What is Preaching: Expository
If it is not expository, it is not Christian.
Stott. Between Two Worlds.
Expository Preaching starts in the Bible, explains the verse and stays in the Bible.
Otherwise, you are just talking.
Letting text talk.
Packer
You are just the mouthpiece.
Starts with: No felt need. No culture trend. No political agenda.
Just the Bible. Just God.
Rooted and grounded.
What is the Bible?
Divinely Inspired
2 Timothy 3:16–17 (CSB) All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Matthew 4:4 (CSB) He answered, “It is written: Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Inerrant - Without error
Whatever it speaks on, it is true
John 17:17 (CSB) Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
Infallible - All that it says, it will come to pass
Isaiah 40:8 (CSB) The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God remains forever.”
Authoritative
Sufficient
If you believe this, then you would be foolish not to preach the Bible. You would be unwise to preach your own opinions and your own stuff.
All preaching must be expository. Otherwise, it is not true preaching.
Lloyd-Jones
We craft the sermon. We never craft the message. The Bible has the message.
The preacher has nothing to say apart from the word of God.
That said, you must know the Bible.
God put the power in the Bible.
Luther. From his last sermon.
The minister’s whole task is limited to the mys- tery of God’s Word, their whole wisdom to the knowledge of His Word, their whole eloquence to its proclamation.
Calvin
When we enter the pulpit, it is not that we may bring our own dreams and fancies with us.
Calvin
A rule is prescribed to all God’s servants that they bring not their own inventions but simply deliver as from hand to hand what they have received from God.
Calvin
The office of teaching is committed to pastors for no other purpose than that God may be heard there.
Calvin
“I hold one single sentence out of God’s Word to be of more certainty and power, than all the discoveries of all the learned men of all the ages.
Spurgeon
Biblical preaching is preaching the Bible.
What is Preaching: Energetic
Biblical preaching with the emphasis on the preaching.
All preaching starts with teaching. But preaching is brought with energy and passion. It is above the monotone and straight-line voice.
Preaching is theology on fire–logic on fire. MLJ
Passion. Fervency. Zeal. Force of Conviction. Intensity. Sharpness of focus.
Urgent. Now is the time.
All expository preaching must dosed with gas and set on fire. SJL
All preaching must wake up the church.
All preaching–trumpet tongue. CHS
If there is no passion, there is no preaching. John Murray.
I set myself on fire and people come to watch me burn. JW.
The Preaching of Jonah
Jonah 3:4 (CSB) Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!”
The Preaching of Jesus
John 12:44 (CSB) Jesus cried out, “The one who believes in me believes not in me, but in him who sent me.
John 7:28-29 (CSB) As he was teaching in the temple, Jesus cried out, “You know me and you know where I am from. Yet I have not come on my own, but the one who sent me is true. You don’t know him; I know him because I am from him, and he sent me.”
John 7:37-39 (CSB) On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.” He said this about the Spirit. Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit, for the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
cried out: to scream
Acts 2:14 (CSB) Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice, and proclaimed to them, “Fellow Jews and all you residents of Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and pay attention to my words.
Dispassionate preaching is a lie. RCS.
Do you really believe this? Have this taken a hold of your heart?
What is Preaching: Energetic
More than a 1:1 conversation. More than leading a Bible Study.
karuso - crier; herald
What is Preaching: Exegetic
More than raising your voice. You are drawing from a deep well.
Strict attention giving to the details of the word of God. Careful observations.
Meaning of words. Parsing of verbs. Modifiers. Sentence structures. Grammar. Syntax.
Literary devices: narrative, historical, poetry, etc..
The meaning of the text is the text. Until you get to the meaning of the text, all you have is black text on while paper. JMac
All truth is propositional. It is black and white. It is clear. Factual. Rational. No ambiguity, vagueness, fuzziness.
The perspicuity of the Scripture. The word of God is crystal clear on all matters of salvation and Christian living.
1689.10.6 The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture
If Scripture is clear, than our preaching must be clear.
No clearer book has been written on the earth than the Holy Scriptures. Luther.
What is Preaching: Our Calling 2 Timothy 2:15
2 Timothy 2:15 (CSB) Be diligent to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth.
Be diligent
All in
Be approved
Be tested by God. He tests our theology and doctrine.
1 Corinthians 3:13–14 (CSB) each one’s work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward.
Cannot be ashamed
Workman
Field worker, in the hot sun in the open field. Labor and toil in the Scriptures.
James 3:1 (CSB) Not many should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we will receive a stricter judgment.
There is a stricter accountability before God in front of people for the those of us who handles and correctly teaching the word of truth.
And therefore, at the heart of every pastor’s work is book-work. Call it reading, meditation, reflection, cogitation, study, exegesis, or whatever you will — a large and central part of our work is to wrestle God’s meaning from a Book, and proclaim it in the power of the Holy Spirit. Piper