Myths of Preaching to the Next Generation, part 4

One "rule" for bloggers is that you have a clearly defined group whom you think are reading the blog. I can't decide which of two groups I am trying to address in this blog: 1. Summit people, who make up part of the dynamic, thriving body of Christ in RDU; 2. Other Christian leaders. Both are very important to me.

These "myths" hopefully will explain to group "1" some of my own strategy in the teaching ministry of our church; and for group "2," it will hopefully provoke some of your own thoughts.

Myth #4: "Expository" Preaching Ensures That You are Preaching the Gospel.

For years I have heard by conscientious devotees of the Bible that the only "real" preaching is "expository" preaching--meaning that you work systematically through books of the Bible verse-by-verse. The reason? Every word of the Bible is God's Word, and since as preachers we are commissioned to "preach the Word" (2 Tim 4:2), so preaching verse by verse is, by definition, the way to do it. To do so ensures you are fulfilling Paul's charge to Timothy. Or so the argument goes.

I do not wish to address the question of whether "verse by verse" exposition is the best way of preaching the Word. I wish to challenge the idea that preaching that way ensures that you are "preaching the Word" as Paul meant it.

You see, our mission as preacher-teachers was most clearly stated by Jesus when he commissioned His disciples to "preach the Gospel." The Gospel is the point of the Bible, and thus, the point of preaching. In fact, when Paul exhorts Timothy to "preach the Word," he  did not have in mind all the verses of the 66 books of the Bible when he said "the Word." All 66 books had not even been written yet! Precisely, "the Word" for Paul meant "the kerygma" or the message of the Gospel (Cf. 1 Cor 15:2-4).

Again, this is not to dispute that verse by verse teaching is certainly not a way, perhaps the best way, to accomplish that. It simply means that having "preached verse by verse" through a passage does not mean that you have, by definition, necessarily preached "the Word," i.e. "the Gospel."

You say, "How could expository preaching not necessarily be Gospel-centered preaching? How could you preach verse-by verse and not preach the point of the Bible?" Very easily. I know. I've done it numerous times! There are two qualities often found in expository preaching that disqualify it from being Gospel-centered preaching. They are:

Moralism: Many "expository" sermons simply do not deal with the idols of the heart or the functional Saviors which control behavior. They thus do not point people back to the Gospel and the power of God as the only solution. I have waxed elephants on this point enough in myths 1-3, so I won't belabor it again here. Just suffice it to say that I have heard a number of meticulous expository sermons which left me with examples to emulate ("Be like Moses and trust God and don't lash out in anger") but never pointed me to the Rock from which the healing water flowed and to which all the stories of the Old Testament were to point us (1 Cor 10; 2 Tim 3:14). The Gospel is not only the "ABC's" of Christianity, but the "A-Z" of Christianity. The Gospel is not the diving board that launches us into the pool of Christian living, but the water itself. As Charles Spurgeon said, in any topic you preach you must plow a trough back to the cross from which the power to heal and change really flows. I have heard far too many (and preached myself far too many!) expository sermons that failed on just this point.

Me-centered: Much expository preaching treats the Biblical stories as if they are all about me. Their main point is to tell me how I should be able to see myself in so-and-so biblical character's life and thus see what God wants to do in my life... or look at so-and-so's behavior and see what I am supposed to do.

But Jesus said in John 5:38-39 that the whole Bible was really about Him, not us. That means if I preach the main point of a passage as being something about my life, I have still missed the main point. Bible passages are not intended, primarily, to fill in some missing piece in the story of my life, but to show me that I must rewrite my story in terms of God's story. The Bible was not primarily intended to explain to me what I should do for God, but to point me what God was doing for me in  Christ.

For example, in most of the bazillion sermons I've heard on David and Goliath, the application went something like, "And see, you too have giants in your life. And, through the power of God, you can knock them down like David did!"

But what if the main point about David was not about how we are to defeat giants like David did? What if we emphasized, instead, that David was a young Jew, hated by his brothers, who went out and defeated a giant who had completely immobilized Israel, and through his victory all of Israel was saved, even though they didn’t lift a finger to help David! All Israel all shared in his victory. In this way, David was pointing us to Jesus. And because Jesus, the "greater David," has conquered the "giant" of my separation from God, I don’t worry about other giants.

It is then that we could move properly to the application to defeating the giants in my life, for no longer does my own funcational salvation depend on defeating a certain giant like a difficulty at work or a sickness I have.

Or how about Joseph? What did the sermons you heard on Joseph usually sound like? Often, I heard it like this: “Hold on, you may be in prison now, but if you trust God and avoid Potiphar's wife, God will make you something analogous to the prime minister of Egypt.” But what if instead of seeing ourselves as Joseph, we saw that the main point of the Joseph story was to point us to Jesus? Just as Joseph was a man hated and unjustly betrayed by his own brothers, but who rose from the prison to rule the world and saved them and the whole world in the process, so was Jesus. And now, because Jesus, the "greater Joseph," has been victorious to save me from the real destruction of being separated from God, I am victorious in Him even if I die in prison!

Ironically, it is the "bigger picture" of the Bible which is most appealing to a postmodern audience. We hear a lot today about "postmoderns" and how they will not respond to propositional truth and blah blah blah. True perhaps? But postmodernism primarily suffers from the loss of a "metanarrative" or an overarching Story (capital S) that explains all of life and ties it together. When we preach each story of the Bible as if it was simply an example for us to emulate, we reduce the Bible to a collection of stories to be used as tools in perfecting the great story about me. Our audience simply fits these individual Bible stories within their idolatrous, false, me-centered Story.

Postmoderns, like all rebels against God, have lost the centrality of God in the universe and replaced it with the centrality of themselves. It is the preaching of the Gospel which reverses that. It is only when we teach people to trade their self-centered story for the story of God that we can truly be "preaching the Word." Preaching the Gospel means to teach people to put Jesus back in the center of the universe where He belongs and to trust what He has done and can do on our behalf.

So, by all means, preach expositionally, but what we should be exposing from the Bible is the Gospel!

Three great sources that have helped me learn to put Jesus in the center of every verse is Graeme Goldsworthy's According to Plan; David Powlison's Seeing with New Eyes (pt 2 of that book) and a talk by Tim Keller entitled "Preaching the Gospel."

Comments

[Brian]

If the myth is, “expository preaching ensures that you are preaching the Gospel,” then there are two critical words that seem inseparable: “expository” AND “preaching.”
“Expository” is the method of the “preaching,” so your purpose is preaching and your means is verse by verse. All the focus in most arguments seems to rest on the first word rather than both of the words together. As you point out, Paul equates “preaching the Word” with sharing the message of Christ, so if ever a preacher fails to share the Gospel in a sermon and dig a trough back to the cross, then he has failed at the point of preaching itself, no matter what method of preaching he utilized. Me-centered and moralistic preaching, then, seem to be bad preaching in general as opposed to a specific problem with the method used to “preach.” To take a step back even further, I would argue that he wasn’t truly preaching if he wasn’t sharing the Gospel. He was only talking about the Bible. Ultimately, I would say that the “preaching” part of “expository preaching” demands that the message be Gospel-centered. Expository “teaching” does not ensure that you are preaching the Gospel, but Expository (or any other kind of) “preaching” does ensure that you are preaching the Gospel because the Bible says that’s what preaching, in its essence and by definition, is.

[Tripp]

I understand what you are saying Brian, but I think you are simply agreeing with JD's point while just disagreeing about a definition.

We could all agree that it is not *really* preaching to just talk about the Bible verse by verse. But unfortunately in the vernacular "preaching" has come to mean something more broad than giving the Gospel to people. The English language is notorious for this ambiguity in its terms (as opposed to the ancient Greek, which was very specific even in its nouns. Take the commonly referred to example of "love", for example). In the end, the English term "preach" means is more broad than you are giving it credit for here.

All that is to say that we aren't really disagreeing at all! When people say that "expository preaching ensures that you are preaching the gospel" they don't have this true-by-definition term in mind when they say it. I think we all agree: exposition alone is not sufficient for preaching the gospel.

[Politik]

I wish I had a dime for every "disagreement" I've heard (or even been a part of!), that wasn't REALLY about 2 opposing opinions, but rather, arguing over words.

Actually, I guess I shouldn't wish for a dime for each of those times, b/c I'd then be rich... & we all know about rich folk, needles, camels, heaven.....

Hope you've had a smile on your face today, Tripp! If not... then I hope this :) will do the trick!

[Tripp]

Oh I ALWAYS have a smile on my face!

I hope everyone knows that I wasn't angry/trying to be snobbish about the whole thing. I was just trying to point out that I think we are all in agreement about what JD was saying. If I came across that way to anyone, I apologize wholeheartedly!

It does seem that a good number of "disagreements" seem to be about a simple arbitrary definition. Chalk it up to the noetic effects of sin!

[Trev]

I have been reading the blog every week, very interested in your stuff on preaching. I thought this week's was spot on. Not just blowing smoke up your skirt. What you said regarding David and Joseph is gold. I must admit, a year or two ago, I was the one preaching those sermons about slaying giants and what not. Since I've been at seminary, I have thought, "If we could just teach the Christ-centered hermeneutic (I didn't know what that word meant a year ago) to folks who aren't in seminary, it would certainly head off a lot of the "me gospel" that seems to be an epidemic.

[Politik]

Tripp, I never thought you were being snobbish. You just use a lot of big words, which, there is nothing wrong with that! I guess that in the years of my experience, I have come accross a LOT of folks that use big words, & don't seem to enjoy how funny life can be (not to say that EVERYONE who uses big words don't have a sense of humor)! That's all. Just making sure you're not one of them - & if you were - I was DETERMINED to make you crack a smile! :) Just one of those things that I feel a stong "calling" to do in the remaining years of my life!

[Tripp]

Haha, OK fair enough. I don't mean to overuse big words, I am a philosophy major and I guess I am used to it and don't think anything of it.

But FYI, I appreciated the "rich folk" joke and I am, as we speak, watching Dumb and Dumber here in my apartment at Duke.

Thanks for keeping me honest, I agree, a lot of times people (myself included) take themselves and life in general way too seriously!

[Politik]

Dumb & Dumber.... so hilarious! :)

[Dave]

Enjoying this series a lot JD. Resonated with all of it. I'd add to this that there is a myth that "expository preaching" ensures you teach the whole counsel of God. How many pastors, or churches for that matter, get through the whole scripture expositionally in the average time a person is in community with them? Might the church be better served to focus preaching on the weightier things and allow reading of the whole scripture to suffice?