Expositional Preaching E-Book

David R. Helm

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Building Healthy Churches
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 143

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

What makes for good preaching? In this accessible volume—written for preachers and preachers in training—pastor David Helm outlines what must be believed and accomplished to become a faithful expositor of God's Word. In addition to offering practical, step-by-step guidance for preachers, this short book will equip all of us to recognize good preaching when we hear it. Part of the 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches series.

Leseprobe

Expositional Preaching: How We Speak God’s Word Today

Copyright © 2014 by The Charles Simeon Trust

Published by Crossway

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Dual Identity, inc.

Cover image: Wayne Brezinka for brezinkadesign.com

First printing 2014

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV Bible® (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. 2011 Text Edition. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4335-4313-5ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-4316-6PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-4314-2Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-4315-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Helm, David R., 1961–

   Expositional preaching : how we speak God’s word today / David Helm.

        1 online resource.—(9Marks: building healthy churches)

   Includes bibliographical references and index.

   Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

   ISBN 978-1-4335-4314-2 (pdf) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4315-9 (mobi) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4316-6 (epub) – ISBN 978-1-4335-4313-5 (print)

   1. Expository preaching.  I. Title.

BV4211.3

251—dc23            2014004393

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

CONTENTS

Series PrefaceIntroduction: Old Bones 1   ContextualizationThe Blind Adherence ProblemImpressionistic PreachingInebriated Preaching“Inspired” Preaching 2   ExegesisKeeping First Things FirstThe Day the Penny DroppedGive the Biblical Context ControlListen for the Melodic LineSee the Structure and Emphasis 3   Theological ReflectionThe Instincts of JesusThe Challenge of the Historical-Critical MethodThe Usefulness of Biblical TheologyThe Role of Systematic Theology 4   TodayThe Makeup of Your AudienceThe Arrangement of Your MaterialThe Application of Your MessageConclusion: Dry BonesAppendix: Questions Preachers AskSpecial ThanksNotesGeneral IndexScripture Index

SERIES PREFACE

The 9Marks series of books is premised on two basic ideas. First, the local church is far more important to the Christian life than many Christians today perhaps realize.

Second, local churches grow in life and vitality as they organize their lives around God’s Word. God speaks. Churches should listen and follow. It’s that simple. When a church listens and follows, it begins to look like the One it is following. It reflects his love and holiness. It displays his glory. A church will look like him as it listens to him.

So our basic message to churches is, don’t look to the best business practices or the latest styles; look to God. Start by listening to God’s Word again.

Out of this overall project comes the 9Marks series of books. Some target pastors. Some target church members. Hopefully all will combine careful biblical examination, theological reflection, cultural consideration, corporate application, and even a bit of individual exhortation. The best Christian books are always both theological and practical.

It’s our prayer that God will use this volume and the others to help prepare his bride, the church, with radiance and splendor for the day of his coming.

INTRODUCTION

Old Bones

The great man’s body rests in a vault beneath the stone floor of King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, England, just inside the near west door. The site has two markings: “CS,” and the year this man died, “1836.” Both have been cut into the stone pavement and filled with lead. Should you ever get the chance to stand there—as I once did in awe—know this: the old bones beneath your feet belong to one who returned the Bible to the center of church life in England.

It was a sad November day in 1836 when no fewer than 1,500 gownsmen attended the funeral of Charles Simeon. In unprecedented numbers for the time, people came to pay their respects to this pastor and preacher.1 Charles Simeon was a gift, God’s gift, to the people of his generation.

He is a gift to our generation as well. His gospel instincts have stood the test of time and can make a fresh impression on preaching in our day. For Simeon’s preaching had something that much of our preaching lacks.

What is it we lack? How can we benefit?

The answers are surprisingly simple and point us to the very heart of this thing called expositional preaching. In large measure, the great man’s conviction about the Bible was the source of his influence. Simeon believed that a simple and clear explication of the Bible is what makes a church healthy and happy. Biblical exposition does the heavy lifting of building up a church. This abiding belief never left Simeon. For fifty-four years, and from a single pulpit in a university town, he tirelessly gave himself to the primacy of preaching. Week by week, year by year, and decade by decade he stood in the pulpit and declared God’s Word with clarity, simplicity, and power. He defined his conviction about biblical exposition this way:

My endeavor is to bring out of Scripture what is there, and not to thrust in what I think might be there. I have a great jealousy on this head; never to speak more or less than I believe to be the mind of the Spirit in the passage I am expounding.2

Simeon viewed the preacher as duty-bound to the text. He was committed to staying on the line, never rising above the text of Scripture to say more than it said and never falling beneath the text by lessening its force or fullness.

This conviction—this mature restraint—is often missed today by those who handle God’s Word. Frankly, it is the undoing of so many of our churches, even doctrinally sound ones. Much of what we think is faithful biblical preaching actually misses the mark because of a lack of restraint. And let me be the first to admit that I have not always exercised the restraint of bringing out of Scripture only what is there. It is my prayer that this little book, among other things, might be used by God to help anyone explore the ways that teachers and preachers of the Bible might rediscover this conviction.

But it is not only Simeon’s conviction that is worth considering. Simeon’s goals in preaching need to be recovered. He tightly framed his aims for biblical exposition this way:

to humble the sinner;

to exalt the Saviour;

to promote holiness.3

It doesn’t get any clearer than that. And these aims should guide us today. Our world, like Simeon’s, desperately needs to know how deep humanity has fallen, how high Jesus Christ has ascended, and what God requires of his people. The best and only way to help this world is to speak God’s words in the power of the Spirit. How do we do this? What does it look like?

The answers are found in expositional preaching. Expositional preaching is empowered preaching that rightfully submits the shape and emphasis of the sermon to the shape and emphasis of a biblical text. In that way it brings out of the text what the Holy Spirit put there, as Simeon put it, and does not put into the text what the preacher thinks might be there. The process is a little more complex. That is what the rest of this book is about.

We will begin by thinking about the mistakes so many of us make, mistakes which particularly result from our attempts to contextualize. Then we will consider the challenges and demands of exegeting a text, understanding a text in light of the entire biblical canon, and then preaching it to our own context.

Though this book will serve adequately as an introduction to expositional preaching, one of my hopes is that the person who is already preaching or teaching the Bible will find that it offers a useful grid by which to examine what you are presently doing. It is almost meant as a “follow-up,” a way of giving you the chance to ask yourself, “Okay, is this what I am doing? Am I bringing out of Scripture only what is there? Am I doing so in ways that rightly humble the listener, exalt the Savior, and promote holiness in the lives of those present?”

The demands and challenges of expositional preaching are many. And making progress in our ability to handle God’s Word faithfully will not be easy. But I am certain of this: if preachers and church leaders today allow the simplicity of Simeon’s conviction and aims to speak to us from the grave, the health and happiness of the church can be restored.

So let’s get started.

1

CONTEXTUALIZATION

Contextualization is essential to good exposition. And the sermon manuscripts we have from St. Augustine lead some to suggest that he did it quite well.

Thus when Augustine propounded ideas about society that were taken straight from the pagan classics, we should not think that he was doing this in a self-conscious effort to impress pagans with his culture or to woo them into the church by citing their favorite authors. He did it as unthinkingly as we, today, say that the earth is round. . . . He presented much of what he had to say . . . as a matter of common sense.1

I love what Augustine’s attitude toward contextualization teaches us about its relationship to preaching. His surprising ability to connect to his listeners was the result of his general interest in life; it was not a calculated outcome brought about by harvesting cultural references in hopes of coming off as relevant. This chapter will address the problems that emerge when contextualization of the latter sort takes over the preacher when he is preparing his message.

In the introduction, we caught a small glimpse of what expositional preaching should be. It is an endeavor to bring out of Scripture what is there, to never thrust into a text what the Holy Spirit didn’t put there, and to do so from a particular text in ways that rightly humble the listener, exalt the Savior, and promote holiness in the lives of those present. While we haven’t yet described how a sermon should do all of this, it is worth taking time here to consider some common ways our preaching can miss the mark.

THE BLIND ADHERENCE PROBLEM

What do I mean by contextualization in preaching?2 In simple terms, contextualization in preaching is communicating the gospel message in ways that are understandable or appropriate to the listener’s cultural context. In other words, contextualization is concerned with us and now. It is committed to relevance and application for today, which is why I will offer a constructive approach to the topic in chapter 4.

One of the problems with contextualized preaching today, however, is that it often has a misplaced emphasis. By elevating contextualization to a studied discipline overly focused on practical gains, some preachers treat the biblical text in a haphazard and halfhearted way. This is the blind adherence problem. Out of a healthy desire to move the mission of his church forward, the preacher focuses his preparation exclusively on creative and artistic ways he can make his sermon relevant.

Think about it. Some preachers spend more time reading and meditating on our contextual setting than we do on God’s Word. We get caught up in sermonizing about our world or city in an effort to be relevant. As a result, we settle for giving shallow impressions of the text. We forget that the biblical text is the relevant word. It deserves our greatest powers of meditation and explanation.

To put it differently, the preacher is bound to miss the mark of biblical exposition when he allows the context he is trying to win for Christ control the Word he speaks of Christ. As I stated in the introduction, this is the undoing of many of our churches. Too many of us unconsciously believe that a well-studied understanding of our cultural context, rather than the Bible, is the key to preaching with power.

Blind adherence to contextualization alters our preaching in at least three ways, and none of them is for the better. First, it impairs our perspective in the study—in his preparation of his sermon, the preacher becomes preoccupied with the world rather than God’s Word. This leads to impressionistic preaching. Second, it changes our use of the pulpit—the Word now supports our intoxicating plans and purposes, rather than those of God. This is inebriated preaching. Finally, it shifts our understanding of authority—the preacher’s “fresh” and “spirit led” devotional reading becomes the determinative point of truth. I call this “inspired” preaching.

Let’s look at each of these a little more closely. I think we will find that some of what we think is expositional preaching actually misses the mark.

IMPRESSIONISTIC PREACHING

In the 1850s, the dominant artistic style of the moment was realism. It was a movement that aimed to represent, as closely as possible, what the artist had seen. Two young students being trained in realism were Claude Monet and Pierre-August Renoir. They had become friends and began to paint together, along with several others. This younger generation tended to use brighter colors than their realist instructors, and they favored painting contemporary life over historical or mythological scenes, consciously leaving behind the romanticism of previous generations, as well.

The tipping point for helping these young painters to begin to self-identify as a group came in the 1863 Salon de Paris (Exhibition of Paris) art show and competition. So many of their pieces were rejected by the judges that an alternative show was held later, the Salon des Refusés (Exhibition of the Refused).3 During the next ten years, the young artists petitioned to have ongoing alternative shows for their new styles of painting, but they were systematically rejected.

In 1873, Monet, Renoir, and several others formed an anonymous cooperative of artists to show their work independently. The first public exhibition of this new group occurred in April 1874 in Paris. Styles had shifted even further. Renoir had begun to experiment by altering the reality of what he saw—a distinct departure from realism. Monet had begun painting with looser brush strokes. This gave a general form of what he saw rather than a precise rendition, which was still preferred by the older generation. For example, his Impression, Sunrise captures the Le Havre Harbor at sunrise. Recognizing that it was not a realistic view of the harbor, he added the word “impression” to the title when asked for the name of the work. This title was later used by a critic to ridicule the artists, calling them the “impressionists.”

One of the boldest innovations of the group was its use of light. For example, Renoir’s 1876 Dance at Moulin de la Galette depicts a garden party with dancing in the Montmartre district of Paris. In the painting, Renoir paints white on the ground or on top of a blue jacket to indicate that the sun was shining there. The altering of light begins to exaggerate details and distort what would have actually been seen by the artist.

The impressionist method takes what the eye sees and interprets it, exaggerates it, ignores parts of it, and ultimately distorts it.

Now, think about what you do when you sit down to prepare a sermon. You open your Bible. You don’t have a lot of time. You probably have a meeting or two tonight. You might have a family or a staff to guide. You certainly have your hands full with pastoral work. Yet you need something to say on Sunday. So you begin by reading your text and jotting down things on your computer the way an artist might interact with a canvas—quick-hitting, colorful connections between the Word and the world as you know it.

You are looking for things that you know will make an immediate impression upon your listeners. You begin enjoying this momentary diversion. The work is not hard. Soon a main idea emerges. You contextualize well since, just like your congregation on Sunday, you are not that passionate about things historical. In fact, you got this job, in part, because they were impressed with how well you produced attention-grabbing messages from the otherwise inaccessible ancient realism of biblical scenes. A detailed study of the text can wait.

This week’s message, like last week’s, will concentrate on the relevant impressions you draw from the passage. Applications already seem to emerge like beams of light for you to spread across the congregation in bold color. You glance at your iPhone to catch the time. You have been at work for fifteen minutes.

This is impressionistic preaching.