This week’s list of benefits (see previous ones here) comes from ‘9 Marks’ and is part of their excellent material on expositional preaching

Benefits for the Pastor
• Releases the pastor from Saturday night fever – the dreaded dilemma of what text to preach the morning.
• Increases the likelihood of the pastor preaching the whole counsel of God over time.
• Increases the pastor’s command of the Word by forcing him to study difficult or often neglected texts for himself.
• Increases the Word’s command of the pastor by giving him a broader exposure to the probing sword of Scripture, deepening in his continued repentance and faith, incrementally increasing in the knowledge of God, and therefore enhancing his Spirit produced ability to please God in every way (Heb 11:6; Col 1:9-12).
• Increases the pastor’s God-given prophetic authority in the pulpit by grounding his preaching in the divinely intended meaning of the text.
• Increases the pastor’s God-given blessing in the pulpit by remaining faithful to the intention of the One who sent him to preach a specific message.
• Increases the trustworthiness of the pastor’s preaching in the eyes of the congregation.

Benefits for the Congregation
• The congregation is released from slavery to the preacher’s hobbyhorse texts and topics.
• The applicational intention of the text is released to do its creating, convicting, converting, and conforming work in their lives.
• Increases their knowledge of God and His Word by broadening their exposure to all the different parts of Scripture.
• Increases their trust in the inspiration, inerrancy, clarity, and sufficiency of Scripture.
• Increases their trust in the pastor’s preaching and teaching.
• Decreases their likelihood of being deceived by false teaching.
• Functions for them as a responsible model of personal Bible study.

This encouragement to expository preaching comes from John Broadus’ classic work, “On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons”.

“If preaching is giving the Bible a voice, if preaching is the proclamation of God’s message, then it would seem that the expository method would be the method most commonly employed.  However, this is not true.   The expository sermon has been the type most neglected.  Over the years many lectures have made a strong case for expository preaching.   In his book The Heralds of God, James S Stewart addresses three pleas to ministers.

‘The first is a plea for expository preaching.   This is one of the greatest needs of the hour.  There are rich rewards of human gratitude waiting for the man who can make the Bible come alive.   Congregations are sick of dissertations on problems and essays on aspects of the religious situation; such sermons are indeed no true preaching at all.   Men are not wanting to be told our poor views and arguments and ideals.   They are emphatically wanting to be told what God has said, and is saying, in his Word.’

Previous ‘Benefits of Expository Preaching’ 

I came across a great quote on the benefits of expository preaching in a second-hand book I picked up this week. The book is ‘The Excellence of Exposition’ by Douglas M White and what first got my attention was an extract from Stephen Olford’s foreword which is quoted on the back cover - “Preaching is primary….exposition is paramount”.

The main quote I wanted to share with you is by Faris Whitesell, speaking about expositional preaching: “This is the favourite method of scriptural preaching for most Biblical preachers. It sticks closest to the Bible, submits more completely to the Bible, and most highly honours the Word of God. Above all other methods, it takes the Bible as it is, and seeks to find and apply the true grammatical-historical-contextual meaning.

Expository preaching is at its best when a preacher is expounding a book of the Bible, section by section, in his best homiletical style. And, since the expository preacher will wish to hold himself on the straight track of God’s revealed truth, he will often, perhaps usually, take a longer passage than a single verse. The key idea to remember about expository preaching is that it is explanatory. Herrick Johnson says: ‘But explanatory discussion has its chief crown and glory in what is technically known as expository preaching. This preaching is based upon a somewhat extended section of Scripture. But while the chief business of expository preaching is explanation, it is always explanation in order to persuasion. It is not mere commentary.’ The ideal explanatory discussion is that which so exhibits God’s truth by narration, description, exemplification, or exposition, that it not only makes the meaning absolutely clear, but also shows a distinct and dominating purpose to reach the will and move it Godward.”

I haven’t had a chance to post anything for nearly two weeks now.  College term has started and I have been needing every available moment of time to get up to speed with lecture material etc.  I am delighting in being back in a full-time study and teaching ministry and conscious of the immense privilege of having an input into the training of some of the next generation of Christian workers.  My almost daily prayer at the moment is that, in the goodness of God, I may have as much impact on these young lives as the likes of Geoffrey Grogan and Sinclair Ferguson had on me when I was training.   Anyway, I am keen to get back to some posting and thought I’d put up two brief lists of benefits of expository preaching.  I’m working on my own list which I’ll post in due course.   Previous lists here

Richard D Phillips (reformation21.org)

1.             It is commended to us by our theology of the Word of God.

2.             It is the best way for the preacher to fulfil the particular charge to which he has been called by God.

3.             By doing so we are joining in with a great tradition of the Christian Church.

 John MacArthur (Grace Community Church email newsletter)

 1.      It is the best way to preach the Bible

2.      It familiarises people with the Scripture itself instead of simply giving them a speech, as true and reflective of biblical teaching as that speech may be.

3.      It makes the authority unequivocal, and that authority is the Scripture.

Continuing our look at the Benefits of Expository Preaching, this week’s comments come from John Stott in his book, ‘I Believe in Preaching’

 1.      It sets us limits.  It restricts us to the scriptural text, since expository preaching is biblical preaching.

2.      It demands integrity.

3.      It identifies the pitfalls we must at all costs avoid…the two main pitfalls may be termed forgetfulness and disloyalty.

4.      It gives us confidence to preach

Last week at our Preach the Word seminar I shared the following quote from Walter Kaiser and some of my own thoughts on the danger of ’spiritual junk food’

Kaiser writes, “It is no secret that Christ’s Church is not at all in good health in many places of the world. She has been languishing because she has been fed, as the current line has it, “junk food”; all kinds of artificial preservatives and all sorts of unnatural substitutes have been served up to her. As a result, theological and Biblical malnutrition has afflicted the very generation that has taken such giant steps to make sure its physical health is not damaged by using foods or products that are not carcinogenic or otherwise harmful to their physical bodies. Simultaneously a worldwide spiritual famine resulting from the absence of any genuine publication of the Word of God (Amos 8:11) continues to run wild and almost unabated in most quarters of the Church.” (Toward an Exegetical Theology pp7-

To continue with Kaiser’s food analogy for a moment, what happens if people live on a diet of junk food rather than a well balanced and nutritious diet?    Well the answer is clear for all to see in the Church of today – spiritual malnutrition, truth decay, and even obesity.
1. spiritual malnutrition: If we adopt these generally random, haphazard, agenda driven approaches to God’s Word, then the men and women who sit under that sort of preaching week in and week out do not grow in their knowledge and understanding of God’s Word or of the God of that Word.   They will never grow past the knowledge or maturity level of the preacher.   In the words of Colin Smith, formerly of Edinburgh and now in Illinois, “Topical preaching, for example, can only take you where you have already gone with what you already know.” (Preaching Today Audio, Issue 290)

2. truth decay: Our listeners will never become familiar with, or stretched by, vast tracts of God’s Word and, perhaps most dangerously of all, they will end up with a very strange view of the Bible itself. Instead of seeing the Bible as being a series of carefully constructed books with progressions of thought and teaching, they will see it as a collection of proof texts or as some sort of leather bound ‘promise box’ that you dip into every now and then for a blessed thought or word of comfort.

3. spiritual obesity: The results of a bad diet are all too evident in society with record levels of obesity as the consumption of fast foods soars.   We see it all around us in society and the same problem is afflicting many churches.    But why are some of the places where they have abandoned expository preaching, if ever they practised it, packing the numbers in? This seems to be what people want and are attracted to so surely we should provide anecdotal, entertaining talks because at least that gets people into Church. The idea of a man standing up for 30, 40 or 50 minutes and talking is so out of date and unattractive so lets abandon it.   Let’s have short, entertaining messages, ideally strung together with lots of visual images like video clips etc.
The issue is, the congregation may have been entertained but have they been fed? Churches do not exist simply to pack crowds in on a Sunday
morning but to be a place where the authoritative word of the living God is heard.

The reality is that some church leaders would never countenance  giving their children the quality of physical food that they serve up spiritually to their people week after week.   We who have the responsibility of teaching and preaching must take this seriously.

This week’s list of benefits comes from Ramesh Richard who teaches expository preaching at Dallas Theological Seminary and is the author of the excellent ‘Preparing Expository Sermons’

“Expository preaching will impact your life. It can help you

• grow personally in knowledge and obedience by your disciplined exposure to God’s Word
• conserve time and energy in choosing a sermon for each week
• balance your area of ‘expertise’ and preferred topics with the breadth of God’ thoughts in the Bible

Expository preaching will impact your congregation, because it helps you

• be faithful to the text and be relevant to your context in regular ministry
• implement a strategy for equipping and energizing your people for long-term faithfulness to God and the ministry
• overcome your tendency to target a sermon to a particular person or group and be protected from that charge
• avoid skipping over what does not suit your taste or temperament on any given day
• carry on a cohesive ministry in the middle of multiple dimensions and demands on you as a pastor
• enhance the dignity of the pastoral work since you stand under the authority of God’s Word as you preach
• integrate the conversation of the church around the message of the week
• communicate the intentions of God for your congregation as seen by its human leaders
• orient people around a common vision, thus helping you surface the voluntary labour force needed to achieve the vision
• motivate people to action in implementing the programme of the church with God’s sanction
• garner the credibility needed to lead the church to change
• model effective ministry to present and future teachers and preachers
• outline the agenda for corporate spirituality
• make your congregation biblically literate

Basically, expository preaching helps the preacher promote God’s agenda for his people.”

A couple of weeks ago I had the great honour of being asked by Colin Adams, aka Unashamed Workman, to join the illustrious list of preachers of whom he has asked 10 questions. It’s been an insightful and stimulating series which I have thoroughly enjoyed and I was delighted to contribute my own two pennies worth, as they say. Colin posted my piece yesterday and rather than post it on my own blog I want to encourage you to visit and revisit his site - one of the very best preaching related blogs out there. Visit Unashamed Workman

This week’s listing of benefits of expository preaching comes from Dan Dumas, Executive Pastor of Grace Church, Sun Valley, California

1. It inoculates a congregation from doctrinal error (Titus 1:9).
2. It ensures that the gospel is preached (John 5:39).
3. It honors the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 18:24; 20:26–27).
4. It saturates your message in Scripture (1 Pet. 4:11).
5. It promotes the highest level of biblical literacy among our people.
6. It provides accountability for the preach

• It fosters good scholarship
• I never fret about Sunday
• It holds me accountable to preaching what God says and not my own opinions
• We are called to be not novel, but faithful.

7. It protects the preacher.

• An expositor rarely wastes time wondering what to preach next—or where to go next.
• You get to observe the marvelous providence of God.
• It keeps you from attacking people, developing hobby horses, and wasting valuable study time.
• It is not a homiletical straitjacket. It is a philosophy, not a style.
• Its form reflects the genre and text.

8. It prevents inaccurate proof-texting and Scripture twisting.

• You inadvertently train your people to hijack verses out of their context.
• Proof-texting robs the text of its meaning and power.

9. It gives your people an appetite for the Word (1 Pet. 2:2).
10. It has the inherent power of God (Isa. 55:11; Heb. 4:12). A Scripture-soaked preacher is an awful weapon in the arsenal of God.
11. It has inestimable value.

I’m picking up again the series ‘The Preacher and…..’ looking at different aspects of the preacher’s life and work. For the next few weeks we are going to consider ‘The Preacher and…..his study’. This is not so much the place as the practice - though we might unearth some helpful comments on the former. Having just relocated my study and library some 35 miles to the College where I am about to start work, I was amused by this quote I found some time ago. In his book, The Puritan Hope, Iain Murray recounts how David Bogue, who was greatly used in the preparation of mission workers in England around the turn of the eighteenth century, included in his issues to be considered, “What proportion as to expense ought a minister’s library to bear to his furniture?”

However, my main quote for this new theme comes from a biography of John Henry Jowett who ministered at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York and at Westminster Chapel in London.

“I am learning to resist almost every hour of the day the tremendous forces that would push me here and there. I do not know what time ministers spend here in their studies. They are evidently engaged in a hundred outside works which must leave them very little time to prepare their message. I am going to stand steadily against this pressure, even at the cost of being misunderstood. When I get into my own home I shall allow nothing to interfere with my morning in the study. If the pulpit is to be occupied by men with a message worth hearing we must have the time to prepare it. I feel the preaching of the Word of God is incomparably my first work in New York.”