Expositional Preaching Part Four: the Expositional Preacher - GBC Pastoral Column #72

Expositional preaching, among all the important tasks in which a pastor may engage, must be given priority. By opening the Bible, explaining what it means (principles), and even more importantly explaining what it means for the congregation that he serves (practice), the pastor faithfully fulfils the apostolic directive to “preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:2).

Unfortunately, with the knowledge that they are being faithful in this way, comes an opportunity for expositional preachers to be unfaithful in another way: simply put, he may become proud and think more highly of himself than he ought to think. He may forget where he is coming from and glorify where he is now, arrogantly boasting in his heart that he is a master of the text, and sneering at those perceived lesser individuals who could only hope to aspire to the majesty of his own biblically faithful homiletic prowess. It is also possible for the preacher to be a man of humility, but so loved by his people that they boast in his faithfulness to the Scriptures as though he stood alone and might sometimes intensely scrutinise and unfairly critique other preachers, demonstrating all the slavishly idolatrous traits of cult members. If the man who speaks and the people who sit would listen in spirit to the words of Scripture, their bubble would be immediately burst.

In  Ezekiel 37, the prophet Ezekiel is taken by the Spirit of the Lord and finds himself in a valley full of bones. The expositional preacher often finds himself in a similar situation – among spiritually lifeless and inactive people who are dead in their trespasses and sins. Ezekiel speaks the word of the Lord, as does the expositional preacher, and the bones come together and are restored to bodies and the bodies begin to breath and the newly resurrected take to their feet as “an exceedingly great army.”

If Ezekiel proclaiming the word of the Lord to dead men’s bones in any way serves as a model for those who spiritually do the same task today – and I believe it can and should - there are three things one can learn about the expositional preacher from this passage, along with three corresponding truths about God.

The expositional preacher is ignorant. The God of the expositional preacher knows all things. In verse 3, the Lord asks Ezekiel if the bones he sees can live. Ezekiel replies “Oh Lord God, you know”. The message he is supposed to deliver begins, “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” In short, he trusts no knowledge or wisdom that he possesses in and of himself and has no words that he can say, but looks to the one who knows everything and spoke everything into existence for his authority. This is the whole point of being an expositional preacher – we can only say what God has already said as we have nothing better to offer. In so doing we are not so much “masters of the text” as we are mastered by the text.

The expositional preacher seems foolish. The God of the expositional preacher is faithful. God tells Ezekiel to say things to bones and he does it! To the unbelieving eye, nothing could be more pointless than this fruitless task involving hopeless corpses, carried out by an apparently brainless man. But is everything as it seems? The Lord, who does not lie, said to the bones, “I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live.” By proclaiming the sure and certain word of God to those who would rather be massaged by the pathetic pandering of unprincipled pragmatists, the expositional preacher swims against societal tides and deviates from cultural norms in the belief that God’s promise to save and strengthen people is as good today as it ever was. It is part and parcel of the expositional preacher’s calling to trust God, to speak his word, and to expect great things where no one else in their right mind would.

The expositional preacher is powerless. The God of the expositional preacher can do all things... Like giving life to the dead. The God who creates and takes life certainly has the power to restore it, as Ezekiel learned. But “I prophesied as he commanded me” (v. 10), is the most Ezekiel can say for himself. He did what the Lord enabled him to do and trusted God with the results, believing that they would indeed come as promised. Likewise, the perfectly ignorant and perceivably foolish expositional preacher stands in personal powerlessness to deliver a word he knows by God can breathe life into the hearts of the dead in sin.

I look in vain for a shred of pride in Ezekiel upon the successful delivery of his divinely appointed message.  Not even a boast about being faithful. Why? It’s not about the preacher – it’s all about God: “You shall know that I am the Lord” is the thrice repeated refrain of verses 1-14, appearing numerous times throughout the book as a whole. So to my fellow expositional preachers, and to those congregations that love their pastors (including my own), we’re not “all that.” 

This pastoral column was distributed to the congregation of Grace Baptist Church (Wood Green) the week of Sunday, 8 March 2015 and is the fourth and final in a series of posts on expositional preaching.