Expository Preaching

I just came across this "Top Ten List" on expository preaching. While I wouldn't word each one the same, it's hard to argue with. It comes from Timothy Witmer's new book, The Shepherd Leader.

Expository preaching identifies exactly what is at the heart of the Christian message

Expository preaching requires that the shepherd concern himself with the intent of the Divine Author for every text.

Expository preaching respects the integrity of the textual units given through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit

Expository preaching keeps the pastor from riding his favourite hobby horses.

Expository preaching requires the preacher to preach the difficult or obscure texts and challenging truths of the Bible.

Expository preaching will encourage both pastor and students alike to become students of the Bible.

Expository preaching gives us boldness in preaching for we are not expounding our own fallible views but the Word of God.

Expository preaching gives confidence to the listener that what he is hearing is not the opinion of man but the Word of God.

Expository preaching is of great assistance in sermon planning.

Expository preaching provides the context for a long tenure in a particular place.

Preaching Home Boy!

I came across this entry the other day and could not agree more with the author. I don't mind occasionally preaching in a congregation other than my own, but I never look forward to it. An important part of preaching is knowing your audience, and after 32 years I know mine pretty well!

Why I'm a preaching home-boy

Mon, 2010-11-22 06:30 — Adrian Reynolds

Preached a week ago last Sunday on Zechariah 5-6 and yesterday on Zechariah 7. Hope and pray it went OK. I don't think these are passages I could ever have preached anywhere other than at home church. Sure, I could explain them OK to strangers, but that is not preaching. 

• In difficult apocalyptic literature you need to know people well enough to know what they will understand and won't.
• Knowing people also shapes application sharply, or it should. Sure, the preaching of Zechariah 5-7 got the people building again (see Ezra 5.1-2). But we need sharper application than simply "you get building too...!" Ezra 4 details the opposition that the exiles faced. Zechariah 5-7 needs to be preached in the light of the opposition we face.
• Chief among the "mighty mountains" (Zech 4.17) that God needs to level is indwelling sin (which, I think, is the significance of the woman in the basket in Zechariah 5). Again, knowing people and knowing how that sinfulness manifests itself is key to sharp application. Similarly, false religion rears its ugly head in Zechariah 7. There it is fasting. It may well be fasting for our people today, but if we don't know how we will preach well...?

I'm a preaching home boy. That's where it counts. 

http://www.proctrust.org.uk/blog/2010-11-22/why-im-preaching-home-boy-935

Rick Warren on Longevity

I'm not a great fan of some of Rick Warren's ideas, but his post entitled, "Pastoral 'free agency' hurts churches," is right on target.

Among other things, he says, "The truth is pastoral longevity is one of the untold secrets of church health."


Check it out.

Still More on Preaching

I just finished this week's sermon (and it's only Friday afternoon, not Saturday night! But that's because I know I'll be busy tomorrow night. It's amazing how we can adjust to deadlines!)

I'm preaching through Mark's gospel, and I love it. (Though whatever I'm preaching through tends, at the moment, to be my favorite part of the Bible.) But I was thinking about what hard work it is — the research, the meditating on the text, the conceptualizing of what God is trying to say to me and my people through this particular text — all this is very hard and tiring work. I love it, but it's draining. And I haven't even started the physical preparation of preaching through the sermon (out loud) three or four times. I'll do that late Saturday night and very early Sunday morning.

But for this blog what came to mind is how many pastors are unwilling to invest all that hard work into their preaching. So they either buy their sermons (or download somebody else's work from the internet), or they do some cursory work on their text but find very little new to say. Either way, they are cheating themselves and their people. And, after a while, if you have little new to say, you have to move on to another congregation, because people quickly tire of "the same old thing" every Sunday.

Now, in truth, all we do have is "the same old story" every Sunday; but the Bible is such a rich texture of different presentations of that gospel that we have an almost infinite storehouse from which to draw. It's the same old story, but we have so many ways to tell it. So, for the pastor who is willing to do the hard work, preaching can be fresh each Sunday — for him and for his people. And that's been what has kept me going for over 30 years in the same pulpit!