The great design and intention of the office of a Christian preacher (is) to restore the throne and dominion of God in the souls of men. (Cotton Mather)

So, what exactly is expository preaching? Among Independent Baptists, expository preaching is greatly derided and ridiculed. Most consider it to be about two degrees north of dead. I often hear it treated as if every sermon were another episode in deep-sea diving. People fear they’ll run out of oxygen before they resurface. In general, expository preaching is thought to have the same value as a wet blanket – good at extinguishing whatever fire and vigor a church has left in it.

Haddon Robinson described preaching as “a living interaction involving God, the preacher, and the congregation.” He offered this working definition of expository preaching.

Expository preaching is the communication of a biblical concept, derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, and literary study of a passage in its context, which the Holy Spirit first applies to the personality and experience of the preacher, then through the preacher, applies to the hearers. (Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages, p. 5)

Expository preaching operates on the assumption that the Bible comes from one mind and delivers one message. Every passage of Scripture is part of God’s entire message to mankind. And every passage of Scripture contributes an essential part of that message. So, when examining any passage of the Bible, expository preaching seeks to uncover and proclaim the message a loving, heavenly Father has for His children.

Things like “zeal,” “fire,” and “passion” can be faked. Many preachers function by ranting and raving and consider yelling and screaming essential elements of the sermon. Their passion buckets are full, but their sermon mostly lacks substance. They are like a dry thunderstorm on a hot summer day – full of noise but no refreshing rain.

I’m not opposed to enthusiastic delivery, nor am I against the so-called “hard preaching” that many modern-day pulpiteers claim to deliver. But I have been subjected to more than my fair share of such sermons. I have found that they were scandalously void of any Scriptural content. And they were hard to listen to.

The preacher’s authority doesn’t come from the force of his personality. It doesn’t come from a forceful delivery. It isn’t the product of his position, pizzazz, personality, or power. The Apostle Paul described his own pulpit manner and preaching style in terms our modern ranters would despise. The Corinthians criticized him because his letters were weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible (2 Corinthians 10:10).

And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. (I Corinthians 2:1-5)

What is the preacher’s source of power? If sheer force of personality were essential, then Paul should have included bravado and moxie in his lists of pastoral qualifications. If you wish to be slated for the next camp meeting, bluff and bluster are necessary. If you want to be a pastor, your authority comes from the Word you preach. When you faithfully declare the message of Scripture – not merely a message you got from your familiarity with Scripture – you preach with authority.

That was what made Jesus unique in His day. The people marveled because He preached as one having authority and not as the scribes. In Christ’s day, the general practice was to live in Quoteville, citing this Rabbi and that authority, comparing this opinion with that opinion, and never delivering an analysis that never arrived at a conclusion. Jesus stood and declared the Word. That was the source of His authority.

And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned? Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. (John 7:15-18)

He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. (John 12:48-49)

Expository preaching strives to make God’s message known to God’s people in any given passage of Scripture. The operating principle is that God has a singular message in every passage. Every passage has one interpretation and several applications. The preacher’s work is to discover the one interpretation and build his applications from that correct interpretation. He must persuade the audience that this is what the Bible says, and this is what we must do because of what the Bible says.

He doesn’t discover this interpretation in his own thoughts or in his own heart. He doesn’t look at his experience or emotions to find that interpretation. He doesn’t ask God to give him a special word, unique to himself. He looks at the passage itself, which contains all the information he needs to get at the point of the passage. Haddon Robinson offers a helpful outline of the work of expository preaching (pp. 5-9).

• The passage governs the sermon.

• The expositor communicates a concept.

• The concept comes from the text.

• The concept is applied to the expositor.

• The concept is applied to the hearers.

The preacher may freely draw from the thoughts of others. Faithful preachers have developed many helpful resources over the past 2,000 years of church history. I would suggest that one important reason to read a few commentaries (I use commentaries from both the living and the dead) is to ensure that he hasn’t drifted into heresy or come up with a novel interpretation of the passage. In general, faithful commentaries will come to similar conclusions about the point of a passage. I don’t mind if my understanding differs from theirs in some small thing. But I avoid interpretations that jolt wildly from the stream of belief about the meaning of a passage. God’s historic churches are the pillar and ground of the truth, and I seek to honor that.

That said, we shouldn’t act as if interpretation is up in the air or a roll of the dice. God gives us a wealth of clues for discovering what He means to say. I find the following steps most helpful for getting at the meaning of a passage:

Step #1: Read for Comprehension

This isn’t the most exciting step, at least for me. I enjoy the middle step the most and am sometimes too anxious to get to it. I find that the discipline of reading a passage multiple times in a row is vital to understanding. Regardless of its length, I try to read the passage at least ten times straight through. I have to discipline myself to concentrate because my mind tends to drift. If I find my mind wandering, I return to the last place I am conscious of reading and start over there. After four or five readings, I try to look for repeated words or phrases. I take note of the middle of the passage, especially in the Old Testament. Hebrew narrative often uses chiasma to emphasize the central point of the passage. I look for bookends – parallels (like the same name or similar ideas) that bracket the passage (inclusio). I roll the passage over and over in my mind, thinking about what it emphasizes. I rehearse and summarize the stream of thought. And I read until I have a good grasp of the passage.

Step #2: Study the Details

When I feel like I have a good grasp of the point of the passage, I go into a more detailed study. This is what I do – you might find a better way. In the New Testament, I copy and paste both the English and the Greek into a Word document, and then I translate it for myself using my very helpful Logos Bible Software. My Greek vocabulary is lacking, and I need help with the verbs. After translating the passage, I review a few exegetical commentaries (Vincent, Robertson, Wuest, etc.), copy any helpful information into the same document, and highlight anything I want to remember. The key is to pay attention to the passage’s words, phrases, and unique features.

If I’m preaching through a book of the Old Testament, I typically buy an exegetical commentary. When I preached through Judges, I used Daniel Block’s commentary. While I’m preaching through 1 and 2 Samuel, I use David Tsumura’s commentary. The language of 1 and 2 Samuel is some of the most challenging Hebrew in the Old Testament, and I find that these commentaries provide helpful guidance and alert me to anything I need to be aware of.

As I preach through any passage, I try to find all the crucial details before going further. Throughout this part of the study, I regularly re-read the passage in smaller and smaller chunks. My goal is to have a solid grasp of both the big picture and the nuance of the passage.

Once I have examined the passage exegetically, I usually read an expository commentary – something a little simpler that gets to the heart of the passage. I like to get ideas from reliable sources. I have loved Dale Ralph Davis’s commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. His analysis has often helped me see the point of the passage.

I have a list of go-to commentaries, including The New Bible Commentary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, Warren Wiersbe, John Gill, and Matthew Henry. Thanks to Logos, I can search the entire collection of Spurgeon’s sermons to see if he also preached from the passage. I usually will read his introduction, as he does most of his interpretation there. I found a helpful website that has compiled a list of recommended commentaries for every book of the Bible. Tim Challies assembled this list of primarily recent commentaries, offering a nice variety of technical and reader-friendly commentaries. I usually try to order one or two commentaries off his list to use in my study.

Obviously, time constraints prevent me from reading everything possible. But before I settle on the interpretation, I like to be well read on the passage.

Whether we can be called expositors starts with our purpose and with our honest answer to the question: “Do you, as a preacher, endeavor to bend your thought to the Scriptures, or do you use the Scriptures to support your thought?” (Robinson, p. 5)

Step #3: Ask, “Why Did God Include This in the Bible?”

I don’t wait to ask this question until I have finished the first two steps. I begin asking it when I first read the passage, and the question is constantly on my mind as I study. But when I have finished my study, I focus my mind on the point of the passage. As I said earlier, God does not include anything in Scripture accidentally. He has a message for us in every passage. I’ll admit, sometimes I am flummoxed by a passage. For example, finding any practical or spiritual application in Numbers 1 can be difficult. But God has a message for us in that chapter! As Joe Friday might have said, “Your job: find it!”

When I have settled on the point God is making, I try to write that point out in a single sentence. That sentence becomes the point of my message. I then show the church why I think the passage makes the point. When I have established the point from the passage itself, I build my application from that point.

Does that sound complicated? I don’t say it is easy. But God has called us to preach His Word to His people. I am responsible for feeding the church from the Word of God. I aim to help them understand the point of the passage and how I came to it. If I preach the Bible faithfully, the church will learn to rightly divide the Word for themselves.

So much of the preaching I hear coming from IFB pulpits today is designed to create dependencies from the people. The preacher is the go-between for the people, who depend on the preacher to tell them what to think and believe. They honestly don’t know how the preacher arrived at his conclusions. They are taught to take his word for it. They depend on his interpretation and application. As a result, many don’t know what to do with the Bible for themselves.

In part, the pastor must feed the church (Acts 20:28; I Peter 5:2). But he should handle the Word of God rightly so the church learns to handle the Word for themselves. Expository preaching does this.