Why do I believe so strongly in expository preaching? Because I believe it is the only right and proper way to truly preach the Bible. The scripture passage determines the subject and main point of the sermon. The passage verse by verse and thought by thought are the content of the sermon. This is true exposition.
99% or more of the churches in the USA do not preach this way. In the last 11 years since my last pastorate I have not been in a single church of any denomination that preaches this way every single week.
If we are going to preach the Bible we must preach it the way God gave it to us. It is His Word. It is His Message. If we go into and preach our ideas and thoughts then it is our message not God's. My ideas, my thoughts and my opinions are totally worthless in view of the inspired Word of God. My words do not save any souls. My words do not change any lives. My words to not have any eternal value. It is God's Word (The Bible) that saves souls, changes lives and have eternal value. Not mine.
As you can tell I am passionate about it and long to see pastors and churches truly get back to the Bible and trust the Holy Spirit to use it change people. I have seen it first hand and I long to see it again.
If it isn't in the passage is shouldn't be in the sermon. That has been my rule for the past 50 years since I preached my first sermon as a teenager. I believe every sermon should be a passage of Scripture not one verse and especially not one word. When you take a word or verse out of context you can very quickly lose its correct meaning. When you stay in the context of the surrounding verses, chapter and book then you are much more likely to have the correct interpretation, meaning and preaching.
It takes work and effort to preach expository sermons. It is much easier just to make up what you want to say instead of searching out the correct meaning of the verses. In my pastoring days I often struggled with passages to make sure I had it right. A couple of times I even rewrote my sermon notes on Saturday evening to make sure I preached it correctly on Sunday morning.
For the past 11 years of being out of full time ministry it has been extremely difficult and frustrating to listen to sermons Sunday after Sunday where the context and main point of the passage is discarded to that some man can pontificate their own thoughts and ideas that they are always sure that they are correct about. I have seen the Bible diluted and and actually massacred in pulpits across the country.
God help us to come back to the Bible. Only His Word gives life!
How do you know if a sermon you are listening to is expository? It is really not that hard.
1. Do they have a passage of scripture and do they stick to it? I like to have a passage that is 4-6 verses in length. That is not a hard and fast rule. It will be dictated by the passage itself. The authors think and write like we do. They have groups of thought. One group of thought should usually be one sermon. Much of the Bible was written in paragraphs. Those paragraphs usually contain one main thought. A sermon should never be just one word or just one verse. It needs to be taken in its complete context.
2. Does the preacher stick to that text for the whole sermon? Not to say that they can't refer to related or supporting verse elsewhere in the Bible. But that should be at a minimum. If they jump to another passage and stay there for more than a few minutes then it is no longer an expository sermon. I have seen preachers go to 20-30 other verses in one sermon. That gets confusing to the listener. You then lose the thrust of the passage being preached. They need to preach the passage based on the interpretation from the original languages. What does it mean in the original Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic? There are many great tools you can use to accomplish that even if you aren't a great Greek or Hebrew scholar.
3. Do they often or even continually quote commentaries? Commentaries are just that, someone else's comments or opinions. I can count on one hand the number of times I have quoted a commentary in a sermon. I rarely use them even in preparation. I have heard sermons almost completely made up of quotes from commentators. I don't want to hear other people's opinions. I can get that anytime I want on TV. I want God's Word and what does He say through His Word. Man will often be wrong. God will never be wrong.
4. Is the passage interpreted though the culture of that day? I will give 2 examples. First is marriage. You will understand the Bible's teaching on marriage more completely and simply if you understand how a Jewish marriage worked from betrothal until death. It is much different from what we are used to in the western world. Second is adoption. You have to understand adoption in the Jewish culture of the first century. Their adoption was nothing like our adoption. No children were ever adopted into a family. There was the "spirit of adoption" when every child reached adulthood. I was "born" into God's family (John 1:12 and John 3). I was NEVER adopted into God's family. No more than my natural born children were adopted into my family. They didn't need to be. Understand the culture of the day and you will better understand the Bible.
In Bonds of Calvary,
David
Sermons:
The book of Romans series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOTcKEmDMorAr2Em0exDjGp7rhIYj04Iu
The Church series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOTcKEmDMorA0A966m-oPvFpGstS5QTI_
Jonah series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOTcKEmDMorAGvW_cpqq-iEL27iqqMeUp
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@versebyversebibleexpositio5817/playlists
Click this for more series and playlists.
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