Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

by Bryan Chapell

Today’s cultural influences make it unreasonable for a preacher to expect a congregation to stay with a message for twenty-five minutes with the hope that something relevant will be said in the last five minutes. Congregational needs and capabilities make the old rule of including explanation, illustration, and application in each main point a reasonable guideline, even if one does not follow it every time.

The most common order in which exposition’s components appear, however, is explanation, illustration, and application.20 This allows a preacher to establish a truth, demonstrate and clarify its implications, and then apply it.

Our minds need explanations of what the Bible says so that we know we have grasped the thoughts and standards of our God. Our hearts need the illustrations that so often touch our emotions or fire our imaginations to convince us that God is not a cold collection of abstract ideas. We need application so that we have either the confidence that we are acting in accord with the will of God or the conviction that we must adjust our ways.

Head, heart, hand

Too often expository preachers get stuck in one gear, believing that preaching with authority means they must inject a certain hardness into their sermons. They sound as though they are trying by their efforts to make the Word authoritative rather than trusting its innate power to touch the soul.

The first three questions relate to a preacher’s research of a text’s meaning: 1. What does the text mean? 2. How do I know what the text means? 3. What concerns caused the text to be written?

The next three questions determine how a preacher relates a text’s meaning: 4. What do we share in common with those to (or about) whom the text was written and/or the one by whom the text was written? 5. How should people now respond to the truths of the text? 6. What is the most effective way I can communicate the meaning of the text?

A sermon is an explanation of the continuing truth principles evident in the Bible that indicate how contemporary persons should respond to a mutual condition we share with those who were the original subjects or recipients of the text in the light of God’s response to or provision for their situation.

Read broadly enough to see the context. Read closely enough to identify important or unique phrasing. Reread until the flow of thought begins to surface. Look up unknown words, names, and places so that you are sure you are reading with understanding.

John R. W. Stott helps us discern the goals of the expository preacher by writing, “To expound a Scripture is to bring out of the text what is there and expose it to view. . . . The opposite of exposition is ‘imposition,’ which is to impose on the text what is not there.”7

Exegesis is the process by which preachers discover the precise definitions, grammatical distinctions, and literary character of the words and phrases in a text.

With pinpoint exegesis, a preacher looks up unknown words or examines more fully words that, by their placement, tense, structural role, repetition, rarity, function, or relationships to other words in the passage (or related passages), demonstrate a key role in determining the text’s meaning.

Questions such as, Who needs to hear this? What will make this sink in? What are we facing that is similar to this biblical situation? and How are we like these people in the Bible? help preachers determine which features of their explanatory insights to highlight. Although these questions may sound as if they are oriented more to the preparation of application than to explanation, sound exposition requires us to ask these questions at this stage in sermon preparation.

It is also important to understand why the exegetical outline of a passage does not automatically determine the sequence in which a preacher makes explanations:

Although the two may echo one another closely, an exegetical outline ordinarily is not a homiletical outline. An exegetical outline establishes what a text says. A homiletical outline establishes how a text’s meaning is best communicated to a congregation.

Thus, a preacher must analyze a text and the congregation to convert an exegetical outline to a homiletical outline. In an expository sermon, the homiletical outline is worded in principles derived from and supported by features of the text in its context. The preacher demonstrates how the text supports these principles and then applies them to the contemporary context of the listeners.

Stott writes: We have to be ruthless in discarding the irrelevant. This is easier said than done. During our hours of meditation numerous blessed thoughts and scintillating ideas may have occurred to us and been dutifully jotted down. It is tempting to drag them all in somehow. Resist the temptation! Irrelevant material will weaken the sermon’s effect. It will come in handy some other time. We need the strength of mind to keep it till then. Positively, we have to subordinate our material to our theme in such a way as to illumine and enforce it.24

We must advance what addresses the FCF, elevate what reinforces our exhortation, eliminate what clouds the exposition, and rebut what seems to challenge our explanations.

“Look where Paul says this in verse 9.” Then read the verse (or the portion of it) that supports the statement you just made.

We do not gain much by saying, “Verse 49 says Goliath fell down!” if everyone already knows he hit the ground. Yet where precise wording affects interpretation, we should continue to cite specific verses.

Frequently, listeners do not need description but definition. Our age, in which biblical literacy is low, obligates preachers to explain the words of a passage as well as to describe its features. The terms justification, election, remnant, Sabbath, holiness, and sin are so obvious to preachers that we forget that many people around us find the words mysterious or obtuse.

Many volumes could be written on the meaning of faith, but in many messages, Phillips Brooks’s acronym Forsaking All I Take Him will suffice.

Share the fruit, not the sweat, of your exegetical labor.

It is usually far better to claim, “We gain an even richer understanding of the meaning of this verse by noting . . .” than to say, “The translators of the version of the Bible we are reading made a mistake here.”

Saying profound things obscurely or saying simple things cleverly requires relatively little thought, but saying profound things simply is the true mark of pastoral genius.

An exegetical outline displays a passage’s thought flow; a homiletical outline organizes a preacher’s explanation, development, application, and communication of a passage’s truths.

For a textual message, preachers glean the topic of a sermon and its main points from ideas in a text. A textual message reflects some of the text’s particulars in the statement of its main ideas, but the development of those main ideas comes from sources outside the immediate text.

An expository sermon is designed for the study of the specific details, context, and development of a biblical passage in order to encourage and enable listeners to love God and to help them understand how to apply the truths of his Word to their lives. An expository sermon takes its topic, main points, and subpoints from a text.

Merely because an idea is true, because it has a biblical foundation, or because it comes to a preacher’s mind does not mean it has a place in an expository message. The main idea of an expository sermon (the topic), the divisions of that idea (the main points), and the development of those divisions (the subpoints) all come from truths the text itself contains. No significant portion of the text is ignored. In other words, expositors willingly stay within the boundaries of a text (and its relevant context) and do not leave until they have surveyed its entirety with their listeners.3 A sermon is not expository simply because it addresses a subject in the Bible.4 Neither does quoting numerous Scripture references in a sermon make a preacher an expositor. “It is one thing to quote a Bible passage. It is quite another to explain accurately what the passage really says, and what it actually means, especially in our contemporary circumstances.”5

As preachers mature, they will discover that rhetorical “moves,” homiletical “plots,” concept-rich “images,” thoughtful transitions, implied ideas, and other measures can often substitute for the formal statement of points in their outlines.14

What appears redundant in writing gives great power and clarity to speech, for parallelism acts as an audio flag wave to say, “Hey, here’s another main idea.” Then the key word change indicates what that new idea is.

Main points and subpoints are almost always better grasped and retained if a preacher makes them correspond to one another in additional ways. Standard techniques include using key words that begin with the same letter (alliteration), sound similar (assonance, rhyme, rhythm), spur interest (created words, word play, contrasts, irony), and/or reflect a logical, a literary, or a pictorial pattern (ready, aim, fire; it was the best of times, it was the worst of times; chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and a cherry on top; bottom of the ninth, two outs, two strikes). These wording techniques may seem frivolous, but even the most sincere preachers strive to use “glow words” that sparkle for attention and gleam in memory.

When length must vary, it is typical for the longest main point to come first, with succeeding divisions getting progressively shorter. A few homileticians advise making the second point the longest to keep a congregation from judging the length of the entire message on the precedent of the first main point.28 Still, all agree that approximate symmetry is the best approach and that elongating the end is surefire disaster. As sermons approach their climax, matters naturally accelerate. Thus, lengthy last points rob messages of powerful conclusions.

Progression also slows when a sermon contains too many divisions. If one main point has five subpoints and the next has seven, no one will remember the subpoints, and the sermon itself will get lost.

In picturesque language that homiletics instructors have virtually made canonical, Henry Jowett once wrote: I am of the conviction that no sermon is ready for preaching, nor ready for writing out, until we can express its theme in a short, pregnant sentence as clear as crystal. I find the getting of that sentence the hardest, the most exacting, and the most fruitful labor in my study. To compel oneself to fashion that sentence, to dismiss every word that is vague, ragged, ambiguous, to think oneself through to a form of words which defines the theme with scrupulous exactness—this is surely one of the most vital and essential factors in the making of a sermon: and I do not think any sermon ought to be preached or even written, until that sentence has emerged, clear and lucid as a cloudless moon.

Most instructors advise preachers to form their propositions at the end of their sermon research.35 At this point, study has probably yielded any number of notes, scribbles, and exegetical insights. Thus, the formation of a proposition forces a preacher to determine a central focus. Of course, one’s mind does not always think sequentially, and sometimes you will see main points before you have had a chance to determine a proposition that will include them all. Still, preachers ultimately need to form a proposition in order to give listeners direction as a message unfolds.36

A formal proposition is the wedding of a universal truth based on a text with an application based on the universal truth. A universal truth is a biblical principle for guiding Christian life or thought that is established by the features and the facts of a sermon’s dominant text.37 A biblical principle may be a doctrinal concept or a practice, but in either case it is a principle that can be proven from the text both to be true and to be valid for present listeners. The statement “Jonah eventually went to Ninevah” is true, but it is not a universal truth because it does not provide a biblical principle that can be applied universally. This mere statement of fact describes a text, but it does not develop the message of the text.38 However, the Jonah narrative supports the principle “God’s service requires obedience.” When this truth is linked to an appropriate application, such as “Because God’s service requires obedience, we must seek his will,” a proposition emerges.

Consider how the following sermon introduction uses these principles to establish an unspoken proposition: A young woman came to my office some months ago with what she perceived as exciting news. “Pastor,” she said, “I’ve just agreed to get married to the most wonderful man. He’s kind and considerate. . . . He doesn’t treat me like the other men I’ve dated who were so coarse and cruel. And what’s even better, after we are married I will be able to lead him to the Lord.” What would you say to this young woman if you loved her enough to be completely honest with her? What does the Bible say? Although no formal theme statement appears here, the proposition beacons clearly. The message will answer the question, What standards does the Bible give for Christian marriage? If we were to spell it out, the formal proposition would be “Because God sets standards for Christian marriage, we must marry as he instructs.” Here, however, the formal statement will probably never appear in the sermon because the pastor has found another way to beacon a universal truth in a hortatory mode. The proposition appears, but not in traditional garb.

My approach has been to require students to state propositions formally during their early training and then to help them experiment with more creative approaches as preaching experience and exegetical expertise grow. Suffice it to say, a sermon should not fail to have a formal proposition just because a preacher could not come up with one. Preachers build good sermons on solid propositions even when thoughtful communication strategies may cause the formal statements not to appear in the actual messages.

Involve listeners by the way you word your points. Not this: God justifies his people by his grace. (Note that the wording is in the third person—the truth applies to “them,” those justified people out there somewhere.) But this: God justifies you by his grace. Or even better: We should rejoice that God justifies us by grace.

Because diagnostic questions help harmonize a sermon, preachers often ask such questions out loud during a message. Asking a strong diagnostic question after the proposition and then answering the question with the main-point statements make people keenly aware of the purpose of each main point and give the entire message a sense of unity as it progresses. Interrogating the proposition and answering it with the main points is one of the most common and effective ways that pastors can develop sermons week to week.

Homileticians enjoy debating why “three points and a poem” has been standard in Western preaching, but most agree that preachers should use the number of points that best serves the purpose of a specific sermon.55 Three points generally indicate developmental thought: problem, plan, and effects; task, tools, and means; beginning, middle, and end; what, why, and how. Two-point messages are usually balanced tension: external and internal, spiritual and physical, divine and human, attitude and action. This tension typically holds the real point of the message (which explains why a two-point message with no conceptual counterbalance between the points feels incomplete). Outlines with more than three main points tend to use the divisions as building blocks for a culminative or summative effect. Preachers listing “five biblical ways to love your spouse” or “seven marks of a godly witness” use the points to build to a summary idea (these types of outlines are variously called catalog, additive, ladder, or diamond-facet forms).

Keeping parishioner eyes on a sermon’s goal rather than on its gravel requires pastors to use the tools of organization and to forego homiletics jargon in sermons (e.g., “My proposition today is . . . ,” “My first subpoint for this is . . .”). Subordinate ideas introduced using some of the techniques described below keep subpoints from distracting listeners.

Preachers who use interrogatives as subpoints should immediately supply an answer to an interrogative in a concise statement that summarizes the truth being established. In other words, they should place and prove a subpoint’s answer. Occasionally, an answer to an interrogative can be delayed, but waiting until after the discussion of a subpoint to supply a clear answer can cause listener frustration with the preacher’s apparent lack of resolution.

Eugene Lowry’s description of the “homiletical plot” remains one of the best-known and most helpful resources for pastors to discern what makes a story work and how to use its features in sermon construction.69 A story, and a sermon that reflects its development, unfolds the personal meaning of an identified experience with these features: upset the equilibrium (oops!), analyze the discrepancy (ugh!), disclose the clue to resolution (aha!), experience the gospel (whee!), anticipate the consequences (yeah!).70

The most powerful means of addressing the mind and the heart remains the ethos of the speaker. To the extent that a technology takes focus away from the voice, character, and person of the preacher, the persuasiveness of the message is reduced.82

Consistent practitioners of the expository model may consciously or unconsciously assume that complexity equals seriousness. Deep down they believe that the way they demonstrate seriousness about the Bible is by detailing its beautiful intricacies. Some ministers think they should speak with complexity even if the people do not want it because such preaching—like vegetables—is good for them.

If attendees complain the preaching is too deep or impractical it’s often not because they are shallow or the minister is deep but because he hasn’t yet learned how to preach expository messages in a way that touches the hearts and hands of the congregants, instead of just their minds.

Proponents of the expository model often assume that developing higher order truths demonstrates their commitment to orthodoxy. By using biblical proofs to back up statements of universal truth, these preachers believe they have laid the foundations for orthodox commitments in every sphere of life. Such traditional preachers expect properly articulated universal principles to trickle down to correct decision making in every situation.

Preachers typically think of illustrations as brief anecdotes that accompany a sermon’s propositional statements of truth.2 More technically, illustrations are stories whose details (whether explicitly told or imaginatively elicited) allow listeners to identify with an experience that further elaborates, develops, and/or discloses the explanation of scriptural principles.

An account does not have to be real or current, but a preacher must tell it in such a way that listeners can identify with the experience. A preacher tells the what, when, where, and why of an occurrence to give listeners personal access to the occasion. Each listener is enabled to see, feel, taste, or smell features of the event as though he or she were involved in the unfolding account. Along with sensory details, the preacher also suggests the emotions, thoughts, or reactions that might typify the experience of one living through the situation.4

“This reminds me of . . .” With an illustration a preacher says, “I’ll take you there. Live through this experience with me so that you will understand fully what this biblical truth means.”