I am currently reading Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon, by Bryan Chapell. I haven’t finished the book yet, so some of what I am about to say may have to be modified at a later date. Still, I have some objections to this whole movement of expository preaching (to the degree that I’ve been subject to it my whole life in the churches I have attended) as it is exemplified so far in the book.
My objections arise out of what I perceive to be the movement’s lack of clarity regarding the identity of the Word. On one hand, they affirm that the Word is the eternal second person of the Godhead, by whose power the world was created and is upheld, who was incarnated as Jesus the Christ. On the other hand, they identify the word, or gospel, as the message about the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Word. Sometimes they make the important point (Chapell does, p. 28) that Jesus and the message about him are a unity. Chapell even goes on to make the further important point that, “Scriptural truth is not a passive object for examination and presentation. The word examines us.” But he ruins, I think, the effect, in a sentence or two with this modification of his position, “Christ remains active in his Word, performing divine tasks that one presenting the Word has neither right nor ability personally to assume.” [Italics mine.] Here the gap appears, which gradually widens until we reach the actual practice of “expository preaching” that is supposed to have come out of this previous, robust theology of the Word.
Here is the practice, in Chapell’s own words [italics his]: “An expository sermon may be defined as a message whose structure and thought are derived from a biblical text, that covers the scope of the text, and that explains the features and context of the text in order to disclose the enduring principles for faithful thinking, living, and worship intended by the Spirit, who inspired the text.” (p. 30) A message that “covers,” “explains,” and “discloses.” Really? I suspect that Chapell may have committed an unintentional pun in that first verb “covers.”
I would like to cast my objections to this idea of preaching as a contrast between two preachers.
The first preacher is John the Baptist, bearing witness (or as Barth would say, pointing with his prodigious finger) to the arrival of the lamb of God.
The second preacher is Jesus, explaining the Jewish scriptures on the road to Emmaus, showing that all those words were about him.
Expository preachers would probably identify more with Jesus, explaining the whole Scriptures. But this is a problem. Remember, the message about Jesus and Jesus the Word are tightly bound. That’s what gives the events along Emmaus their irony: the Word is explaining that the Word is about the Word in his own Words. But this was not the gospel. The gospel came in its full force when they realized who this mysterious learned stranger was, showing the men that this whole history and Jesus the Christ to whom it pointed was among them. Suddenly they, themselves, were put in relation to God by the living presence of Jesus—suddenly, it was as if all the revealing Jesus had performed upon the road was made relevant to them, because the object of that history stood among them.
Unfortunately for the expository preacher, congregations will never wake to see that their pastor is the one regarding whom he speaks. The gospel never comes if all the preacher does is explain that the whole Scripture is about Jesus.
John the Baptist, however, pointed. He bore witness with his words and baptism to the coming of Christ. He is different from Jesus, as a preacher, in that his response to the listening ear was not give himself but to point to Christ.
What’s the point of all this? Simply this: when Jesus preached, he gave himself, he was the Word, but when John preached he was not the Word—instead, he bore witness to the Word. This can also be seen in Peter’s sermon, in the teaching of Paul, etc.
What role does the preacher have in the work of the Word? A tradition as preaching-centered as the Reformed tradition (which most embraces expository preaching) should critically ask itself this question from time to time. Wrong answers can lead to practices that seem to support an identification of the preacher with the Word. When this falsehood is commonly believed, suddenly one of the great themes of the Reformation (to bring individual Christians back into contact with the Word of God) has been lost. People come to think and act as if the Word required a preacher to “activate” it.
On the other hand, expository preaching can carefully distinguish the authority of the preacher and the power of the Word such that preaching becomes chiefly a weekly exercise in public exegesis. I think this is common. To me this seems a massive fail because it completely neglects the necessity of the Witness, to whom the activity of preaching is essential for its finger-pointing power, and it treats the Word to all intents and purposes as if it were dead.
Take Chapell’s three verbs. He urges preachers to “cover” the scope of their text. He could not have implied the deadness of the Word better if he had tried. The very idea that any men, however holy, of whatever vast education and acute skills, could come to perceive (much less reformulate) the “scope” of any portion of Scripture defies its power to come with contemporary force as the present word of God to the church in any age. The scope of the text increases like the capacity of gmail: the scope of the meaning of the text is extended every instant because every instant it possesses the power to place the people of God who hear it into relation with the Grace and Judgment of God. He also urges preachers to “explain” their texts. With this verb I have less issue, except when, as so often, it is understood to mean that the role of the preacher is actually to relieve his listeners of any relation to the text. What comes in Scripture as the burning words of an inspired writer from God, can be turned into the historical curiosity of one historical party addressing another historical party, from which we can only learn by drawing moral lessons or searching for deeper principles. Finally, he urges preachers to “disclose” the “principles” that are, let’s be honest, hidden (as far as he is concerned) in the text. Why are they hidden? For the same reason that they need to be explained. Because they are assumed to be chiefly historical curiosities to be investigated (albeit well-chosen, even “inspired” historical curiosities).
What such an “expository” preacher very frequently ends up doing is wresting verses to fit a theology nowhere found in Scripture because it has been devised with the procrustean intent of “explaining” the otherwise uncomfortably jagged and powerful words of Scripture.
It should be noted that I am not objecting to exegesis, to historical understanding and criticism of the text of Scripture, or anything as anti-intellectual and un-literary as that. Instead, I am suggesting that these techniques simply do not achieve the purpose of preaching when they, by themselves, are put on display every Sunday. They should occur in every preacher’s study—and in every lay-person’s bedroom—in the study of Scripture. But when the witness stands to point his prodigious finger in the direction of the Word, something other than study is occurring. At that time, the people of God should be called to hear the Word as spoken to them, not as an historical discourse between now dead parties. In study, portions of Scripture must be read and interrogated as, for instance, a national epic written by Moses for the preservation and national self-consciousness of the nation of Israel. But in preaching, every portion of Scripture must come as from God to the people in the pews. This, and only this, bears witness to the living person of the Word, Jesus Christ, putting listeners into relation with that reality.
I respect expository preaching in terms of the enemies by which it defines itself. I, too, hate preachers who feel as if their purpose is to share their feelings about this or that passage of Scripture, or preachers who take as the theme of their sermons pop-psychology and political ideologies (like conservatism, for example). On this front, expository preaching wonderfully represents itself as rooted in Scripture, expository preachers as “servants of the Word.” But when such preaching becomes a vain-glorious “covering,” “explaining,” and—horror of horrors—”disclosing,” rather than a witnessing, a pointing, a tearing away of the veil that hides us from the face of God, then I add my voice to Kierkegaard’s cry, “kill the commentators!”—and, I add, “the weekly public commentators who pretend to be preachers!”
Good post.
Although, I think the main thrust of the “expository preaching movement” is a counter to “topical preaching” more than preachers who are too touchy feely. I know of at least one (rather local) mega church (http://www.lincolnberean.org/) whose whole pulpit goal is that very purpose; “we’re expository, not topical” kind of attitude. That’s rare, yes, but I think somewhat exemplary.
Thanks, Jamin. I think you’re right about the “main thrust” of expository preaching—particularly in terms of its genealogy as a reaction to topical/personal/opinion preaching. I was rebelling against the development of this trajectory—an over-compensation, I suppose—that turns it into nothing more than public exegesis, begging the question why do we preach at all and not just train all our parishioners to exegete as well as the preachers for themselves?
So the work of the expository preacher is good, but it’s only the foundation upon witness is built, not the thing itself? Am I reading you correctly?
Hi Stratkey—
Well, if you mean by “work” the preacher’s preparation for preaching in exegesis, prayer, and meditation, then yes, that’s what I was trying to express. And—I’m still trying to understand this, although I know it by experience from sitting under preachers who are true witnesses—I think the “witness” aspect of preaching is more than just another step built upon good study, if that makes any sense? It is, yes, partially founded upon good study—but that study is a necessary, not a sufficient, condition. I think the pinnacle or goal of preaching should not be to stand at a distance from the text explaining it, but to perform the self-effacing, Godward move of witness, such that the preacher speaks the Word of God to his people and not merely about the Word of God. To witness in this way, as you can see, can only come after having really sought to understand it “objectively,” after expositing it in a study, but witness also moves beyond exposition to proclamation so that the preacher stands with the Word rather than over against it as an explainer. Does that clarify?
Thanks for the question!
Thank you for this article. There is much to be remembered about the “whys” of preaching! First order and second order discourse for starters.
Thanks Chris! First and second order discourse are certainly helpful categories to associate with the difference between commentating from the pulpit and proclaiming the Word of God, though I’m not sure they entirely cover the distinction I was making. Definitely, as you said, good for starters though.
Barth certainly extols the virtue of expository preaching in ‘Homiletics’. It’s not impossible to be expository and a witness. But I agree – it’s all too rare! Thanks for this.
Hi Glen—
Barth, actually, was very present in my mind as I thought about this. It’s definitely appropriate to bring him up. I have not read Homiletics, but I have read some of his sermons—and I do find them exemplary both with respect to the good parts of expository preaching and with respect to witness.
Part of the explosive effectiveness of his commentary on Romans, I think, is that it is, above all (to my mind), a powerful example of the kind of preaching that bears witness. It confronts you with God’s Word rather than confronting you about God’s Word.
Thanks!
John the Baptist, Peter, and Paul are all great examples, so my question is going to seem like beating a dead horse, but can you point to some examples of the kind of preaching you are in favor of?
Hi John—
No, no, I totally understand where you’re coming from. Of course I should be obliged to point to other examples of what I mean than John the Baptist, Peter, and Paul (unless I believed witness to be a role unavailable to anyone who wasn’t an Jewish prophet or an Apostle, in which case why bother writing about it so urgently?).
Unfortunately, however, I’m not much of a preaching-collector. At least in terms of contemporary preachers. I haven’t traveled around to hear, or downloaded tons of .mp3s by the “big” preachers one hears about. The best I can do is point to some examples in church history whose sermons are available to be read. All of the following in some sermons (though none of these in all of their sermons, I think) remind me of the ideal I have in mind: John Chrysostom, Augustine (sometimes—also sometimes more like a rhetoric or philosophy teacher than a preacher, which would make sense), John Calvin (who preached very differently than many of his so-called successors do—I encourage you to check it out), Karl Barth (see comment below), Geerhardus Vos (sometimes—on the other hand, some of *his* successors, enamored of the redemptive-historical method of preaching he exemplified, can also be excellent examples of the kind of stultifying public commentating that I object to in the post), also an EO fellow whose name I am ashamed to say I can’t remember at the moment… I could mention other less generally familiar names from throughout church history, but perhaps that small list will give you a taste?
But, to return to John, Peter, and Paul—I feel as if the words of John, the sermon of Peter in Acts, and the many sermons scattered throughout Paul’s letters are beautiful and illuminating examples. In particularly, I think it would be healthy for “expository preachers” to examine the way these three use Scripture in their sermons.
Let’s rephrase the Smiths and sing ‘kill the preacher, kill the preacher, kill the preacher, cause the sermon he constantly plays says nothing to me about my life.’
Seriously though isn’t the problem that ‘reformed’ pastors are trying to inculcate right doctrine against that touch-feely oh my head’s gone silly fun worship and at the same time keep the numbers up ‘ya gotta show a profit or you’re sacked’ it’s all too much and now you want them speak out of heart magnified from knowledge of God’s love in Christ. Is there a module for that?
Hi Phillip—
You seem to have two thoughts mixed up in your comment. On one hand you accuse “reformed” (I, by the way, have no particular interest in claiming that label for myself) preachers of an intellectualist/doctrinal reductionism; on the other hand, you propose that my intention in this post was to assert that “reformed” preaching is irrelevant to “life.” Perhaps I can answer you in a few points:
(1. I would certainly agree that an intellectualism prevails in the preaching of many who would claim to reformed. In many cases, as I partially submitted in my response to Jamin above, such over-emphases have an understandable genealogy but a malicious contemporary manifestation.
(2. I wasn’t, however, writing about “relevance.” Relevance would, I think, follow the work of the witness simply because the Word of God comes with contemporary significance to every generation (cf. my note regarding the “scope” of the text in the post). My emphasis in this post was predominantly upon the preacher’s relation to the Word.
I think I’m having difficulty distinguishing the point I’m trying to make from a number of other critiques about preaching because I’m entering the discussion *really* late in the game. The categories, the binary pairs if you will, within which judgments about preaching take place are set. But they aren’t quite the categories I’m dealing with. Still, I believe the head/heart dichotomy you allude to is related, though more as a false distinction to be overcome by the preaching of a witness that as the framework within which one is a witness or not.
Isnt it supposed to be the case that we are all self-possessed sinners and therefore cannot really know anything about The Divine Reality?
Which is a polite way of saying that we are all totally godless. And therefore effectively at war with The Divine Reality!
What then could any such sinful/godless person have to say or preach about The Divine Reality that is in any sense Real or True?
Or put in another way everything that he/she might possibly say is always an extension of his/her own sinfulness/godlessness. No matter how seemingly hopeful the words may appear to be, or extensive the quotes from the scriptures.
And yes all churches of whatever size are primarily business corporations that are selling a product to satisfy the “religious” consumer. They are in the numbers game–bums on seats and money in the offering tray.
Hi John—
Interesting comment. You make two assertions: (1. we are too sinful to speak about God (though from your tone, possibly you were being sarcastic). (2. churches are about making money so who gives a shit whether their preachers are witnesses or public commentators—whatever draws the bums and wallets, eh?
(1. In all seriousness I do think we, and also the writers of Scripture, are faced with the problem you mention when we set ourselves up to talk about God. That is one of the reasons revelation is grace.
(2. My sense is that all institutions function in a variety of ways: politically, for example, and ethically, aesthetically, socially, religiously, fiduciarily, etc., and… economically. So while I do not think “a church” (by which phrase I mean in this case a particular instance of a certain kind of culturally embedded institution) is “a business,” I would argue that it has to function economically. It has economic responsibilities of mercy, for example, and in the New Testament the early church can be seen to appoint specific roles (deacons) for a partially economic purpose. Yet the economic aspect of a church should always be directed by its over-riding vocation, which is ethical/confessional. I reject your claim that churches are primarily business corporations to satisfy the religious customer: they are primarily confessional congregations—it is useful to explore the meanings generated when “congregation” is set against “corporation”—to satisfy the call—”vocation”—of God.
Another way to look at what you are saying, is that the preacher must lead (or “shepherd”) his congregation, not merely educate them in a modern intellectual sense. Or, his exposition must not be merely of the text of Scripture, it must also be of himself and his flock so that a meeting with mutual disclosure takes place between God and man.
This is compatible, I think, with a voluntary (”consumerist”) concept of the church. It will attract people whom the Spirit has given the desire to be shepherded unto Christ.
Hi Tim—
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Not sure I understand it yet, however. Could you unpack what you mean by “a meeting with mutual disclosure takes place between God and man”?
Thanks for the thoughtful post that somebody pointed me to. I confess, as I was reading, what I had in mind was a distinction between expository commentary and expository preaching – and look, that’s where you ended up.
However, I was a little alarmed by your J-t-B model of preaching. It seemed like you wanted to argue against preachers standing over the text by getting them to stand outside it and point to it, rather than sitting under it. It felt like the preacher had to ‘activate’ the Word by yelling out for the crowds ‘come and look at this!’
All this may, of course, just be my misreading of you. But if I can get it wrong, then perhaps my comment is of use to others of my ilk.
At bottom, I suspect the issue is too much emphasis on ‘expository’ as opposed to ‘topical’, and so too little on ‘preaching’.
Hi Anthony—
Yes, my post had very much to do with commentary from the pulpit vs. actual preaching. Glad it resonated with you!
Certainly if I supported the model of preaching you describe you have a right to be horrified. Allow my to clarify what I meant:
[This will sound as if I'm plagiarizing Barth:]
My John the Baptist is Grunewald’s John the Baptist. Take a look at that painting, and notice an implicit theology of the identity of the Word. On the one hand, you see two Words in the picture: the Scripture in John’s hands and Jesus on the cross; on the other hand, John is pointing from the book to Jesus, showing that the revelation in Scripture is about the man presently dying on the cross. Here we have a proper understanding of both the unity and difference of the Word Jesus and the Word Scripture.
However, it is Scripture itself which points to Christ, so when the pointing of the preacher’s finger becomes toward the Scripture rather than through the Scripture toward Christ we have public commentary rather than true witness.
Does that help?
Thanks Robert, that’s a perfect clarification. Necessary but not sufficient indeed!
I’ve enjoyed reading the post and following comments. I will say that I, for one, am an advocate for expository preaching, but I see your point: expository preaching, when done consistently, can fall into more of a ritualistic pattern, turning it into more of a history lesson rather than a Living Truth. That’s why expository preaching, when done right, is one of the hardest–if not THE hardest– ways to preach. The end goal of any kind of preaching should be to point to Christ as our answer and live by the Biblical truths He left us in His Word. The motive cannot change. When expository preaching simply becomes about preaching and less about God, it has lost its use.
just came across this post, so forgive me if i don’t have your context under my belt, but i wonder if your title is misleading.
is what you’re really saying something like
‘against defective expository preaching’
my main reason for heading in that direction is the conclusion that you yourself come to, through the distinction between commentary (defective)and preaching.
i kind of wonder if you’ve picked a defective implementation (albeit widespread) of expository preaching and applied that label as a definition of expository preaching. as a prompt in this direction, you mention you’ve sat under ep all your life, but i wonder if every expository sermon has been as dull and lifeless as your piece would suggest.
having sat under a variety of styles of sermons, my conviction is that it is not the sermon’s genre label – topical, expository, dialogical or whatever that counts. what counts is that god speaks, and, praise him, he does that even through donkeys (and me)! however ep has the advantage over all other types of sermon that it attempts to make explicit the controls on what the preacher says, and to offer up the sermon for scrutiny by the word. these two aspects seem to open up dialogue, rather than close it down, especially if there is a question time incorporated into the sermon time.
in the end, you have a helpful point, i agree, however i suspect your point would be better taken, more effective, of greater service, if the shibboleth was more clearly articulated.
anyway, an early saturday morning stream of consciousness to someone i’ve never met, so thanks for the opportunity to comment (i’ve not meant to be too caustic)
Hi Tim,
I respect your comment and understand where it’s coming from. In some people’s lives the term “expository preaching” has functioned in binary opposition to things which make it a very positive thing. My take, on this question and most of the others I write about on this blog, is that almost every popular idea that emerges becomes idolatrous, such that we must maintain a constantly subversive attitude to ourselves. From this perspective, it is more important to treat an idea as it used in its most widespread form than in some imaginary ideal sense of the term. The fact of the matter is, most idolatry occurs in the name of God. So I am perfectly willing to admit that expository preaching, when defined against certain other things, is an ideal; but I am not speaking of expository as opposed to, for example, topical preaching. I’d like to think I’ve provided a very straightforward justification for my use of the term by connecting it to Bryan Chapell’s book.
Thanks for your comment, however. The point is well taken!
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