- Just
an explanation of the text - what is sometimes called in
the Kenyan context a 'Bible exposititon' or 'Bible study' or
what is called in some UK university CUs a 'Bible reading'. Expository
preaching is not a commentary or a lecture. It's not just walking through a text explaining
it. It is declaring the oracles of God, making an
impassioned argument for Christ, confronting us with Christ, feeding
us with Christ.
- A technique –
It's not about applying some complex set of rules and procedures. You
don't master some clever system and then get a certificate or a blackbelt.
This is not rocket science - it's just opening up the Word and letting it
speak for itself.
- A
style – It's not 3 points all beginning with 'P'. It's not a
quiet bookish tone of voice. It's not using lots of clever academic language.
It's not standing still behind a pulpit.
- Always
verse by verse – It's often that but sometimes it'll be
paragraph by paragraph or taking a story as a whole and enjoying it - it
depends what sort of text it is. And, as was pointed out to me the other
day, verse-by-verse can be done in a non-expositional way -
i.e. taking each verse one by one, treating it pretty much in isolation,
using it as a launchpad or reading in whatever the preacher thinks and
missing the big idea and flow of the passage and the book.
- Always
sequential large chunks of a book – It will often be
that (and there are a lot of advantages to sequential
preaching) but there is still a place for one-off evangelistic
sermons and topical sermons - they can be expository too - focussing on
one text and letting it call people to Christ or speak to a particular
issue.
- A
Western thing or a new thing – This wasn't dreamt up in the US or
UK 40 years ago. It was happening in Israel 2000 years ago (see Acts 2 or
the book of Hebrews). Chrysostom was doing it in Turkey more than 1600
years ago.
- Just
for ‘intellectuals’, educated people or literate people -
Duncan Forbes, who grew up on and leads a church on a tough council
estate in London, gives a brilliant answer to this here. Also, one our
apprentices pointed out the other day that topical sermons that jump all
over the Bible - Leviticus, Matthew, Malachi, Acts - are
actually far harder to follow and demand much more Biblical
literacy than simply focussing on one Bible story or one passage and
going through it - which even a small child can follow. And one
other thing - expository preaching should be aimed at
the heart.
- Boring –
If it's boring then it's not expository preaching. God is not boring. The
Bible is not boring. When it's opened up there should be a revelation of a
glorious, awesome and constantly surprising God. So let's not talk about 'shining
a light on the Bible text', or making the Bible 'come alive' - that's
close to blasphemy - it is the living and active Word of God.
- Spirit-quenching – You can't get more dramatically Spirit-filled than Acts 2. There's a tornado. They're speaking Chinese and Arabic. Their hair is on fire. Peter gets up on the podium and speaks without a PA system to thousands of people. And what comes out of his mouth? An expository sermon on Joel. It might not look like it but we've said before that expository preaching is actually Spirit-led preaching.
- Irrelevant - The fear is that if we stick to getting our message from the Bible then it will not be relevant to the hearers. We'll have to make it relevant in some clever way. Perhaps it's better just to think of a relevant topic (and what people need to hear on that) and then search the Bible for good quotes. But the Bible is relevant (2 Tim 3:16) because it's all about all about Jesus (2 Tim 3:15). And in fact it's full of topics - every book is a topic - they're just not quite the topics we might choose.
Ephesians 6:5-9 gives a beautiful picture of healthy workplace relationships: servants who serve and leaders who serve . But that mutuality is not the only combination. Here are 4 different models of interaction between leader/boss and servant/employee: OPPRESSIVE LEADER AND SUBMISSIVE SERVANT This tends to be the pattern in settled traditional societies and modern totalitarian societies. Here hierarchy is strong – the pyramid model. Those at ‘the top’ very much see themselves as ‘above’ others and those at the bottom know their place and submit. Leaders are dictators who cannot be questioned, ‘strong leaders’ who make harsh demands and place heavy burdens on the people ‘under’ them, accumulating resources, power, control and status for themselves (1 Sam. 8:11-14; Neh. 5:15; Eccl. 5:8-9). In this model, leadership is the privilege and ability to make things better for yourself or to push your own agenda. It is certainly not servant leadership. This pattern ‘works’ in a sense in that
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