The Basics of Expository Preaching — Alistair Begg

Ezra Reads and Explains the Law

Now my chapter 8 and We'll read the the opening verses. When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns all the people assembled as one man in the square before the water gate.

They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded for Israel. So on the first day of the seventh month Ezra the priest Brought the law before the assembly which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand.

He read it aloud from daybreak till noon. As he faced the square before the water gate in the presence of the men the women and others who could understand. It's an interesting little phrase that isn't it and the others who could understand it's I Think it's a guide to us in terms of the way.

We structure our worship and Learn how to banish the squawking children from our midst and Encourage our our young parents to understand the same that the benefit to them of this Fledgling monster that they have on their lap is Is is not going to be peculiarly beneficial neither to them or to the other members of the congregation and You get into all kinds of difficulties with Jesus, you know.

You're like the big bad disciples that sent the children away and all that kind of stuff. But I've long since decided I'm quite happy to be a big bad disciple in that respect. Because I think that the whole point is that the nurturing of these children at their mother's breast and at the tutelage of their parents Is a unique prerogative within the home and there comes a time when they do understand for some it will be sooner than others.

But for the tiny infants, they don't understand a thing and the benefit to them is small. I you couldn't build a doctrine from here and an MIA at least I couldn't we could make an attempt at it. But it is interesting.

I think that it identifies you know is It's not a mention of Labrador dogs or something. But it was all all who could understand and all the people listened attentively to the book of the law and Ezra's that scribe Stood on a high wooden platform built for the occasion.

Beside him on his right stood this group of individuals and then Ezra opened the book and all the people could see him because he was standing above them and as he opened it the people all stood up and Ezra praised the Lord the great God and all the people lifted their hands and Responded amen and amen and they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground and the Levites.

Whose names are there instructed the people in the law? While the people were standing there and they read from the book of the law of God making it clear and giving the meaning so That the people could understand what was being read.

And now am I the governor and Ezra the priest and scribe and the Levites who? were instructing the people said to them all this day is sacred to the Lord your God do not mourn or weep for all the People have been weeping as they listened to the words of the law.

The Preacher’s Task and the Danger of Lifeless Sermons

Well, I thank God for his word. Some of us can immediately identify with that final sentence there in verse 10 all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the law. Because our people are routinely weeping as they listen to us.

Make an attempt at understanding the Bible and conveying it. What I want to do in the time that we have this morning. Which is? Now until our coffee break at 10 is is Return with you to some of the the practical things in relationship to preaching.

But before I do I want to get one matter out of hand one practical issue. That is that I discovered last evening something that was severely missing from my notes in relationship to Lloyd-jones. And his ministry one of my colleagues came to me afterwards and said that he really felt that he had the key to the Nature of Lloyd-jones is powerful preaching and that I hadn't actually fastened on to it at all and So I thanked him for the encouragement and I said well, what was it.

And what I have for you here is a recipe from Martin Lloyd-jones his wife Bethan who apparently made a very striking rock cake and With eight ounces of flour and four ounces of butter or soft margarine and granulated sugar and apparently Lloyd-jones would eat seven of these before he preached and and That somehow or another this is I think this is this must be the key.

So I'm I'm just going to give you a copy of that of of the rock cake recipe and hey guys, we might as well try it, you know, because Some of us are struggling as it is. So Take that home and your wife's this is the mrs. Jones rock cake recipe.

This is not fictitious. We didn't contrive this. This is this is the real McCoy as they say and You ought not to treat it lightly. There you go. Now to talk about preaching and that's what I want to do in this 45 minutes is to enter in where angels fear to tread in many ways.

I want to Acknowledge the wisdom of John Wilmer who was the Earl of Rochester in the 17th century in England. Who said before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children now I have six children and no theories and Those of us who have preached for any length of time I think and identify with that when it comes to the matter of preaching the more we go from Sunday to Sunday The less we feel we know and Certainly, there is no harder place to be than this place this morning when in the company of my peers.

I Have to as it were Acknowledge before you my own peculiar challenges in relationship to these things. Let me begin by just saying and a number of things concerning the task of preaching itself and expository preaching in particular I think that one of the reasons for the disinterest in Expository preaching and we alluded to this last evening when I was talking about young Seminarians coming out of their studies and not actually doing the hard work of getting down to the text of Scripture one of the reasons for disinterest on the part of those who would have the responsibility as well as on the part of those who would listen is Surely and sadly that so many attempts at it proved to be so horribly Lifeless and dull and in many cases thoroughly boring.

In other words, there is in many senses a legitimate ground as to why it is that people say I don't like preaching because so much of the preaching is poor and We have to acknowledge that we are the preachers and Therefore if the cap fits we must wear it.

Surely we amaze ourselves By our ingenuity when we're able to take the text of Scripture, which is life-changing which is sharper than a two-edged sword and Communicate it in such an ineffectual fashion to do so with all the kind of passion that you would expect from somebody reading aloud from the yellow pages and Our congregation sit and say well if that is as much as he is Energized by it then it's small surprise that I find myself Sitting here wishing there were a window out of which I'd be able to look.

Now Calvin in contrast to that said that in preaching God deigns to consecrate the mouths and tongues of men to his service Making his own voice to be heard in them Whenever God is pleased to bless their labor.

He makes their doctrine efficacious by the power of his spirit and the voice Which is in itself mortal is made an instrument to communicate eternal life. The voice which is itself mortal is made an instrument to communicate eternal life that of course Establishes the immeasurable significance of the preacher's task and it does at the same time provide an antidote to any potential for pride.

Because the expositor is God's servant submitting to and proclaiming God's Word. Again Calvin, I'm not going to quote him a lot this morning. But perhaps this is my only other time. Calvin in his commentary on Ephesians says it is certain that if we come to church We shall not only hear a mortal man speaking.

But we shall feel even by his secret power that God is speaking to our souls. That he is the teacher. He so touches us that the human voice enters into us and so profits us. That we are refreshed and nourished by it.

God calls us to him as if he had his mouth open and We saw him there in person. I Think you'd have to say that the average Member of our congregations doesn't come to the preaching of the Word of God with that kind of picture in mind but rather they come to sit back and relax and enjoy the show and give points for length points for humor points for a structure essentially just to give points and Then on their way home and they will adjudicate over lunchtime as to how well we scored on the unwritten list that they keep in The back of their minds.

So we really need to pray desperately hard that God will break into our congregations to the extent that that may be the case and That God will show himself so strong by his word by his spirit that it will become apparent to ourselves.

And to our people that what is taking place here is something of a supernatural origin. And it is that which has a supernatural Impact, but we're gonna have to labor hard if we're going to get to this position.

Expository Preaching Begins with the Biblical Text

What is expository preaching? Where does expository preaching begin? What would make a man an expositor? Well, first of all expository preaching quite simply is preaching which begins with the text of Scripture.

That's so obvious that it hardly needs to be said and yet I think it does need to be said. It doesn't mean that every sermon that we preach begins with the phrase Please turn in your Bible to such-and-such a passage.

Although that is a very good discipline for us is a discipline for us as preachers to remind ourselves. That what we're going to do needs to begin with the text to this. So to the extent that it is helpful to you I would be quite happy to have 90 of my sermons begin in that way.

But whether we begin by saying my text is this or the passage is this or please turn in the Bible to this. It does mean that whatever our point of departure for the beginning of our message. Whether it is a current event whether it is the lyric of a song whether it is some contemporary issue that is before the congregation.

It immediately is clear to our people that it is the text of Scripture. Which is establishing the agenda of the sermon it is the text of Scripture. Which is establishing the agenda of the sermon it is not that the Expositor starts with a great idea or a wonderful illustration and then begins to search for an appropriate passage.

But rather that they start with Scripture itself and that the Scripture itself the verses under consideration. Establish for us and frame the content of what we are conveying. That's why John Staunch says it is our conviction that all true Christian preaching is expository preaching.

And I think we're immediately on the wrong track and this happens in seminaries all the time here in the States. Because they teach it in this way. We're on the wrong track when we think of expository preaching as a preaching style.

Which you can choose from a list topical devotional evangelistic textual apologetic prophetic Expository choose one from the above and make it your style. I Would argue not at all that Expositional preaching needs to be the standard of preaching.

Whatever whether our emphasis is devotional or whatever else it may be. So that we are always anchored with our people to seeing the text of Scripture. Establishing both the framework and the content of what is being said.

Roy Clements for whom we continue to pray Rightly says expository preaching is not to rest at all. In fact, the only step which touches us in going to expository preaching is hateful. For example, it is actually written or spoken.

First of all, expository preaching is the method by which the preacher decides what to say. Not how to say it. That's a very interesting distinction. But when we grasp that then we realize that expository preaching is not then simply a running commentary on a passage of Scripture.

But that's in the minds of many people. Well, that's the reason I don't do expository preaching. I know what expository preaching is. It's just a running commentary. You say now we're at verse 11 and this is what verse 11 says now Lucas verse 12.

Now we go to verse 13. And that has been held up as a standard model of expository preaching. You will not find that as the standard of expository preaching in the UK. Although you may find it here in the United States and we're not going to get into Intercontinental wars over the issue.

But I'm just saying that if you listen for example to a variety of preachers and many from the UK you will find that their approach to exposition Has has a far more Comprehensive line to it than what has really been presented from a variety of schools what I would call just a sort of a Bible study method that can really been done by just about anybody who can read English and Who can turn to? any kind of Textual commentary and so anybody can do that kind of thing they can say.

I was studying this week and I found out this about verse 11 and I continue my studies and I found out this about verse 12. And if you look now at verse 13, I found out this about verse 13. Well that exposition.

Well, you say well no, it's not it's just gets a little higher in his voice, you see no that's not. Or more passionate. No it remains what it is and the distinction in the minds of people and The kind of questions that you get at seminaries and in conferences like this about what is actually happening in exposition and I say to you again that a certain model has been held up here and that is the model and Any deviation from that is something other than exposition.

But if you go to the preaching of if you go to the preaching of Eric Langer if you go to the preaching of Sinclair Fulton. If you go to the preaching of Roy Clancy, if you go to the preaching of Richard Kerr at Redeemers Rehabilitation in New York.

You are not going to find that thing. Now the question is are these men engaging in exposition? You see exposition begins with the text of Scripture. It begins by our determining what is going to happen here in this it is not a style.

It's possible to preach exegetically without preaching expositionally. Because exposition must inevitably answer the so what question in the listeners mind. It is Expositionary preaching which is encouraging the listener listener to understand why a first century letter to a church in Corinth is relevant to a 21st century congregation living in Cleveland.

Because exposition then is not going to leave the listener mystified at the way in which the preacher was dealing with the text but exposition is going to fuse the horizons of the world in which the individual is living with the world out of which the scriptures are coming and When we engage in this then we of course face two particular dangers.

The assumption that the message is irrelevant on the part of our listeners. People are sitting out there saying this is irrelevant. This is a religious man giving a religious talk. I'm a 21st century man.

I've been dragged in here and frankly I don't have much interest in this at all. Whatever. He has to say however stem steamed up. He is about it. It's pretty well irrelevant and therefore as preachers We have to work hard to ensure that we're not simply doing good exegesis.

Helping the listener to understand the meaning of the text, but that we're also laboring to establish its relevance to the listeners personal world. So for example, we may teach on the doctrine of the incarnation.

And we mustn't contend ourselves simply by ensuring that the listeners have grasped the instruction. We will at least have to point out the implications of the great principle of incarnational mission.

There by establishing the rate link so allows the preacher to say something along the lines of the ministry of Jesus was one of Involvement not detachment and therefore we must face the fact with that.

We cannot minister to a lost world if we're not in it. You see we can deal with the incarnation is just a doctrine over here that God appeared. And we've been faithful to the Didactic material, of course, the twin danger is that people are sitting out listening to us believing that the Message is immediately relevant and they're sitting out there wanting us to move immediately to application.

They want to know what this means to them. And the pressure that can grip a preacher in relationship to that is the pressure which rushes us to personalize the text. To be very very quick to say to people, you know, I know that you think this is irrelevant.

But let me show you how relevant it really is and in seeing they get to relevance to overcome the possibility of irrelevance. We actually render ourselves totally irrelevant because we fail to do the kind of exegesis that is necessary to show them Why it is relevant.

In other words before they begin to say what this means to me. We have to say to them what this means. Now one of Dick Lucas's wonderful statements, he's talking about evangelistic preaching. He says to the people.

Yes Jesus. Yes, we do need to tell Jesus people that Jesus will come into their hearts. But we first of all need to tell them that Jesus Christ Came to die for their sins. So concerned to tell you about Jesus coming into your heart today that we missed the whole foundation upon which it is built.

Now there are a number of things that I think will help us in relationship to Engaging in this task and for those of you who would like to have more of this Material you can you can get it in the little booklet that I did when I tried to Understand the nature of the task for myself.

It's not particularly good, but it's at least a start. Now what I want to do is is move into dreadfully dangerous territory which I did once on the last occasion and said I'd never do it again, but I may as well and This allows me to just show my multi faceted talents not least of all with the art and I can hardly wait to help you to to see these things.

But anyway, let me let me first of all acknowledge something that I've done before and I want to do it again and That is that 1984 I came here in 1983 I had been for two years an assistant in Edinburgh for six years in a church of my own.

I had gone to the church on my own. I began in the book of Philippians With verse 1 and I kept going to the end. It's a fairly arduous journey but I knew that it only had four chapters and thought that I Would be hard-pressed to kill the congregation with four chapters and also that I'd read somewhere that it was the epistle of joy and so maybe they would be quite joyful as I did it and That became the pattern for how I did things when I came here to the States in 83 and Was given the responsibilities in this congregation.

I was delighted to discover that this gentleman Dick Lucas was about to appear in Charlottesville, Virginia and that he was going to give a conference which I think was entitled speaking by listening and So I said to my elders that I'd like to go to this conference and they very quickly shipped me off.

They said do you think it'll help you to preach? I said, yes, they said well then go immediately and and stay stay for as long as you like and So I went down there to skip Ryan's church skip is now in the Presbyterian Church in Dallas Park City's Presbyterian Church in Dallas at that time.

He was down in Charlottesville Charlottesville and I went down there and Encountered dick and also Steve Bickley who just is our most recent member of our pastoral team and that those two days Were the most Instructive helpful beneficial days in terms of just Getting to grips with opening up my eyes to the immensity of teaching the Bible and the wonder of what it is that I've never had two days better than those two days in Charlottesville since.

And I've actually never really moved away from the lessons that I tried to discover there and learn Some of the lessons that I mentioned to those of you who were here last time I come back to them with you without any apology whatsoever.

Because the refresher element of things is so important when the Pilot goes to the simulator down in Atlanta or wherever else it is. They don't teach him. You know how to do kami kamikaze, you know dive bombing Approaches to Chicago O 'Hare.

They if he wants to do that on his own time, that's up to him. But what they're seeking to do is say now we want to make sure that you can make this approach into National Airport in DC. We want to make sure that you can do it under these conditions and under these conditions and under these conditions and they simply go back down the same road again and again and again and I find myself having to go back to this again and again and again and so these lessons are essentially what we might refer to as lessons from Lucas and This gentleman who is over on the other side of the pond at the moment and always says that he's too old ever to come Back, I hope we can get him back next year and actually have him at our conference.

So that you could have the real thing for at least a couple of sessions and then you would realize why I'm so intrigued by Him, but what I want to do is acknowledge Some of these things and just work through a couple of them with you in the time that we have and I'm going to bounce Around and hopefully the benefit of this will be when we come back to it In in our next session when we can talk perhaps about these things.

Listening to Scripture Before Speaking

Mark chapter 7 is often where He begins and I want just to turn you there for a moment mark chapter 7 and verse 35. It's the story of the healing of a deaf and mute man. You remember it Jesus takes the man aside away from the crowd in verse 33.

He put his fingers into the man's ears. He spat and touched the man's tongue. He looked up to heaven with a deep sigh said to him if Fatha Which means be opened and at this the man's ears were opened his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

Of course, this is an actual healing miracle that took place. On that occasion when I went down there Dick said it is also something of a paradigm and a parable. For all who would become preachers of the Bible.

But it because until our ears are opened and we learn to listen To what the text of Scripture is actually saying. We are a danger to ourselves and others when we begin to speak. And he said one of the reasons that we are so ineffectual in our speaking is because we're so poor in our listening.

National Public Radio this morning as I was driving here had an amazing statistic. It said that in their analysis and I don't know quite how they do these things. But it said in their analysis of the United States of America.

They have found that 50 of the population never read anything. Nothing. Neither a magazine nor a newspaper and certainly not a book. Somebody was telling me about a pastor the other day who is in a very very large church here in America.

They said that his preaching had begun to go south. Now that he was becoming a heretic, but it just was no good and in seeking for an explanation somebody said essentially he's just stopped listening.

He's just stopped listening. He's not listening to what Jesus has to say in the Bible. Unless we learn to listen carefully to what the Spirit is saying to us in the text of Scripture. Then it really is quite obnoxious of us to think that we can stand up with loosened tongues and begin to speak plainly to people.

So the task of the expositor is to be speaking by listening and In doing so we're bringing the Bible to bear upon our congregation. We're bringing the text before them in such a way that they are Confronted by it and that they realize that this Bible is important and it's worthy of consideration.

Frameworks Must Serve Rather Than Dominate the Text

And that some of you will remember from last time allowed me to share a Dick's Wonderful artwork with the large F and the small T and You may remember this some who were here those of you who were not will just marvel as they did last year at the wonder of this artwork and its implications.

Sometimes I use two colors, but this morning I just use the one and F as simply stands for framework framework and T stands for text. All of us have frameworks. It's inevitable. There is a way of thinking about things.

We all think about things. We have systematic structures and we have Influences and and frameworks from all kinds of places and we are thankful for those. But if the framework so predominates our thinking.

Then what will happen is that the framework will dominate the text of Scripture and indeed When we don't really know what we're doing with the text of Scripture. Our congregations will find that we're always reverting to our framework.

So for example, if you know your big thing is your view of the world is that there's far too much rock music and and The answer to banishing that is the return of Jesus Christ in power and great glory.

Then the fact of the matter is no matter what passage you're preaching from you will almost inevitably find yourself saying and that's the problem with the rock music as I mentioned last week and. Of course the answer to that as I told you for the last 51 Sundays is this wonderful glorious return of Jesus and glory.

And so the people are going out saying he's very concerned about rock music and the return of Jesus and glory. Yes, but what about the fact that he was actually studying Mark chapter 7? Oh, that's by the way, that's by the way.

He's not an expositor. He just launches off into oblivion. Now there are peculiar dangers to it. Campbell Morgan tells a wonderful story and I've told you it before of the guy who was a Baptist with a big B and he was you know, he couldn't get away from the fact of baptism and He was preaching one Sunday morning from Genesis on Adam where art thou and I don't I can't even find it in my notes anymore.

But he is essentially his points were a number one where Adam was number two how Adam got there number three how God was seeking him and number four a few words on the subject of baptism and. And. But actually the more the more damaging aspect of it the more damaging aspect of it is.

Especially when it when the framework emerges from systematics if we allow a framework To so dominate our approach to the Bible. We will tend to preach what I would refer to as propositional paraphrase sermons.

And it will become possible for us to preach essentially the same sermon from any place in the Bible. And. What happens is that the text of Scripture is not? Engaged with by the preacher therefore not by the congregation.

There's very little sensitivity To the to the literary genre of the material whether it is apocalyptic or whether it is poetic. Whether it is narrative or whether it is parable all of these elements which are crucial elements then become flattened out to the prosaic level of a theology textbook and.

Then no attempt is made to give any credence or to do any justice to the lyrical or to the dramatic or to the ironic elements of the text. And. If gentlemen we find ourselves essentially just preaching the same way whether we're preaching through the narratives of the acts.

Whether we're preaching through the Studies in an Old Testament character like Joseph. Whether we're coming for example to the 13th Psalm. How long will you forget me O Lord forever? How long will I have sorrow in my heart every day?

How long am I in this dreadful mess if we find that we're able to move through all of these genres and our sermons just come? Out the exact same way because of a framework from which we're coming in which we bring to it.

Then we're doing a disservice to the text and we're doing a huge disservice to the members of our congregation. Part of it has to do with observation observation. Looking at the text in a way that helps us to understand that we don't understand.

The greatest danger we face is believing that we understand before we do. Whoever our favorite commentators are whether it's Warren Weir's be for a quick Wednesday evening Bible study or whether it is the MacArthur commentary series with all of the wealth of that exegesis or whatever it might be if we go Immediately there or if we have imbibed that kind of material then the chances are that we will never be free enough to look at the come to look at the text of Scripture and say what's here and.

The trouble is that when we come to it saying we know what's here. They're very little excitement in it for ourselves. There's very little discovery in it for ourselves. And so our congregation feel none of the excitement and none of the discovery.

How could there there hasn't been any? We're simply trotting it out trotting it out. So for example, let's just illustrate this from Acts chapter 10 would turn to something to. Again this is one of Dick's favorites.

He like he's got a few of these all through the Bible, but I chapter 10 I don't know how he finds them all. Verse 42. This is Peter at Cornelius's house, and he's speaking Verse 41. Jesus was not seen by all the people but by witnesses whom God had already chosen.

By us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. This is akin to what we're seeing yesterday to Peter again. We are eyewitnesses of these things now note verse 42 he commanded us to preach to the people and.

To testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.

Now we want to have a good look at this. Notice how the emphasis is on the he and the him first of all he commanded us. That he is the one and All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness in his name.

So first of all, there's a very crystal centric Peter is talking here about Jesus. It's the he he him him him. As opposed to the me me me and the my my my and my little insight and so on. No, this is so clearly Peter is saying now what we have here is Jesus, but the remarkable thing is this.

That he commanded us to preach to the people. Why do you preach. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify. Notice that he is the one whom God appointed as judge. Wow. He gave to the Apostles a message of judgment.

We might even miss that unless we're looking and. And when we think in terms of the way in which we speak evangelistically and I can almost hear dick saying this now. He said, you know if you say to the average young people now, we would like you to come along This evening and we're gonna have a wonderful time and we'd like you to come and meet Jesus.

Only if you'd like to of course if you'd like to meet Jesus Jesus. We'll be making Jesus known and and there's a possibility that you may actually meet him. Show up if you'd like and we'll be glad to talk with you.

That's not what the message was that was given to the Apostles. Their message was not an appeal to come and meet Jesus. The message was a statement of fact. And thank you for coming out this evening. We want you to know that you're going to be meeting Jesus.

You're going to meet Jesus. There's no question about this young people. You're going to meet Jesus. He has actually entrusted us with a message for you, which is that he is going to judge. He will separate the sheep from the goats.

You're going to meet him and the good news is That he has sent us to tell you that you may meet him now as your Savior rather than face him one day as your judge. Now you see observation of what is happening here in the apostolic pattern then corrects faulty exegesis and faulty application.

And one of the reasons for the absence of authority in so much of our preaching is that we begin. From this kind of soft position following on from that. Go to Romans chapter 1. And this is something that again was a tremendous help to me and I and I hope it is to you in this word of reminder now.

The Melodic Line of a Biblical Book

It's what? Dick would refer to as getting the melodic line. Getting the melodic line. For example, you have a piano over here and you can. I don't even know if it's open. Yes, it is. But if we could have.

We could have somebody come and go first and said well, thank you very much for that. What was that? Well, it was it was some notes from from a very wonderful hymn. I Say well, thank you for sharing them.

It hasn't really made much of an impact on me at all. I'm not just sure how it all fits. Well, it actually goes in Luke's gospel and we're in chapter 14 and we come to verse 6 or whatever else it is. They say this is verse 6 and I'd like to talk to you about verse 6.

This is an F and I'd like to play it for you. This is a B flat and I'd like to pay it play it for you. We can do that and Our congregations go through our studies. They've got no concept at all of how anything fits together or why God has put it together in that way.

Oh, we're being very faithful in explaining what verse 6 means. But the chances are that we ourselves are in danger of missing the whole melodic line. By not standing back far enough from the text to discover what it is that is taking place here.

For example Romans, what is the book of Romans about Romans is a compendium of theology. That's what everybody says, isn't it? Romans is the great theological treatise of Paul that Paul wrote Romans to establish Theology the doctrine of justification by faith.