Biblical Preaching

by Haddon W. Robinson

To the New Testament writers, preaching stands as the event through which God works.

The type of preaching that best carries the force of divine authority is expository preaching.

Preaching is a living interaction involving God, the preacher, and the congregation, and no definition can pretend to capture that dynamic.

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.

Great word on expository preaching!

Expository preaching at its core is more a philosophy than a method.

Ultimately the authority behind expository preaching resides not in the preacher but in the biblical text.

“The Bible is the supreme preacher to the preacher.”5

“True preaching comes when the loving heart and the disciplined mind are laid at the disposal of the Holy Spirit.”6 Ultimately God is more interested in developing messengers than messages, and because the Holy Spirit confronts us primarily through the Bible, we

must learn to listen to God before speaking for God.

Expository preachers confront people about themselves from the Bible instead of lecturing to them about the Bible’s history or archaeology.

When people attend church, they may respond to the preacher like a novice at the opera. They have never been told what a sermon is supposed to do.

Unfortunately some of us preach as we have listened. Preachers, like their audiences, may conceive of sermons as a collection of points that have little relationship to each other.

Ideally each sermon is the explanation, interpretation, or application of a single dominant idea supported by other ideas, all drawn from one passage or several passages of Scripture.

To ignore the principle that a central, unifying idea must be at the heart of an effective sermon is to push aside what experts in both communication theory and preaching have to tell us.8

Effective sermons major in biblical ideas brought together into an overarching unity.

The ability to abstract and synthesize, that is, to think in ideas, develops with maturity.

We pursue the subject and complement when we study the biblical text.

distinguish the idea from the way the idea develops.

We do not understand what we are reading unless we can clearly express the subject and complement of the section we are studying.

When people leave church in a mental fog, they do so at their spiritual peril.

But when God calls us to preach, He calls us to love Him with our minds.

To discover how to do something well, we usually study those who are effective in what they do.

Whatever we do regularly becomes our method even if we have come to it intuitively, and few effective expositors are as devoid of method as they sometimes claim.

Clear, relevant biblical exposition does not take place Sunday after Sunday by either intuition or accident. Good expositors have methods for their study.

Effective biblical preaching requires insight, imagination, and spiritual sensitivity—none of which comes from merely following directions.

A conscientious ministry in the Scriptures depends on thoughtful planning for the entire year.

While all Scripture is profitable, not every Scripture possesses equal profit for a congregation at a particular time. Preachers’ insight and concern will be reflected in what biblical truths they offer to their people.

In selecting passages for the expository sermon, therefore, a general principle to follow is this: Base the sermon on a literary unit of biblical thought.

Topical exposition faces two problems. First, the topic we are considering may be dealt with in several passages of the Scripture.

At the same time, there is no greater betrayal of our calling than putting words in God’s mouth.

we will not take time not granted to us. We must tailor our sermons to our time, and the cutting should be done in the study rather than in the pulpit.

Accuracy, as well as integrity, demands that we develop every possible skill to keep us from declaring in the name of God what the Holy Spirit never intended to convey.

There are many books and tapes of sermons preached by well-known preachers. Although these may give you some ideas of how to approach or apply your sermon, they should not be used early in your preparation. You will be tempted to rely too heavily on them and therefore short-circuit your own study of the text.

Our linguistic and grammatical analyses must never become an end in themselves, but rather should lead to a clearer understanding of the passage as a whole.

To preach effectively, therefore, expositors must be involved in three different worlds: the world of the Bible, the modern world, and the particular world in which we are called to preach.

In a world that could not for one moment exist without the activity of God, we have conditioned our minds to a way of thinking that leaves no room for him.

To be effective, sermons must relate biblical truth to life. The most effective sermons are those that do this in a specific, not a general, way.

As you can see, the homiletical idea is simply the biblical truth applied to life.

State the idea so that your listeners sense you are talking to them about them.

No matter how brilliant or biblical a sermon is, without a definite purpose it is not worth preaching.

How then do you determine the purpose of your sermon? You do so by discovering the purpose behind the passage you are preaching.

In the deductive arrangement, the idea is stated completely as part of the introduction to the sermon, and then the sermon develops out of that idea. In the inductive development, the introduction leads only to the first point in the sermon, then with strong transitions each new point links to the previous point until the idea of the sermon emerges in the conclusion.

One other thing is essential in a sermon about an idea explained: your introduction is crucial to its success.

Skilled preachers deal in high and low levels of abstraction, climbing back and forth like laborers on a ladder.

To fix a truth firmly onto the hearer’s mind requires that we state it and state it again.

Your listeners need not only to understand a biblical concept, but they also need to know what difference it makes.

Illustrations should also be understandable.

Not all preachers write out their sermons, nor do preachers who write out sermons write out every sermon, but the discipline of preparing a manuscript improves preaching.

An expository preacher professing a high view of inspiration should respect the power of words.

to ignore our own choice of language smacks of gross inconsistency.