Expositional preaching Part One: What is it? - GBC Bulletin Column #69

A healthy church will be rooted and grounded in the faithful preaching of the Scriptures. Indeed, faithful preaching is the first and foundational characteristic of a healthy church, the well-spring from which all other aspects of church life flow. People are convicted of sin, converted to salvation in Christ, baptised into the church body, and instructed in Christian living through such preaching. By faithful preaching the church is well ordered, biblically disciplined, stirred up to love and good works, and relentlessly pointed in some way or other to the all-sufficient grace and awe-inspiring glory of God in Christ.

Generally, faithful preaching is expositional preaching, also called expository preaching. This term means different things to different people. Sometimes it is defined very narrowly to be only “verse-by-verse, book-by-book” preaching from the Bible. It can also be defined quite broadly so that any explanation of a specific passage of Scripture, whether that explanation is particularly accurate or exegetically sound, comes under the umbrella of 'expositional preaching.' The former is part of the truth, the latter is, I believe, not true. 

Mark Dever, in Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, defines expositional preaching as “preaching that takes for the point of a sermon, the point of a particular passage of Scripture.” In other words, expository preaching does not impose a subject onto a passage of Scripture, but derives its subject from a passage of Scripture. In an article entitled “Four Kinds of Expository Preaching”, Ed Stetzer provides a helpful outline of the different ways in which this can be done:

Verse by verse expository preaching: “the systematic reading and explanation of a biblical text. It involves a unified book of Scripture and its piece-by-piece analysis.” If you're a part of Grace Baptist Church Wood Green, you may recognise this as the form most commonly used here.

Thematic expository preaching: focuses on any relevant subject over a period of weeks by expounding specific biblical texts. An example from our early days might be the series my father preached on “Is there anything wrong with being rich?” or more recently the series I led in the Sky City housing estate's community centre - “G.R.A.C.E.: God, Rebels, Atonement, Confession, and Eternity”.  

Narrative expository preaching: “presents the biblical text in the form of story and follows that story to completion. A narrative sermon functions as a lengthy illustration that uses a biblical text as its beginning and end.” I have bordered on this on occasion – a time or two in Jonah (which is a narrative anyway) and Nahum (which is not) come to mind. 

Topical expository preaching: “Topical exposition generally revolves around one passage, centring on one theme. It is topical because it is usually a single message on a single subject. It is expository because it uses the biblical text as its source.” Think 'one-off' messages on Bible passages dealing with things like missions, discipleship, financial stewardship, sex and sexuality, and social issues.

Preaching is vital to the church’s life and care should be taken with reference to context, time allotted, and biblical exegesis as to what should be preached and how. In any case, an expositional sermon draws its substance from God’s word, deals with the matters raised in a particular Scriptural text, and should consistently point to the message of the Saviour that undergirds all Scriptural texts.

This was printed in the worship bulletin of Grace Baptist Church (Wood Green) on 18 January 2015 and is the first in a series of posts on expositional preaching. Next week's column will be Part Two: What it is not.