just begun. They should actually be protesting themselves, and their present horrible state, for stuff just like turning preaching into a sacrament.
Many Baptists have joined the ranks of the Presby's and embraced covenant theology sacramentalism, complete with baby sprinkling in the name of baptism. I think that is a crying shame, and a disgrace, which has come in part because we think that just because they are right on the five points, they are right on everything, and we embrace the things that they are actually very wrong about, such as this non-Biblical style of expository preaching. You open the doors to traditionalism, sacramentalism, dead services, dead people, and Pharisaical religious pride, the moment you introduce a style of preaching that does not derive every message directly from the Holy Spirit.
The historic Baptist preaching style has always been topical exegetical, not book by book exegetical, and it is due to the reasons we have discussed. But beginning in the late 20th century when many Baptist's re-discovered the principles of TULIP, or the 5 points of Calvinism, as they are erroneously known, relearning them from the Presbyterians; they also began discovering the supposed virtues of the life sapping system of preaching favored by the Covenant Theologians. It has ruined many Baptist churches, and turned them into Presbyterian churches. If you are Baptistic, I would urge you to beware of endorsing or using this style of preaching, because it generally is a retrograde step that leads to disastrous results. I am not making this up, and it is not an insignificant problem. This has happened hundreds and maybe thousands of times here in America. Baptist churches embracing all the covenant theology heresies and going from sound Baptist churches to sacramentalism. Beware.
Please understand that I am not saying that all churches or all preachers who preach this way are dead, cold, and backslidden. That simply would not be true. There are in fact many great pastors who employ the method, some of them are even Baptist's. But they are very strong spiritually, and they guard their hearts constantly, in order to fight off the inherent dangers in this inferior system. I have made many generalizations in this study, and there are certainly many exceptions to what I have stated. What I am stating has come from my personal experience and observations. I have used both methods in my preaching, and have preached in churches using both methods. Early in my preaching I used the expository method almost exclusively. Yes we had blessings, and yes we had conversions, but the whole system missed the spontaneity and freshness that comes from actual Holy Spirit involvement in every sermon. I will never return to that inferior system because the book by book, in my opinion, tends toward spiritual coldness, laziness, and sacramentalism; all very dangerous and destructive things. I am not trying to judge other people here. Every preacher is himself responsible to God for what He preaches. But if the methodology actually hinders a man from receiving his message from God, I am urging him to avoid it, and all the possible negative ramifications that will come from faulty preaching.
5. The system of expository preaching tends to turn Christians into sermon critics. This is a serious danger and has damaged many Christians so that they no longer know how to listen to Gods voice through the preacher. They think God is only speaking when the preacher is sticking extremely close to the ancient texts. Sermons are judged not by the extent that they actually communicate and transmit a message that touches the heart and blesses the person listening, thus communicating change directly to the life. Instead they are judge based on the idea of their faithfulness to the original texts. Please listen carefully here, lest you misinterpret my words. I am not saying that any sermon ought to ever be less that 100% exegetically accurate, or less than perfectly faithful to the scripture texts. I am saying that listening correctly is almost as important as preaching correctly. Exegetical correctness can produce hard hearts and a cold church even if it is accurate. There is more to preaching than just accuracy in handling texts. Accurate statements do nothing to promote godliness and Christ-likeness, they are simply accurate statements, and little more. Faithfulness to deliver exactly the point that God wants you to make is equally if not more important.
I had a man one time accused me of blasphemy when I preached a sermon where I used only the first half of the verse and not also the second half in my sermon. I explained that I was not trying to expound the second half, but only the doctrine in the first half, simply because that is what God told me to preach about. The punctuation, sentences and verse numbers are completely uninspired. The original language texts do not have verses, or halves of verses. They do not even have commas and periods. The man received nothing from the message, which God used to change many other peoples lives, simply because he was a critic as soon as I read my text, and as soon as I started committing the blasphemy that he imagined me to be committing, due to his faulty view of exegesis and preaching. Beware of creating these kinds of hyper-critical listeners, because they sit in church not in order for God to actually speak to them, and do something in their life during the sermon, but so that they can critique the sermon with the other super-spiritual people after the sermon in the coffee time. Beware, O preacher, of developing a church full of sermon connoisseurs, who would reject the sermon that Jesus Himself would preach in their midst. The only time that people in the pew have a right to critique a sermon, is if it is actually heresy or ungodly, or against Christ. Otherwise they are expected to keep their mouths closed and their hearts open, and are expected to ask every time they come to church, "what is God saying to me today?" "What does this wonderful message mean for my life, and how will it make me more like Christ?" Listeners must be taught how to listen, so that every sermon actually blesses them and is instrumental in changing their life. They must learn how to expectantly seek to be blessed when the word of God is preached.
6. The expository method keeps preachers from addressing pressing needs and contemporary moral issues that the Holy Spirit wants to have addressed. Lets take issues such as Abortion, Euthanasia, Homosexual marriage, Darwinian Evolution, The Emergent Church, Modern Cults, Ordaining Gays and Women to the ministry etc. None of these contemporary problems are mentioned specifically in the Bible. In fact they are not mentioned even once in any text. Many texts, however, contain teachings that bare heavily on the discussions of these important topics. Maybe if you are talking about Romans 1 in an expository sermon series you might cover the issue of Homosexual marriage. But how will you cover this issue if some hate group is marching at a funeral of one of your heterosexual soldiers all because they think he was killed as some form of judgment from God because America now allows gays in the military? You need to preach about the issue. It is important, and because it is contemporary and happening all over America, your people need to know what the Bible says about it. Book by book and verse by verse locks you into a system that will never allow you to address issues that are not directly mentioned in the Bible. If you insert them where they are not actually found, then how is that handling the sacred texts faithfully? The point is, that they might be implied, or they may not be implied at all. That does not mean that the Holy Spirit want you to keep silent about stuff that the Bible does not address. The Bible does not speak about Text-ING while driving automobiles, and killing people while driving a car while intoxicated. Does that mean we should never preach about these issues? Of course not. The verse by verse people get around this, by simply inserting this stuff where they think that it might fit. But that is not handling the text honestly at all. The topical preacher however, says up front that this stuff is not in the Bible, and then proceeds to deliver a message directly from the Holy Spirit about something never mentioned once in the Bible. His claim is that God wants Him to preach about this, for the exact reason that the Bible does not mention it, even though it might mention many things that would help us deal with the subject. This idea, relies on the Holy Spirit to continually be speaking, guiding and leading His people into all truth, just as was promised by Christ. The exegetical verse by verse approach, can never discuss non-Biblical social moral or contemporary issues, without trashing it's own false theory of preaching. The topical preacher however can always address any issue that the Holy Spirit says needs to be preached upon, including all the verses and texts of the entire Bible. But he is not locked religiously and slavishly to a a man made system. Instead He follows the winds of the spirit, and follows actual life giving communion principles operating in his own heart.
7. Expository preaching sometimes keeps preachers from determining the true health of his congregation. This might be difficult for you to follow, but inherent in a topical style of preaching is the idea that every sermon delivers a specific message from the holy Spirit, with a specific objective and intent that is supposed to be recognized and measured. Lets say the pastor is told to preach about love, obviously because his people need more of it. The Holy Spirit expects Him then to measure the instructional intent and keep his finger on the pulse of the people, so that the Holy Spirits' intentions to produce more love in the people are actually being met. Measurement of the achievement of the divine objectives in the sermon, become equally as important as the delivery of the message. The message was given to facilitate a specific objective from the Holy Spirit pertinent to the guidance and instruction of the specific body about a specific thing. The pastor, therefore, seeks out an maintains close observations and care over the flock to make sure that the objectives of the Holy Spirit are being met. This idea of measuring the success of the instructional intent is critical to this whole system of preaching, and distinguishes it from the verse by verse method, because if the instructional intent is not achieved, the Holy Spirit may then say, your people did not get that, so now preach this. or He may say, they did get that, now I want you to show them this, because this goes with that, as far as they are concerned. An example would be: you preach about love and several of your people actually become more unloving, hateful, vindictive or bitter. Did the love sermon work as intended? Yes it did, if the purpose was to show the preacher who that hateful ones are in His congregation. No it didn't if the purpose was to turn the hateful ones away from hating and toward being more like Christ. Both possible intentions could also be meant, that some would harden their hearts and become more unloving, revealing their true colors; and other would soften their hearts and be more like Christ. The topical preacher preaches objective based sermons, because the objective is the reason why the Holy Spirit gives the message in the first place. This means that He also measures the success of each sermon, not by how many people tell him what a lovely message he has preached, but by how the message actually discerns the thoughts and intents of their heart, and reveals the success or failure of the message to the preacher so that He can receive His next assignment. Topical preaching develops strong preachers, strong congregations and growing, moving changing worship, not static, dead, cold or lifeless people who sit on pews never changed or moved. That is the entire purpose for this type of preaching. Jesus comes to church on Sunday, and gives you His message, and your assignment for the week, about what you need to be doing and what needs to change to make you more like him. That is called "edification". It is building up the body in a way that is always measurable, visible and beneficial. Only topical preaching can do that. Because in expository preaching the preacher is always accountable to the text, not to the Holy Spirit who is monitoring the achievement of His instructional intents. The expository preacher always moves to the next verse, or lingers on the same verse, but he is not permitted to change course anywhere in the stream. But the topical preacher is always changing course, because he is always interacting with the Holy Spirit about whether the instructional intents have actually been met. Topical preaching encourages and demands the constant monitoring of the health, growth, application and effect of all sermons on the congregation. The preacher uses it as a tool to better ascertain the hearts of his own people. Congregational listeners have no accountability under a system that simply whisks them off to a new verse the following week, whether they get the message or not from the current verse. That kind of preaching is almost a complete waste of time because of this flaw in its nature. Ex-posit the verse, whisk everyone off to the next verse, and on to the next ad infinitum. The topical preacher, in contrast, will spend as long as he needs, and as long as the Holy Spirit directs him to stay on a particular subject or doctrine. No whisking off to the next verse, if the meaning of that one has not been received and put into practice.
Conclusion:
When a preacher has been spoken to, he is then permitted and expected to deliver the message which He receives from the Lord, but not before. It may be on a topic (as in topical sermon) or it may be on a specific passage (as in exegetical sermon). But it should never be in a way that locks in the freedom of the Holy Spirit to lead and guide into whatever truths he wants to take us. Every text must be properly exegeted, and hermeneutically correct, not ripping stuff out of context etc. Every sermon will contain exegesis and application of the scriptures, but the direction and content of the message is directed by the Holy Spirit, by providence, by the needs of the congregation, the condition of the hearers heart, the condition of the preachers heart and many other factors not included in the texts. That is what makes the topical exegesis message the superior system of preaching rather than a chapter by chapter approach.
A great example of this type of preaching (topical exegesis rather than book by book) was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great 19th century preacher from London. It actually made Him perhaps the greatest preacher the English language has ever produced. He had a heart for God and a heart to listen to the Providences of God in His congregation. This system needs to be revived, polished and practiced everywhere that people meet for church. It was the method of Christ and the Apostles, because it is the only method which is actual preaching and not just teaching. It needs to be our method also, because it is the only method which maintains the centrality of the preaching experience, lifting it up from the drivel of mere bible teaching like a Sunday School Lesson, and making it a living experience where Christ visits the congregation with a special message delivered through an anointed and Godly human messenger who derived it by direct command and authorization from the Holy Spirit. Anything less than this should never be called "preaching", because it is not. It may be teaching, it may be cozy feelings, and flowers on a pulpit, but preaching is always Christ coming to church to deliver a message for every hearer present.
See the following articles for more on this subject:
"Is preaching the Word of God", "Preaching as Miracle", and "The gift of Prophecy"
Beware of The Expository Preaching Trap
Col 1:27-29 ...which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: 28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: 29 Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
2Tim 4:2-5 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
Acts 20:20-21 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, 21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
1Cor 11:23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you
1Cor 2:11-13 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
Jer 23:21 I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
John 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
Eph 4:21 If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:
John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
Jer 1:17 Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.
Mic 3:8 But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the LORD, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.
2Tim 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
It seems to be almost the holy grail in Reformed churches that preaching during the worship services of the church are supposed to follow an exegetical pattern of expository preaching, chapter by chapter and verse by verse, so that entire books and groups of books of the Bible are covered and thoroughly expounded in the order and context in which they are written. The assumption is that since the Bible was written this way, it should also be taught and preached this way. The idea sounds very good and very logical. Theoretically this forces the preacher to cover every nuance and shade of meaning, so that he neglects nothing, as he handles the word with detailed exegesis of each pertinent point. It certainly sounds good, but is this what preaching actually is?
I have taught in other articles, that this is not actual preaching at all. This is nothing more than basic Bible teaching. It is basically material that is suited for, and belongs in, the Sunday School or Bible class. But it is not preaching at all, and therefore should not occupy our Lord's Day Worship services. True, it is exegesis, which is very important. True, it is Bible study, which is an essential part of the Christian life. True, it is organized teaching according to context, so that nothing is ripped out of context; but is this what the apostles and prophets of the Bible considered to be preaching?
I submit to you that it is not.
Here are just a few reasons why the verse by verse expository method is not preaching, and should never be used as a substitute for preaching.
1. Jesus Christ never once utilized it in any of His sermons. Look at the sermon on the mount as an example. That is not an exposition of an Old Testament book, or even a chapter of a book. It is not even an exposition of a single paragraph. Preaching involves the delivery of special content that cannot be derived by simply reading the chapters and paragraphs of the Bible. Preaching is therefore something different than exposition.
2. There is no example of any Apostle ever preaching according to an expository fashion. There are examples in the book of acts, such as Peter's sermon on the Day of Pentecost, when substantial references to Old Testament historical events are used, but not as an exegesis of a text. Peter referred to the history of Israel to illustrate and prove the new and unique truths which He was embodying in the Spirit derived sermon which he delivered on that occasion. Again, the actual sermon, involved the delivery of special content which could not be derived by simply reading a chapter or book of the Bible. His sermon in Acts two illustrates the essential concept of what an actual sermon is, and how it is to be preached. Preaching, if it follows the Acts pattern, would be dynamically shaped and directed through the direct agency of the Holy Spirit delivering a specific content, to a specific people, for a specific purpose, at a specific time.
3. The expository method virtually eliminates the need for specific direction from the Holy Spirit. When He is eliminated from the preaching dynamic, true preaching no longer exists. The message preached in an actual preaching act comes directly from the Holy Spirit and is passed through the agency of the preacher to meet an immediate spiritual need, or to open up a particular truth that the Holy spirit wants the preacher to speak about. Sometimes the Spirit directs the message to achieve Divine objectives, such as hardening the heart, enlightenment on a specific point, calling sinners, or increasing discernment on a particular issue. The trend for eliminating the Holy Spirit from the preaching process is consistent with the false concept of cessationism. Booting the Holy Spirits right to control and direct the lips of a preacher, makes exposition instead of preaching a great way to control any unwanted Spirit activity in a service. We tell the Holy Spirit what we will be preaching on, because we determined in advance, sometimes many months in advance, the expository plan...on May 15th we will be on verses 4-8, May 22 verses 9-10 etc. The plan is arranged well in advance, so that the Holy Spirit is forced to preach on the pre-determined topic. This is perhaps the biggest flaw in the expository method.
4. The expository method always becomes labored and boring to the congregation. The normal plan each week generally follows the same old plan with a brief review of what has already been covered, bringing people up to date on what they might have missed, and an exposition of the current passage, which may or may not include some attempt to offer something resembling sermon points that might seem relevant to the people, and an application section at the end where some effort is actually made to show how the text might be used in daily life. This, or something close to this occurs week after week, month after month, and even with the most skilled of expositors, the congregation is generally lulled into sleepy the feeling that this is more of the same old stuff. Usually at that point there is some attempt to acknowledge the Holy Spirit, to ask Him for enlightenment and success in applying the verses. The problem comes however from the fact that those verses may not be the verses that the Holy Spirit really wants the preacher to speak about at all. Asking for His blessing and enlightenment like that is tantamount to to asking Him to bless our thoughts, our ways and our desires, and to ignore His own. The Holy Spirit serves us, and we do not serve Him under this arrangement. How can that possibly be glorifying to God? How could that ever be true preaching?
5. The expository sermon always ends up being the delivery of the preachers message while simultaneously ignoring direct guidance from the Holy Spirit. When we preach like that we are always saying that we have no confidence, or belief, that the Holy Spirit is still guiding the church and leading it into all truth (John 14:26; John 16:13). The terms guide, speak, lead, hear, comfort, and bring things to remembrance, are all in the active voice and all indicate that the Holy Spirit is actually and vitally involved in the entire process of presenting the truth of Jesus Christ to men. These verbs do not mean that the Holy Spirit follows us, and nods His approval to our preplanned messages. They indicate that He must be the teacher, the leader, and that He is the one who actually speaks His mind in every sermon. He guides according to His agenda, not ours, and that is why it is called guiding and leading and calling to remembrance. These words absolutely mean that preachers must be guided, taught, shown, and spoken to directly by the holy Spirit in order to comfort and teach Jesus Christ to the congregation. Paul said it quite clearly:
1Co 11:23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you.
The message was directly received from the Lord, and this was by actual experience and not just reading about it from the ancient texts. The texts are certainly important, and the Holy Spirit will never contradict Himself or the things He has written. But He is the sole interpreter and applier of the Scriptures, that's why direction must come from Him in every sermon. And it must come before we ever decide what texts to preach about or use in the message that He wants us to deliver. If you decide to preach about something before He has actually told you what speak about, and before you have even asked His direction and guidance, how can that be preaching? and how can you expect Him to bless your message and show up at your worship service? You have neglected His direct guidance in the preparation of the service and the message, and yet you expect Him to bless you and actually speak to your flock, while restricting the manner in which He can speak. That is bizarre thinking, and it can be found in no relevant passage dealing with the preaching issue. It is purely man-made non-sense.
Under an expository system, a man could preach 468 sermons on Leviticus, without ever being guided or spoken to by the Holy Spirit even once. How is that bringing all things to remembrance concerning Christ? How is that following God's plan for the church? Christ said this is the primary purpose He sent the Holy Spirit. Yet we want to have church without any of this, and then we want to pretend that our endless tedium and mindless following of a man made script are from Him. They are not from Him in the least, other than the in fact that He did inspire the ancient texts which we are wading through. They were inspired, but that kind of preaching is less than inspiring.
Let me show you an example of how stupid and insulting to the Holy Spirit an expository preaching system actually is. The pastor is involved in a detailed exposition, week by week, and verse by verse through the book of Amos. A terrible tragedy hits his congregation when a fishing boat that 12 of his people were Tuna Fishing on sinks in rough seas off the coast of Massachusetts. The mourners gather at the church on Sunday, looking for some actual comfort from the Comforter, but their ignorant preacher decides that the best way to honor God is to continue preaching through Amos, because God is capable of fully providing exactly what his congregants need through the faithful handling of the texts of Amos. Six months ago God supposedly laid that upon his heart to preach, and we will not stop till the Holy Spirit is done teaching us directly from this wonderful portion of His word. He gets up to read the text for the mourners, and perhaps they read it themselves during the week, because everybody knows where the sermons are going. Here is the text He reads:
Amos 4:2 The Lord GOD hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.
Twelve members died on a fishing trip with hooks in the hands! Is that the text from the Holy Spirit which will bring them comfort, direction, guidance or show them something about Christ? Of course not. And every expository preacher if He is a man of God, will readily recognize that something else must be delivered, rather than exposition. That text, if used on that Sunday, would disgrace God, insult the people, show the absolute ignorance of the preacher, and provide no comfort whatsoever. The sermon would clearly not be what God wants the preacher to speak to the people about, because the preach has left the voice of the Holy Spirit out of the preparation. He has not even allowed the Holy Spirit to guide Him through the acts of Divine providence operating right in His congregation. Expository preaching keeps the preacher from being in touch with the needs of His congregation, and makes Him Blind to the eye which beholds Gods hand, and deaf to the ear which He is required to listen to as a preacher. The mourners would probably never set foot in church again. Could you blame them? I would never return either, because specific and dire needs that they had as worshipers were clearly ignored, and a heartless, and meaningless preaching ritual was placed above any actual direction, guidance, teaching, leading and comfort from the Holy Spirit. That is the way that expository preaching functions each and every week when followed book by book, chapter by chapter and verse by verse. That is not of God. In fact I think it is an invention of Satan to lure pastors into the trap of not obtaining each and every sermon fresh and directly at the throne of Grace. Verse by verse exposition is the lazy mans way to keep from wresting with God for the blessings every Sunday. It is essentially a non-spiritual means to conduct the business of church. Might as well preach out of the Catholic missal, or just spend the entire service reading verses with no exposition at all. After all it is the texts that are inspired not anything I could ever say. Every argument used to support verse by verse exposition can also be used for simply reading the Sacred words themselves, and the argument would actually make more sense.
6. Exposition comes under the term teaching, not preaching. These terms are frequently used side by side, and in some cases are interchangeable, but in all case they indicate functions that are distinguishable from each other, even when teaching might be included in preaching. We are not saying that preaching does not contain teaching. What we are saying is that preaching goes far beyond teaching and includes stuff like this stuff which the verses of the texts above indicate in addition to and sometimes in contrast with just teaching... Check out these ideas. These make preaching something different than just teaching about the books and verses of the Bible. True preaching includes these things also.
warning every man.
presenting every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
being instant in season, out of season (i-e ready to preach anything anytime).
reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine (These are functions of preaching not teaching, and they clearly indicate some important differences between the two).
watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry (these things show that watching afflictions and evangelism are all part of preaching).
I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable. (How did he know what was profitable and what he was not supposed to shrink from, if the Spirit did not guide him in the matter?)
testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ ( testimony and the objective of producing repentance and faith seem to be both important aspects of preaching).
For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you (preaching involves delivering a message that was received from the Lord Himself. The Lord is not the Bible. The message is not received from a book it is received from a person.)
God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. (We speak what is given to us by God, by the direct teaching of the Holy Ghost not by simply readin what He wrote. The writings of God are not mentioned or implied here. The entire process is actively spiritual, not just locked into some ancient texts.)
when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
ye have heard him, and have been taught by him (People ought to know this at the end of every real sermon. Preaching is supposed to be just like Christ stepping to the pulpit and teaching the people directly. That is real preaching, bringing the Living Christ to the congregation every Sunday, and allowing Him to teach preach and direct all things. God in a box is not preaching.)
My sheep hear my voice,... and they follow me. (There is only three possible ways that men can hear Christ's voice today.
1. As they read it in the Bible and He speaks through the written record.
2. Or as they hear it directly in some sort of direct intelligent communication with their brain and heart.
3. In preaching... "how shall they hear without a preacher" (Rom 10:14).
Preaching is Christ teaching, admonishing, pleading and directing men from the pulpit of a church. While it could involve teaching about specific Biblical passages, it seems more likely that He would continue to use the same methodology of preaching now, that He used when He was here on earth. The Lord does not change, even though we do. If He is not the one preaching in your pulpit, directly through you, then you are not preaching at all! You are occupying a pulpit in the flesh, and you will be held accountable for all those idle words that you speak there, which do not come directly from Him.
I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. (That's quite clear. When a preacher speaks without first being spoken to, he violates the basic rule of preaching...i.e. direct authorization for the message. Unauthorized messages, which come when God has not spoken directly to the prophet, commanding Him what to say, are nothing more than false prophecies, even if they are based upon the Bible! They are false, because they are not what God wants the man to be saying. The man who does not receive an authorized message before he opens His mouth, is a false prophet! God has to speak to Him and tell Him his message. It is not up to the preacher to invent His own sermon material or preaching systems, even if they appear to follow the Bible. Preaching is a highly spiritual exercise, transferring a message directly from God to the hearers, through the human agent with whom God has personally spoken. The man who preaches thus is a prophet. Nobody else is authorized to preach, and nothing else should ever be accepted by God's people as preaching. If true preaching, thus described, does not happen, then there is no actual preaching at all, and the man is simply a false prophet. And he can be a false prophet, while preaching entirely from the Bible, if His message is not what God wants Him to tell the people. All unauthorized preaching is false by virtue of the fact that it contains the wrong message for that event, because it was not received before it was spoken.) Many good men, faithfully proclaiming the Bible accurately and book by book, stand in the place of false prophets, because they are not speaking exactly and only what God has directed them to speak by actual living commandment, and not just by Bible reading. The preacher, in order to have a genuine sermon, must have derived it from God in Heaven, and not just from the book on his coffee table. This may sound strange and controversial to you, because you have bought into the popular idea that preaching must come exclusively from the Bible. But Bible without Holy Spirit is dead, and is illegitimate True worship is supposed to be in Spirit as well as in Truth. If either one is absent, the worship is false, and is actually nothing but mountaintop worship, on this mountain or that mountain. Now is the time when true worshipers worship in both Spirit and Truth. True sermons come from the Spirit and not just from the Truth. They are received in heaven, not from the book of truth alone.
therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee. (A simple command that makes great preachers and great preaching. Stand up, speak up and shut up! But only speak what I have commanded you to speak.)
7. Exposition makes great teaching, but it is the voice of false prophecy when it it fills the pulpit , because it contains no direct message from The Holy Spirit and Christ. You can certainly allude to Christ, and deduce Him from every part of the Bible, but that is not the same as speaking the message that He wants you to preach this and every Sunday. When preachers seek His face, His guidance and His instruction each week, then they will always have fresh and relevant material to bring to church with them. Church will not be a tedium it will be a joy, and worship will be real and powerful, because Jesus will actually be there, and will actually be speaking to His congregation.
Here are some examples of
the severe damage this type of preaching can do.
1. It hinders the preachers communion with God. When you no longer need to struggle with God every week about what He wants you to tell your people, you are apt to lose the intimate communion which comes from just that sort of praying and searching at the throne of grace. This effect of verse by verse exposition is quiet serious, because it damages the preachers relationship with God. Many preachers who follow that method of preaching, actually become quite backslidden themselves because of it. Assuming that God always speaks only from the Biblical texts is a false assumption, that cannot be established from anything actually taught in the Scriptures themselves, or from any examples of the prophets, Apostles, and preachers in the Bible. I have many of these preachers preach, who are dry as tinder, and dead as a doornail. Their sermons are boring, there style is lifeless and un-animated, and the scope of doctrines and truths that they actually cover is extremely limited, because few single books cannot cover every aspect and every doctrine of Christianity. When preachers become backslidden, because of a false stricture in their communion with God, they damage themselves and their congregation. If you never seek from God what you should be preaching on any given Sunday, and you are assuming that He will speak to your congregation through the book you have chosen to study, you are sapping the life right out of the very Scriptures that you are trying to proclaim.
2. Your people may fall into the error of thinking God only speaks one way. This absolutely puts God in a box in their minds. They come to believe that every time they go to church the preaching and teaching has to be according to a set ritual or system. They then become hyper-critical and in some cases even hateful when somebody preaches outside of their comfort zone box. I have experienced it first hand many times, when I am guest preaching in the churches that follow the book by book, verse by verse approach. The people shut me off right from the start of the sermon when they see that my preaching style is different then that of their pastor. This indicates that they are preoccupied more with their traditions and rituals than with getting an actual blessing from Christ every time they attend a preaching service. They come expecting that God will meet them only in one way, and only in the way they have grown used to. This explains the coldness and general deadness in most of these types of churches. I have seen it over and over again. This is why so many of the Arminian's are deathly afraid of the Calvinistic doctrines. They assume that Calvinism makes dead, unevangelistic and unhealthy churches. And to a large extent they are right. They do not realize, however, that the problem is not with the theology, it is with the preaching and methodology.
3. This concept of preaching actually turns preaching into a saving sacrament. The reformed people speak of preaching as a "means of grace". There is some truth in the notion that faith comes by hearing the word of God as it is preached. But what happens is that an unconscious and serious mental leap is made from this doctrine. Preaching is a method whereby God creates faith and administers grace, but it is not a saving sacrament. Men can be saved without listening to your Sunday sermon, and in some cases your sermon might be more of a damning element than a saving one as when it hardens somebodies heart. The idea of sacramentalism and sacraments is a throwback to Roman Catholicism. It is a case where the reformers did not come out of Catholicism enough. They still believe in sacraments, and most of them even refer to the Lord's supper this way. Sacraments are rituals which convey salvation. And many reformed people view preaching just that way. As a so called "means of Grace" they attach saving magical power to the sermon. It has to be a certain way in order to be effectual. That is ridiculous hocus-pocus nonsense.
4. Book by book, and verse by verse preaching has turned many Baptist churches into Presbyterian churches, and this is a clear and real danger to be avoided. Presbyterians have many wonderful and godly people who inadvertently embrace many UN-wonderful and God-dishonoring principles. They handle the word of God dishonestly, and repeatedly, with reference to many doctrines and issues. I think this is one of them. Stuff like this makes me thankful that I am a Baptist, because we realize that the only means of grace is in a person, the Lord Jesus. He is the true means of grace and His hands are not tied, or His arms are not shortened that they cannot save in any and every manner in which He sees fit. Reformed Calvinistic theology tends to put God in a box, and to the extent that it does so I am opposed to it, just as I am opposed to any other false views of God. I use the term Reformed on my website, only because it shows my belief in the Sovereignty of God and the Doctrines of salvation by grace alone. But I much prefer the term Baptist, because the Baptistic people and doctrines existed long before the protestants ever decided to protest anything. I'm not saying Baptists are perfect, but they exhibit at their core a desire to always be reforming and conforming to the word of God. With Baptists it is not a static "we have arrived at all truth" concept. We believe churches must change and grow through living communion and actual direction from the Holy Spirit. The problem with protestantism as I see it, is that it did not protest enough, and it quit protesting. They thought they had arrived when they had only just begun. They should actually be protesting themselves, and their present horrible state, for stuff just like turning preaching into a sacrament.
Many Baptists have joined the ranks of the Presby's and embraced covenant theology sacramentalism, complete with baby sprinkling in the name of baptism. I think that is a crying shame, and a disgrace, which has come in part because we think that just because they are right on the five points, they are right on everything, and we embrace the things that they are actually very wrong about, such as this non-Biblical style of expository preaching. You open the doors to traditionalism, sacramentalism, dead services, dead people, and Pharisaical religious pride, the moment you introduce a style of preaching that does not derive every message directly from the Holy Spirit.
The historic Baptist preaching style has always been topical exegetical, not book by book exegetical, and it is due to the reasons we have discussed. But beginning in the late 20th century when many Baptist's re-discovered the principles of TULIP, or the 5 points of Calvinism, as they are erroneously known, relearning them from the Presbyterians; they also began discovering the supposed virtues of the life sapping system of preaching favored by the Covenant Theologians. It has ruined many Baptist churches, and turned them into Presbyterian churches. If you are Baptistic, I would urge you to beware of endorsing or using this style of preaching, because it generally is a retrograde step that leads to disastrous results. I am not making this up, and it is not an insignificant problem. This has happened hundreds and maybe thousands of times here in America. Baptist churches embracing all the covenant theology heresies and going from sound Baptist churches to sacramentalism. Beware.
Please understand that I am not saying that all churches or all preachers who preach this way are dead, cold, and backslidden. That simply would not be true. There are in fact many great pastors who employ the method, some of them are even Baptist's. But they are very strong spiritually, and they guard their hearts constantly, in order to fight off the inherent dangers in this inferior system. I have made many generalizations in this study, and there are certainly many exceptions to what I have stated. What I am stating has come from my personal experience and observations. I have used both methods in my preaching, and have preached in churches using both methods. Early in my preaching I used the expository method almost exclusively. Yes we had blessings, and yes we had conversions, but the whole system missed the spontaneity and freshness that comes from actual Holy Spirit involvement in every sermon. I will never return to that inferior system because the book by book, in my opinion, tends toward spiritual coldness, laziness, and sacramentalism; all very dangerous and destructive things. I am not trying to judge other people here. Every preacher is himself responsible to God for what He preaches. But if the methodology actually hinders a man from receiving his message from God, I am urging him to avoid it, and all the possible negative ramifications that will come from faulty preaching.
5. The system of expository preaching tends to turn Christians into sermon critics. This is a serious danger and has damaged many Christians so that they no longer know how to listen to Gods voice through the preacher. They think God is only speaking when the preacher is sticking extremely close to the ancient texts. Sermons are judged not by the extent that they actually communicate and transmit a message that touches the heart and blesses the person listening, thus communicating change directly to the life. Instead they are judge based on the idea of their faithfulness to the original texts. Please listen carefully here, lest you misinterpret my words. I am not saying that any sermon ought to ever be less that 100% exegetically accurate, or less than perfectly faithful to the scripture texts. I am saying that listening correctly is almost as important as preaching correctly. Exegetical correctness can produce hard hearts and a cold church even if it is accurate. There is more to preaching than just accuracy in handling texts. Accurate statements do nothing to promote godliness and Christ-likeness, they are simply accurate statements, and little more. Faithfulness to deliver exactly the point that God wants you to make is equally if not more important.
I had a man one time accused me of blasphemy when I preached a sermon where I used only the first half of the verse and not also the second half in my sermon. I explained that I was not trying to expound the second half, but only the doctrine in the first half, simply because that is what God told me to preach about. The punctuation, sentences and verse numbers are completely uninspired. The original language texts do not have verses, or halves of verses. They do not even have commas and periods. The man received nothing from the message, which God used to change many other peoples lives, simply because he was a critic as soon as I read my text, and as soon as I started committing the blasphemy that he imagined me to be committing, due to his faulty view of exegesis and preaching. Beware of creating these kinds of hyper-critical listeners, because they sit in church not in order for God to actually speak to them, and do something in their life during the sermon, but so that they can critique the sermon with the other super-spiritual people after the sermon in the coffee time. Beware, O preacher, of developing a church full of sermon connoisseurs, who would reject the sermon that Jesus Himself would preach in their midst. The only time that people in the pew have a right to critique a sermon, is if it is actually heresy or ungodly, or against Christ. Otherwise they are expected to keep their mouths closed and their hearts open, and are expected to ask every time they come to church, "what is God saying to me today?" "What does this wonderful message mean for my life, and how will it make me more like Christ?" Listeners must be taught how to listen, so that every sermon actually blesses them and is instrumental in changing their life. They must learn how to expectantly seek to be blessed when the word of God is preached.
6. The expository method keeps preachers from addressing pressing needs and contemporary moral issues that the Holy Spirit wants to have addressed. Lets take issues such as Abortion, Euthanasia, Homosexual marriage, Darwinian Evolution, The Emergent Church, Modern Cults, Ordaining Gays and Women to the ministry etc. None of these contemporary problems are mentioned specifically in the Bible. In fact they are not mentioned even once in any text. Many texts, however, contain teachings that bare heavily on the discussions of these important topics. Maybe if you are talking about Romans 1 in an expository sermon series you might cover the issue of Homosexual marriage. But how will you cover this issue if some hate group is marching at a funeral of one of your heterosexual soldiers all because they think he was killed as some form of judgment from God because America now allows gays in the military? You need to preach about the issue. It is important, and because it is contemporary and happening all over America, your people need to know what the Bible says about it. Book by book and verse by verse locks you into a system that will never allow you to address issues that are not directly mentioned in the Bible. If you insert them where they are not actually found, then how is that handling the sacred texts faithfully? The point is, that they might be implied, or they may not be implied at all. That does not mean that the Holy Spirit want you to keep silent about stuff that the Bible does not address. The Bible does not speak about Text-ING while driving automobiles, and killing people while driving a car while intoxicated. Does that mean we should never preach about these issues? Of course not. The verse by verse people get around this, by simply inserting this stuff where they think that it might fit. But that is not handling the text honestly at all. The topical preacher however, says up front that this stuff is not in the Bible, and then proceeds to deliver a message directly from the Holy Spirit about something never mentioned once in the Bible. His claim is that God wants Him to preach about this, for the exact reason that the Bible does not mention it, even though it might mention many things that would help us deal with the subject. This idea, relies on the Holy Spirit to continually be speaking, guiding and leading His people into all truth, just as was promised by Christ. The exegetical verse by verse approach, can never discuss non-Biblical social moral or contemporary issues, without trashing it's own false theory of preaching. The topical preacher however can always address any issue that the Holy Spirit says needs to be preached upon, including all the verses and texts of the entire Bible. But he is not locked religiously and slavishly to a a man made system. Instead He follows the winds of the spirit, and follows actual life giving communion principles operating in his own heart.
7. Expository preaching sometimes keeps preachers from determining the true health of his congregation. This might be difficult for you to follow, but inherent in a topical style of preaching is the idea that every sermon delivers a specific message from the holy Spirit, with a specific objective and intent that is supposed to be recognized and measured. Lets say the pastor is told to preach about love, obviously because his people need more of it. The Holy Spirit expects Him then to measure the instructional intent and keep his finger on the pulse of the people, so that the Holy Spirits' intentions to produce more love in the people are actually being met. Measurement of the achievement of the divine objectives in the sermon, become equally as important as the delivery of the message. The message was given to facilitate a specific objective from the Holy Spirit pertinent to the guidance and instruction of the specific body about a specific thing. The pastor, therefore, seeks out an maintains close observations and care over the flock to make sure that the objectives of the Holy Spirit are being met. This idea of measuring the success of the instructional intent is critical to this whole system of preaching, and distinguishes it from the verse by verse method, because if the instructional intent is not achieved, the Holy Spirit may then say, your people did not get that, so now preach this. or He may say, they did get that, now I want you to show them this, because this goes with that, as far as they are concerned. An example would be: you preach about love and several of your people actually become more unloving, hateful, vindictive or bitter. Did the love sermon work as intended? Yes it did, if the purpose was to show the preacher who that hateful ones are in His congregation. No it didn't if the purpose was to turn the hateful ones away from hating and toward being more like Christ. Both possible intentions could also be meant, that some would harden their hearts and become more unloving, revealing their true colors; and other would soften their hearts and be more like Christ. The topical preacher preaches objective based sermons, because the objective is the reason why the Holy Spirit gives the message in the first place. This means that He also measures the success of each sermon, not by how many people tell him what a lovely message he has preached, but by how the message actually discerns the thoughts and intents of their heart, and reveals the success or failure of the message to the preacher so that He can receive His next assignment. Topical preaching develops strong preachers, strong congregations and growing, moving changing worship, not static, dead, cold or lifeless people who sit on pews never changed or moved. That is the entire purpose for this type of preaching. Jesus comes to church on Sunday, and gives you His message, and your assignment for the week, about what you need to be doing and what needs to change to make you more like him. That is called "edification". It is building up the body in a way that is always measurable, visible and beneficial. Only topical preaching can do that. Because in expository preaching the preacher is always accountable to the text, not to the Holy Spirit who is monitoring the achievement of His instructional intents. The expository preacher always moves to the next verse, or lingers on the same verse, but he is not permitted to change course anywhere in the stream. But the topical preacher is always changing course, because he is always interacting with the Holy Spirit about whether the instructional intents have actually been met. Topical preaching encourages and demands the constant monitoring of the health, growth, application and effect of all sermons on the congregation. The preacher uses it as a tool to better ascertain the hearts of his own people. Congregational listeners have no accountability under a system that simply whisks them off to a new verse the following week, whether they get the message or not from the current verse. That kind of preaching is almost a complete waste of time because of this flaw in its nature. Ex-posit the verse, whisk everyone off to the next verse, and on to the next ad infinitum. The topical preacher, in contrast, will spend as long as he needs, and as long as the Holy Spirit directs him to stay on a particular subject or doctrine. No whisking off to the next verse, if the meaning of that one has not been received and put into practice.
Conclusion:
When a preacher has been spoken to, he is then permitted and expected to deliver the message which He receives from the Lord, but not before. It may be on a topic (as in topical sermon) or it may be on a specific passage (as in exegetical sermon). But it should never be in a way that locks in the freedom of the Holy Spirit to lead and guide into whatever truths he wants to take us. Every text must be properly exegeted, and hermeneutically correct, not ripping stuff out of context etc. Every sermon will contain exegesis and application of the scriptures, but the direction and content of the message is directed by the Holy Spirit, by providence, by the needs of the congregation, the condition of the hearers heart, the condition of the preachers heart and many other factors not included in the texts. That is what makes the topical exegesis message the superior system of preaching rather than a chapter by chapter approach.
A great example of this type of preaching (topical exegesis rather than book by book) was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great 19th century preacher from London. It actually made Him perhaps the greatest preacher the English language has ever produced. He had a heart for God and a heart to listen to the Providences of God in His congregation. This system needs to be revived, polished and practiced everywhere that people meet for church. It was the method of Christ and the Apostles, because it is the only method which is actual preaching and not just teaching. It needs to be our method also, because it is the only method which maintains the centrality of the preaching experience, lifting it up from the drivel of mere bible teaching like a Sunday School Lesson, and making it a living experience where Christ visits the congregation with a special message delivered through an anointed and Godly human messenger who derived it by direct command and authorization from the Holy Spirit. Anything less than this should never be called "preaching", because it is not. It may be teaching, it may be cozy feelings, and flowers on a pulpit, but preaching is always Christ coming to church to deliver a message for every hearer present.
See the following articles for more on this subject:
"Is preaching the Word of God", "Preaching as Miracle", and "The gift of Prophecy"
©2012 E H Jackson This article may be reproduced on Websites and blogs with a direct link from the article back to this website. It may not be republished in any other form without written permission. Please notify us if you use this article anyplace. CLICK HERE
