Episode 17: Nuts and Bolts of Expositional Preaching

The Rural Church Podcast. Two point up. Just a couple of pastors discussing life, ministry, theology, and the gospel from a local church perspective. Eddie, what's it time for? The Rural Church Podcast.

The Rural Church Podcast, episode 17. Eddie and I continue our discussion here about preaching through Ephesians. Then we talk about preaching through other things in the church like confessions of faith and such.

Hope you enjoy this episode of the Rural Church.

Podcast. So now you're in Ephesians chapter 5, right? Yeah. When you're working through a text like Ephesians chapter 5, you said you're in verse 3 or 4? 6. So in the actual preaching this coming Sunday, how much of that text will you read?

Will you just read the verse or will.

You read a larger section? I don't know yet. Last week, and this usually kind of happens, but last week I preached 3 through 6. Now we're coming back and we're looking at verse 6. I'm not sure. Sometimes I'll just read verse 6.

Sometimes I might reread 3 through 6, but I will make mention this is in the context. That's one of the hard things about preaching so many sermons is you got to make sure like, okay, this is in the book of Ephesians, but this is in a context here, a pericope as it were, of what Paul is making this point here.

So I just finished like really basically Ephesians 4, let's see verse 25 through 5, 2 is kind of a section. And so really last week I kind of transitioned out of that section into a new section. And so I kind of gave that sermon and now I'm going to go back and do verse 6.

And then I'm actually going to go back to verse 4 the next week, because it's going to be right before Thanksgiving and verse 4 at the end says, let there be Thanksgiving. And I'm just going to, I'm going to, I'm going to talk about that and kind of hone it.

So usually what I end up doing is at some point preaching the entire pericope and kind of walking through the big points. And then I go back and like tackle some things. However, sometimes I don't preach the one message on the entire pericope, but I just, in each message I end up saying, remember, this is part of this section.

This is part of this section. This is part of this section. So do you ever,.

When you're preaching through a book, have something in that book that actually takes you somewhere else in the scripture and you really basically preach a message on another, what is basically another passage of scripture as it relates to the book that you're preaching through?

I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. This last week, as I was preparing to preach my sermon from Jonah, I almost just went ahead and preached one message from Matthew 12, where Jesus talks about the sign of Jonah.

And I would have, except for I'd really dealt with that when Jesus does it in Luke, when I'd preached through Luke. And so I went ahead and didn't do that. But had I not done that back when I went through Luke, I probably would have just took Jonah 1 .17 and used that to go over to Matthew and then just preach Matthew 12.

I probably would.

Have done that. That happens. When I was preaching through Ruth, my first message was in the time period of the judges. And I didn't even preach. I really didn't preach Ruth 1 .1 other than I just said, this is the time period of the judges.

What's the judges? And then I preached a message from the book of judges. When we were in Ephesians, is it chapter three, where it talks about they were strangers to the covenants of promise. I preached maybe 3 .12.

I preached a message called Baptist covenant theology. And we just walked through that. This week, this coming week, we're talking about the wrath of God come because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

You notice that that is in the present. The wrath of God comes rather than the wrath of God will come. Well, I do think it's a future. I do think it's primarily a future thing. However, however, there's another place that Paul talks about the wrath of God presently, which is where Romans one, you know, and so there will be a portion in this sermon that I will actually go to Romans one, I'll read Romans one, 18 through 32.

And, you know, you could almost preach, just preach a message from that, you know, but, but I think sometimes that is warranted, you know, and that's what I mean, Eddie, when I say preaching expositional sermons, well, is going to give our people the full counsel of the word of God.

Right. And let's,.

Let's be clear. Exposition isn't only when we're preaching through a book of the Bible. I would, I would argue that, you know, I mentioned it may have been in last week's podcast, the two podcasts are running together a little bit, but I mentioned that, you know, August and September, I preached to kind of a series of sermons through some subjects that I thought our church needed to hear.

I would argue that all of those messages were expositions. I went to a text that dealt with what we were talking about, and we, we, it was still an exposition of a text, even though it wasn't, you know, a whole book or whatever.

And so with that being said, can you, would you like to just talk a little bit about preaching expositionally, even when you're dealing with a topic like Baptist covenant theology?

Yes. Expositional preaching, if I could just put it this way is you're preaching what the Bible says, you know, and so there is a way even for, to preach topically expositionally in the sense that you're trying to faithfully exposit the grand narrative of the Bible or, you know, even systematic, like I'm going to preach today.

I'm going to, you know, let's say you're going, it's, it's October and you're going to have a five sermons on the five solas, you know, and you can actually preach those faithfully expositionally, maybe from one text or even multiple texts, you know, because you're just trying to exposit what the Bible teaches, you know.

And so when we went through the Baptist covenant theology, I just went to the texts that dealt with the covenants in the scripture. And, and in the course, we talked about the two overarching covenants, the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.

And anyway, how Paul saying you Gentiles, you're brought in now, you're brought in to, to this one body, you know. So the point is that topical is not always bad. And even within a series, sometimes topical can be necessary.

You know, I think some guys, I think some guys are probably too rigid about that. I do think that there's mistakes, but you know, the point is we're trying to feed our people what God's word has said.

We have a book. We want the people to know God. They know God through the, the preaching of his word, the faithful exposition of the scriptures. I think the main stay died of a church ought to be preaching through books of the Bible, but there are seasons and times that we, we want to look at topics that we need to address,.

You know, those sorts of things. And outside of the Sunday morning meeting, you know, like you mentioned, it's not like that's the only time we're teaching. Right. Hopefully not. Right. Hopefully not.

So so for example, in our church, you know, every Sunday morning, we read a catechism question out of Baptist catechism. It's in, it's printed in our bulletin. It's read in the Sunday morning service on Wednesday night.

I cover that catechism question in our adult Bible study. So that's a great idea. So the, the, whatever question we're, so right now we're working through the questions on the 10 commandments. That's where we're at.

But so, so that's, but therein lies a, a person might say, well, it's not exposition on going to catechism. Well, yeah, but we're, we're going to the scripture, you know, that's what I'm doing. And oftentimes I've found for me, instead of trying to work through every different scripture reference, the catechism gives, I'll pick out the best one or two of those passages.

And we'll really focus on those as we're considering the catechism question. With that being said, maybe you could give some tips as to the way you teach through other, like when you're teaching through the confession of faith, the 1689 Baptist faith and message, whatever, how that you apply and, and really get into the scripture from a document like that, a confession of faith or some other texts.

Well, what's going.

On with a confession of faith is it is you're going backwards. The, what I mean is a confession of faith is an exposition as it were, and you're going back now and you're showing, it's like a, you know, it's like the teacher, remember when you were growing up and the teacher, like you gave the answer for the math problem.

And she was like, no, no, no, that's not good enough. Cause you could just guess and get it right. Yeah. Like show your work. Right, right, right. So you're like, uh, 14. Well, that's right. But I need to know, I need to see that you understand how we got here.

And, and so that's what you're doing with those sorts of things. Like this is right, but I don't need you to just confess this. I don't need you to just say, you know, I believe in the Trinity. That's important.

Okay. But I also need you to see how you, we got there from the scriptures. And so that's kind of when you're teaching through those things, that's kind of what you're doing. And then the other thing happens too, sometimes.

So sometimes I've been preaching, preaching through or teaching through a book of the Bible. And we get to a portion that is a main text, say for, for the confession or something. And then you might run off into that and talk about that for a little bit.

For example, we're in Exodus 19 right now on Sunday nights. And that's where God is preparing the people, you know, he says there's limits, there's limits to coming to meet, you know, cause I'm about to give this covenant with Moses and, and you can't come near the mountain, you'll die, you know?

So God sets limits on how his people approach him. And so I've taken that and talk, I'm actually talking about the regulative principle of worship, you know, how, how God actually limits the way that we worship him by his revealed will.

You know, and so, so sometimes it's going both ways, you know, that's, that's not what I always do, you know, but, but sometimes you come up on things like that, that I think are important. And for our churches, you know, like worship is a thing, it's at this time, it's, it's something that we need to address and look at and consider.

And so it all just kind of, kind of fits in.

Together. Yeah. And, you know, I, I, I teach every week, we have a, we have a recovery ministry, a women's recovery facility here in Marshall that I'm the, I'm a chaplain and, and I'm one of the teachers there.

And so I teach through the statement of faith. We have a statement of faith that everybody has to agree to that's part of the program and stuff. And so I teach through the statement of faith every week.

Well, one, the women are in the program for a year. So I've got a year with them and I've got two to two and a half hours every week. So I'm in no hurry. So we go through every verse attached to every article in the statement of faith, but that's kind of because I've just got so much time.

And if it takes us, well, we just finished last, last week, we finished going through the article on the, on the person of the Holy Spirit. Well, we spent like five or six weeks just going through the article on the person of the Holy Spirit.

Yeah. This is what this is saying and why. Right. Because we were able to walk through so many texts of scripture. And so I think sometimes you're setting to it's, man, it's okay to slow down and take some time and really, and especially in those teaching sessions where it's not, you know, where it's maybe a little more dialogical and people can ask questions, man, it's so fruitful when you can really take your time.

And so I think sometimes in the, depending on how a church does their meetings, but if it's a Sunday school or a Wednesday evening session, it's okay to not make it through everything that night. If you, if you, if you get into fruitful discussion about what the scriptures are teaching.

I hear what you're saying. I'm,.

I'm sorry to, I'm preaching through Ephesians too quickly. You're saying it's okay to go slow.

That's right, man. Slow down, slow down. What are you going so fast for?

Thank you for that word, brother. Cause last week I did preach four verses and I had some comments from some guys wondering what was going on. Am I okay? You know, is everything, everything good? You're going to cover four verses.

I think covering, I think covering these statements, you know, as Baptists historically, we're really bad about, we're really bad about not understanding our history, you know? And so I think it's important to understand, even if your church, which right now our church, we currently confess the Baptist faith and message 2000, and we actually haven't started the 1689 yet.

I'm actually just from, with everything that's kind of gone on, we're probably going to start in January, maybe mid January or something. It's hard to start, you know, January 1st being on a Sunday this year.

So I'll probably not going to start like the first or second week. It's, it's just hard. People still operate no matter what age they are. People still kind of operate around the semester system, you know?

And, and so I'll probably maybe mid January, but the point is, even if your church is a Baptist faith and message 2000, like, I think it's worthwhile walking through these things. Like this is what this statement says.

This is what we believe. And those things can answer a lot of questions. It's why you need a good confession of faith. Those things can answer a lot of questions that you might have, or that you might want to talk about.

It's like, but it's already, it's already answered. You're right. For example, for example, let's talk about the SBC for a second. You say, well, we want to bring this lady on as pastor of children. Can we do that?

Well, you can, if you're a Saddleback, right? If you look at the Baptist faith, the message 2000, you're like, guys, we don't even have to debate this. We are, this is already, it's already there. Only qualified men are called.

So boom, we're done. But anyway, it should be, these kinds of things should be much more helpful and it's worthwhile. It's worthwhile walking through these things and doing an exposition of these things as well.

And by the way, even something you might not agree with, certain historical documents that you might not agree with everything, you know, could still be helpful to walk through and discuss because you're saying, this is what brothers and sisters from times past have said or confessed.

And this is why they said it. And maybe there's some areas that we agree with here. And for example, I went through the Apostles Creed one time, you know, and we confess and agree with the Apostles Creed, but we got to that portion about Jesus descending into hell.

And I know that there's a lot of, but I just said, look, we just, we don't, the way that we've taught it to our children, we just leave it out because it's just, you know, and I know some people would want to, you know, maybe excommunicate me for that, but I'm just saying it, it's not the scriptures.

And it's, it's so, it's just overall something that we've decided in prudence to dismiss,.

You know, but anyway. Well, you know, me and my sons are reading a biography of Luther and I should have probably looked it over a little better before I started reading it with them. And maybe I should just not be so stubborn and, and release them from the, how difficult this is, but this, it's a really small little biography, but it is, it is on about a master's level.

So I feel bad for them. Your kids are real smart. It's pretty, it's pretty tough slog, but, but we were reading the other day and Luther was there talking about teaching his children and he, and he, he pointed out three things and, you know, it just, it just points out honestly, how much we need greater biblical and even religious Christian education in the lives of the average Christian, because he spoke of three different things that, that he, he was teaching his children that people needed to know the 10 commandments, the apostles' creed and the Lord's prayer.

And I, and I, and I thought how, I mean, what a percentage of Christians, professing Christians wouldn't know those, just those, just those. Not children, not children. No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about adults, adults that wouldn't know the 10 commandments, especially in order, the Lord's prayer and the apostles' creed.

And even if a person wanted to say, well, you don't have to, the apostles' creed is not the Bible. Okay. Even if we just went the Lord's prayer, the 10 commandments in order, I think you, you would be hard pressed to find a majority.

And, and so the, the value of what we might think is simplistic, but you're, if, if you know those three things, you're probably more well educated. And if you know those three things and you're sitting under regular expository preaching, you're probably in the top, top, top percent.

Of Christians. It's just sad of how biblically, you know, and historically just lazy and ignorant, so many professing Christians are, you know, and then you try to press these things and sometimes you're, you're just like a, a real, a real radical, but I tell you, brother, I think that, I think it's time to land the plane.

What do you think? Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I can't see.

On my end, the clock, but it feels like we've been going for a little while. It's a two-part.

Episode actually. So grateful that you've joined us and we hope that you are ready. You're by now, your Christmas tree ought to be up. And so yeah, you ought to be listening to Christmas music.

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