If I could pick a job that is becoming more and more outdated today, to the point that it might become extinct in the next 100 years, I would pick the job of a preacher.  In most churches nowadays, Christians are becoming less and less eager to want to sit through a 30-45 minute sermon.  They would rather sit through 30-45 minutes of music, 10 minutes of skits, and 5 minutes of pep talk.  In fact, if the time limit on sermons keeps dropping, preachers will soon be out of a job.

There are many reasons for this.1  For one, our culture loves to be entertained and in many venues of entertainment, preachers are depicted in a negative light.  Very few television programs and movies portray preachers as intelligent or moral or even useful.  Typically, they are represented as village idiots.  On most TV sitcoms that I have seen, no one can figure out what their minister is supposed to be doing.  He gets paid to lead a service on Sundays that nobody wants to sit through anyway.

To add to this, even the word “preaching” is considered to be a cussword nowadays.  How common it is to hear someone tell us, “Don’t preach at me!”  “Don’t tell me what to do . . . Don’t preach at me!”  It is funny for me to hear people say that because I am a preacher.  I often wonder, “What else do you expect me to do?  Preaching is my occupation.”  But that does not seem to have any impact on the conversation because today preaching is synonymous with judgment and hatred and hypocrisy.  And when people say, “Don’t preach at me,” they mean, “Don’t judge me.”

To add to this, people today consider it arrogant to be confident about anything touching on the subject of religion.  Listen to what one author wrote about the preachers that he listens to on the radio.

I drive my car and listen to the Christian radio station, something my wife always tells me I should stop doing (“because it only gets you upset”).  There I hear preacher after preacher be so absolutely sure of his bombproof answers and his foolproof biblical interpretations . . . And the more sure he seems, the less I find myself wanting to be a Christian, because on this side of the microphone, antennas, and speaker, life isn’t that simple, answers aren’t that clear, and nothing is that sure.2

In the world that we live in, it is considered arrogant to be sure of religious truth.  And to be sure of it week in and week out from a pulpit is considered the height of arrogance.

Another reason that preaching is on the way out today is that people in our society are not interested in something unless they can immediately see how it relates to them.  Unless they can see, right away, what it has to do with their “felt needs,” they are not interested in it.  As one speaker put it,

Guys that preach verse-by-verse through books of the Bible—that is just cheating. It’s cheating because that would be easy, first of all. That isn’t how you grow people. No one in the Scripture modeled that. There’s not one example of that.

All Scripture is equally inspired, but not all Scripture is equally applicable or relevant to every stage of life.  My challenge is to read culture and to read an audience and ask: What is the felt need?3

People, as this man claims, want to have their felt needs met.  They want to know first and foremost, “What does this have to do with me?”  “What do I get out of it?”  “How does this make my life better?”

And when you preach about the glory of God and about Jesus’ death and resurrection and about the Trinity, these people tune you out because they cannot immediately see how it relates to them.  They would rather have a microwave burrito of a sermon than a steak dinner because they do not care about theology and close Biblical study.  They just want to know, “How does this impact my life?”  “How will this meet my felt needs?”

To add to all of this, we live in a world that thrives on visual stimulation.  It has been estimated that the average child in America will spend more time watching television before entering grade school than he will spend talking to his father in his entire lifetime. It is also estimated that the same child will have seen 350,000 commercials by the time he graduates High School and will have watched more television than he has spent time in the classroom.

And it is not just the kids who are thriving on visual stimulation.  The average adult in the United States will spend 50 hours per year listening to his pastor and 2,000 hours per year sitting in front of the TV.4  It is enough to want to echo these words from David Eby:

You grieve over flaky folks who don’t take preaching very seriously, who will miss services with seemingly no conscience pangs, at almost any flimsy excuse.  You mourn for a generation, red-eyed from Nintendo and TV, bloated with soccer, scouts, hot tubs, and designer vacations, but bored with the Word of God.5

Our society is a visually stimulated society and asking the average person to sit through a long, drawn-out sermon while watching a preacher just stand in front of them and talk is almost unbearable.  They want to see something interesting.

So, taking all of this into account, it might help to ask the question: Why preach at all?  Why even try if all of these things are against you?  Or, to be even more specific, why preach expositionally?  Why preach verse-by-verse through the Bible?

If people think you are the village idiot and judgmental and arrogant for doing it, why bother?   If they want to have their felt needs met and would rather be watching television, then why stand up in front of them week-after-week-after-week and preach through a book that was written 2,000 years ago?

In order to provide a definition of “expository preaching,” we should first define the two words involved in it.  To “exposit” is to explain something.  It is to make something plain or understandable; to give it meaning.6  You can actually see the word “expose” in the word “exposit.”  That is the idea of the word.  When you “exposit” something, you expose it and lay it open in order to make it known.  To “preach,” on the other hand, is to have a serious talk on a religious subject.  It is to deliver a sermon.7  When someone preaches, they deliver a serious message on a spiritual topic.

So, putting these two words together, expository preaching is “a sermon or a series of sermons that explain the Bible.”8  Expository preaching is preaching that is designed to explain the meaning of the Bible.  And it is done verse-by-verse because the Bible was written verse-by-verse, which will be explained in just a moment.

To better understand what expository preaching is, it would be helpful to see some reasons why it is important.  Here are five.

1. Expository Preaching is Important Because It Follows the Examples of the Bible.

It should probably go without saying that the book with the most information about preachers is the Bible.  In numerous passages, the Bible mentions preachers and it provides us with several examples of how they preached.

One of these is found in Nehemiah 8:1-8.

And all the people gathered as one man at the square which was in front of the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the Law of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel.

Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women, and all who could listen with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month.  He read from it before the square which was in front of the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who could understand; and all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

Ezra the scribe stood at a wooden podium which they had made for the purpose.  And beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Masseiah on his right hand; and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah and Meshullam on his left hand.

Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up.  Then Ezra blessed the Lord the great God.  And all the people answered, “Amen, Amen!” while lifting up their hands; then they bowed low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.  Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Masseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites explained the law to the people while the people remained in their place.

They read from the book, from the law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading.

At this point in time, the nation of Israel had been exiled in Babylon for almost a century.  Their temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians but they had been allowed to return9 and rebuilt it,10 along with the walls around Jerusalem.11  And, by the time we come to Nehemiah 8, the Israelites were celebrating their first corporate worship service in more than 100 years.  Needless to say, it was a very somber occasion.

In light of this, the chapter tells us that the first thing that Ezra and the Levites did was to read from the Book of the Law and explain its meaning so that the people could understand.  Before they took up on offering and had a potluck or a business meeting, they exposited the Old Testament to their fellow Jews.

Verse 8 says a lot about Ezra’s intentions when it says the priests were “translating to give the sense so that [the people] understood the reading.”  In fact, six different times in this passage, it says that the people “understood” or had “understanding” (vv. 2-3, 7-8, 12-13).  The goal of Israel’s leadership was not to meet their audience’s felt needs but to help them to understand their Bibles.  In other words, they “exposited” the Word of God to the people.

To put that in perspective, Israel had been exiled from their land in the northern kingdom for almost 300 years12 and from their land in the in the southern kingdom for almost a hundred.13  Now they have been allowed to return home and rebuild their temple and the walls surrounding Jerusalem.  And, to honor all of that, at their first worship service, the Levites decided to read to the people from the Law of Moses and explain it to them.  They honored their return with expository preaching.

Why?  Surely they could have found something to do that was more interesting than that.  What about their felt needs?  What about visual stimulation?  What about the concern of coming off arrogant by proclaiming clear religious truth?  Why honor this event with preaching, of all things?

The Levites explained the Law of God to the people in Nehemiah 8 because the people had been exiled from the land for breaking it and the Levites did not want to that happen again.  God threw Israel out of the Promised Land for disobeying His commandments14 and Israel’s leaders knew it.  So the Levites opened the Law of God and exposited it to them.  They explained it to the people so that they could understand it and obey.

This reminds me of the words of Al Mohler,

Your job as a preacher is a very simple one.  This Sunday, you stand up, read the text, explain the text, and sit down.  Next Sunday, you stand up, read the text, explain the text, and sit down. The next Sunday, you stand up, read the text, explain the text, and sit down.15

That is what Israel’s leaders were doing in the 5^th Century B. C.16  They were standing up, reading the text, explaining the text, and sitting down.

A second example of expository preaching in the Bible is found in Luke 4:14-21.

And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread through all the surrounding district.  And He began teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all.

And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read.  And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him.  And He opened the book and found the place where it was written,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because He anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

“He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind;
To set free those who are oppressed,
To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him.  And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

In Luke 4, Jesus has returned to his hometown of Nazareth and, since the people have acknowledged Him to be a teacher (vv. 14-15), they ask Him to teach in their synagogue.  This was a typical practice at the time, especially in smaller villages like Nazareth.  There was no regular minister in the synagogue but any respectable Jewish adult male could be invited to teach, especially if he was recognized as a religious authority.17  And, when he did teach, he would read from a passage of the Hebrew Bible and explain it to the people.

Which is exactly what we see Jesus doing here in Luke 4.  Jesus read a prophecy from Isaiah and explained it to the people of Nazareth.  He exposited Isaiah 61 to them.18  He showed them that Isaiah’s prophecy had been fulfilled in Him.  He explained it to them so that they could understand.

And we could cite other examples in Scripture where prophets and apostles explained the Bible to the people.  In Luke 24:13-35, Jesus explained the Scriptures to two of His disciples on the Road to Emmaus.  In Acts 2, Peter quoted and explained numerous Bible passages to the crowd at Pentecost.19  In Acts 7, Stephen exposited the Word of God while giving his defense before the Sanhedrin.20  Several times in the Book of Acts, Paul explained the Scriptures to the crowds on his missionary journeys.21

Again and again and again, the Bible gives examples of preachers expositing Scripture.  In fact, the Hebrew and Greek words that the Bible authors used for our English word “preach” echo this sentiment.  Here are some of the definitions for the word “preach, preacher, or preaching” in the Bible.

To testify . . . To bear witness . . . To teach . . . To guide . . . To lead . . . To explain . . . To lay out . . . To entrust . . . To commit . . . To open . . . To announce . . . To declare . . . To exhort, comfort . . . To discuss, argue . . . To utter.22

The examples of the Bible and even the language of the Bible make it clear that the job of the preacher is not to entertain people and provide visual stimulation for them.  The job of the preacher is not to be everyone’s best friend and keep them happy.  The job of the preacher is to explain the Word of God to the people of God.  The preacher’s job is to give God’s Word to God’s people.

If a man cannot or will not do that, then he is not fit for a pulpit.  If he cannot explain the Bible to the church, then he needs to do something else for a living because he is not qualified to preach.  As Charles Spurgeon put it, “We cannot play at preaching.  We preach for eternity.”23  Martin Luther said it this way, “The pulpit is the throne for the Word of God.”24

Steve Lawson echoes the words of these renown men when he writes,

Tragically, many pastors today are catering to their people, sometimes under the guise of reaching lost people, rather than catering to them with the steak of Scripture.  Pastors must avoid this well-intentioned but misdirected trend.  They must focus on filling the pulpit, not the building.25

It is no small thing to walk in the footsteps of the Old Testament Prophets and the New Testament Apostles and even of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.  But any time a man steps into a pulpit with a congregation of Christians in front of him, he is standing on the shoulders of giants like these and he had better be up to the task.26  And, if he wants to follow the example of those who have gone before him, he must exposit the Word of God.27  If a man does not do so, then whatever else he does, he does not preach.  He does not fill the pulpit.

2. Expository Preaching is Important Because It Obeys the Commands in the Bible.

There are several passages in Scripture where ministers of the church are commanded to do expository preaching.

In Jesus’ last words in the Gospel of Matthew, He says,

All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (28:18-20).

Right before He ascended into Heaven,28 the Lord Jesus gave His disciples four commands: go, make disciples, baptize, and teach.  The command to teach is what concerns us here.  Jesus commanded His followers to teach.  But just what are they supposed to teach?  Verse 20 tells us, “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.”

It probably goes without saying that you cannot teach someone to obey everything that Jesus commanded if you do not teach everything that Jesus commanded.  In other words, you cannot make disciples of Jesus Christ if you just pick and choose your favorite verses and only teach on those.  Every preacher, myself included, prioritizes certain passages of the Bible and, if it were left to us, we would only preach those.  As one author wrote, “We hold a few texts so near our eyes that they hide all the rest of the Bible.”29  But Jesus commands preachers to teach everything He commanded and, in order to do that, they must teach everything in the Bible.  And the best way to do that is to go through the Bible one verse at a time.

A second command that refers to expository preaching is found in Second Corinthians 4:1-2.

Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

While the Apostle Paul is not necessarily giving a command in these verses, he is giving a principle for every preacher to follow: Ministers are not to distort or corrupt the Word of God when they preach.  They are not to use flowerly language: “not walking in craftiness.”  They are not to make the text say whatever they want it to say: “or adulterating the word of God.”  They are to set it forth plainly.  They are to give the clear meaning of the Bible.  And there is no better way to do than to teach it one verse at a time.

There is no easier way to distort Scripture than to pick and choose your passages week by week.  I am not saying that this method is wrong, only that it can be dangerous if used carelessly.  Verses can get taken out of context when you hunt and peck for a verse to go along with your theology.  Preachers can avoid teaching through tough subjects in Scripture and, instead, only focus on those that are well accepted.  But, if every verse is given equal treatment and every word is studied closely to draw out its meaning, then the truth is given plainly and there is a good chance that the Word is not being corrupted.

And, even better, the people in the pew can check for themselves to make sure that their pastor is teaching the Scriptures.  They can follow along in their Bibles with their preacher to see if what he is saying is, indeed, the Word of God.

A third command in Scripture that relates to expository preaching is found in Second Timothy 4:1-2.

I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.

In these verses, Paul is giving his final instructions to Timothy.  He is coming to the end of his life (vv. 6-8) and wants to leave Timothy with something to remember him by, so he gives him this serious charge: preach the Word.

The word “preach” in verse 4 is kerusso, which means “to preach, proclaim, tell, announce a message.”30  Paul tells Timothy that he is to “tell” the Word of God to his people.  He is to proclaim it.  To announce it.  In the Old English, “To herald it.”

And it would be hard to figure out how Timothy was going to do that without taking his people through the Scriptures one verse at a time.  Again, Paul is not telling Timothy to preach his favorite verses.  He is not telling Timothy to proclaim the passages that are easiest to understand.  He is telling Timothy to preach the Word.  All of it.  All of God’s Word is to be proclaimed.  All of the Bible is to be told to the church.

Timothy was not to preach the newspaper.  He was not to announce the latest event in sports, politics, and world news.  He could mention those things.  He could make reference to them.  But he was not to proclaim them.  He was to proclaim the word of God.

In his book, Between Two Worlds, John Stott laments the actions of many preachers today.

Yet the willful manipulation of Scripture by those who are determined to make it mean what they want it to mean has been a constant disgrace to the Church.  As Professor A. Vinet of Lausanne put it in the middle of the last century, “a passage of Scripture has a thousand times served for a passport to ideas which were not scriptural.”  Sometimes, it has been the comparatively harmless hunt for an appropriate text . . . Sometimes, however, a preacher misuses Scripture because he is riding a pet theological hobby-horse.31

There is something terribly wrong with a pastor who teaches his own ideas, throws a few Bible verses on them, and then tells everybody to follow him.  A preacher’s authority comes from the Bible and, if he is not preaching that, then he has no authority at all for what he says and is only “riding a pet theological hobby-horse.”

Because of that, the Bible commands Christian ministers to preach the Bible.  They are to preach everything that Jesus commanded.  They are to preach it plainly and without corruption.  And they are to preach the Word of God.  If anything else is done in the pulpit, it is not done in the name of God.  Christian preachers are to preach the Christian Scriptures.

3. Expository Preaching is Important Because It Helps People Learn to Read Their Bibles.

Expository preaching is the best preaching method to help people learn to read their Bibles.

While it may occasionally happen, it is a safe bet that most people do not read their Bible out of order.  In other words, when they sit down to read the Scriptures, they do not start off with Genesis and read a few verses and then jump over to Jude to read a few verses and then over to First Chronicles and then to Mark and then on to Ezekiel.  That would not make sense.  The best way to read the Bible is to read it like any other book: one page at a time.  Just as you would never read a history book jumping from page 5 to page 32 to page 360 and back to page 13, you should never read the Bible by bouncing around from the front to the back to the middle unless you had a special reason to do so.32

Consequently, it is very important for Christians to hear preaching that takes the same approach.  Believers need to sit under the ministry of a preacher who can take them straight from Genesis 1 all the way through Genesis 50 sermon by sermon.  They need to follow along as their minister applies Bible passages to their lives, so that they can see how to correctly apply those passages for themselves.  They need to observe how the content of a passage affects the meaning and how the language affects the interpretation and how the overall purpose of the book affects this verse or that verse.

In short, in order to learn to read the Bible on your own, you need to hear someone walk you through the Bible.  And that can only be done with verse-by-verse preaching.  That cannot be done with topical preaching.33  If a man teaches on a topic like the attributes of God or evangelism, a lot can be learned about that topic, but it will not help you learn to read the Bible for yourself.

It has been said that, “Practice doesn’t make perfect.  Practice makes permanent.  Perfect practice makes perfect.”  If you want to do something right, you have to first learn how to do it right.  And then you have to do it right again and again and again until it becomes second nature to you.  “Perfect practice makes perfect.”

It does not do you any good to learn how to do something wrong and then to do it wrong again and again and again.  That is not helpful, that is harmful.  That is probably the worst possible thing that you could do.  And it is the same way with reading the Bible.  If you read the Bible incorrectly, taking verses out of context, making them mean whatever you want them to mean, then that will only hurt your Christian life.  And, worse, if you do it again and again and again, that will permanently hurt your Christian life.

But, if you read the Bible correctly, looking at the history and the grammar of a passage, examining everything that comes before and after it, looking for the meaning of the author and not your own meaning, then that will help you.  That will enable you to understand the Word of God.  And, as you understand and apply the Word of God, that will permanently benefit your life.

And it is the job of the preacher to help you do that.  It is his job to help you read and understand and apply the Bible correctly to your life.  And the best way for him to do that is to preach through the Bible one verse at a time, just like you would read it.  And, as he correctly handles the Word of God in the pulpit, you will learn to correctly handle the Word of God in the pew.  In doing so, you can apply these helpful words from Jay Adams,

Christian, do you listen to preaching with a heart wide open to truth, a heart unprotected from thrusts of the Spirit’s sword?  Or is your heart hard, resistant to certain teaching?  Have you so rationalized your sin that your conscience rarely, if ever, accuses you of certain sins anymore? . . . It is time to crack open those compartments of the heart that you have so successfully barred.  Instead, bare them to the preaching of the Word.  Listen with a willingness to hear, understand, apply, and obey.  Until you do, preaching will be virtually valueless.34

4. Expository Preaching is Important Because It Makes People Study All of Their Bible.

Going along with the last reason, expository preaching helps people to study all of their Bible.  Most of us, if we were honest about it, would have to admit that we shy away from a deep study of the word of God.  Some of us do more than shy away, we run away!  We flee from studying Scripture as if the plague were chasing us.  What Thomas Edison once said many years ago is true of us today:

Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.35

That percentage might even be higher if Edison was referring to Christians who really think about their Bibles.

For instance, if someone did not make you do it, would you ever do an in-depth study of the first few verses of the Gospel of John?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

That is some pretty thick stuff to chew on.  And very few people would get out a Bible commentary on their own and study all of that.  Even fewer would study a passage like John 5:19 if they did not have someone to help them.

Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.”

That is some pretty thick stuff to chew on, maybe even choke on!  And yet these are only two passages in one book of the Bible.  There are hundreds of other passages of Scripture that would make the same point.

In fact, there are whole books of the Bible that are difficult to read.  Books like Ezekiel, Amos, Obadiah, Joel, Leviticus, Hebrews, and Revelation have stumped and frustrated Christians for centuries.  Many avoid them all together in their own private Bible reading.  And that is a shame because Second Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness . . .”

One way to help remedy this problem is with expository preaching.  Going verse by verse through the Bible forces a congregation to study everything in the Bible whether the people feel like it or not.  It makes believers hear the whole counsel of God and not just the parts that are easy to understand.  Ministers should preach through everything in the Bible in order to study everything in the Bible.

5. Expository Preaching is Important Because It Helps People Understand Their Bible.

Fifth and finally, expository preaching aids in the understanding of Scripture.

To illustrate this, the Middle Ages were once described as a thousand years without a bath because of the ignorance and poverty of the people.  One historian wrote these chilling words about this time period.

The church as a visible organization never had greater power over the minds of men.  She controlled all departments of life from the cradle to the grave.  She monopolized all the learning and made sciences and arts tributary to her.  She took the lead in every progressive movement.  She founded universities, built lofty cathedrals, stirred up the crusades, made and unmade kings, dispensed blessings and curses to whole nations.  The medieval hierarchy centering in Rome re-enacted the Jewish theocracy on a more comprehensive scale . . . It took centuries to rear up this imposing structure, and centuries to take it down again.36

During the Dark Ages, the people were poor and dirty and, just as sadly, they were illiterate.  The majority of the world could not read, hence the name “Dark Ages.”  Common people were in the dark about everything including the Word of God.

Then the Protestant Reformation happened and, for the first time in 1,000 years, the average person was given the ability and luxury of reading the Bible.  In fact, Martin Luther made it one of his goals to translate the Bible into the language of the people.  He wanted the average German to understand the Word of God because he knew that, as he did so, his heart would change.  And, as his heart changed, the world would change.

One of Luther’s opponents, a Roman Catholic apologist named Cochlaeus, said this about his German translation of the Bible:

Luther’s New Testament was so much multiplied and spread by printers that even tailors and shoemakers, yea, even women and ignorant persons who had accepted this new Lutheran gospel, and could read a little German, studied it with the greatest avidity as the fountain of all truth.  Some committed it to memory, and carried it about in their bosom.  In a few months such people deemed themselves so learned that they were not ashamed to dispute about faith and the gospel not only with Catholic laymen, but even with priests and monks and doctors of divinity.37

Martin Luther’s goal should be the goal of every preacher.  A preacher’s job is not to keep his people occupied between the hours of 10:30 and 11:30 every Sunday morning.  His job is not to give the congregation a spiritual boost or a religious pick-me-up once a week.  His job is to help people his know and understand their Bibles.  If a preacher does that, he has succeeded in his task.  If he does not do that, he has failed.

And the best way to accomplish that task is to preach the Scriptures one verse at a time.  As has been shown above, that is the best way to help an audience understand the Word of God.  To say this another way, Martin Luther did not translate the Bible by skipping around from one passage to the next because it was his goal for people to understand it.  He translated it by going from the beginning of a book until the end.  That is also the best way to explain the Bible if your goal is to help people understand it.  You must preach from the beginning of a book until you have reached the end.  The Bible is understood best when it is preached the way that it was written.

CONCLUSION

Preaching and teaching the Bible is not an option for the church of Jesus Christ.  The Bible is the tool that God has given to use in training Christians for ministry.38  The Bible is upright and well-tried39 and sweeter than honey.40  It is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.41  It is truth42 and it is the Word of God43 and it is our light.44  It abides forever45 and is breathed out by God Himself46 and will accomplish all that God desires it to accomplish.47

Christian, you have no other resource like this one.  You have nothing else to teach you like this.  And the best way to understand it is to study it just like it was written, one verse at a time.  It is not “easy.”  It is not “cheating.”48  It is the best way to help you to understand what is written in it.

While there are other helpful ways to preach the Scriptures, there is one method of preaching that should never be abandoned or ignored: the expository method.  Preachers should make this method a high priority in their ministry.  If they do this, they will follow the examples and commands in the Bible.  They will also help their people learn to read and study and understand their Bibles.  If they fail to do this, they may do some good but they will miss out on all of these blessings for themselves and for the people that they serve.49

1. Some of these reasons have been loosely borrowed from Arturo G. Azurdia III’s Spirit Empowered Preaching: Involving the Holy Spirit in Your Ministry (Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 2003) 86. [↩]
2. Brian McClaren, A New Kind of Christian (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003) 14. [↩]
3. The speaker mentioned here is Andy Stanely.  The article in which this quotation is borrowed from is entitled “Andy Stanley on Communication (Part 2)” and can be found at     www.edstetzer.com at 6/5/12. [↩]
4. All of these statistics are borrowed from Bryan Chapell’s Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermons (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1994) 169. [↩]
5. Power Preaching for Church Growth: The Role of Preaching in Growing Churches (Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1996) 13. [↩]
6. Webster’s New Explorer Dictionary (Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster Incorporated, 1999) 183. [↩]
7. Ibid., 409. [↩]
8. Haddon W. Robinson, Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages, Second Edition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001) 21.  Haddon Robinson provides a more thorough definition of expository preaching when he writes, “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 it to the hearers.” [↩]
9. See Ezra 1-2. [↩]
10. See Ezra 3-7. [↩]
11. See Nehemiah 1-7. [↩]
12. Charles Ryrie, The Ryrie Study Bible (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1994ed.) 643, 693  After the nation of Israel split into a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom, the northern kingdom was conquered by Assyria in 722 B. C.  The temple and the walls around Jerusalem were rebuilt in the mid-400’s B. C. [↩]
13. Ibid.  After the nation of Israel split into a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom, the southern kingdom was conquered by Babylon in 586 B.C.  The temple and the walls around Jerusalem were rebuilt in the mid-400’s B. C. [↩]
14. Jer 13:15-27; 25:1-14; Amos 5; Micah 1:8-16. [↩]
15. “General Session 9” at The Shepherd’s Conference, Sun Valley, CA (March 6, 2004).  The audio from this sermon can be downloaded at www.shepherdsconference.org as of 6/5/12. [↩]
16. See footnotes 9 and 10. [↩]
17. Leon Morris, Luke: An Introduction and Commentary in The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1988 ed.) 115-116. [↩]
18. Specifically, He read Isaiah 61:1-2 to them. [↩]
19. See Acts 2:17-21, 25-28, 35. [↩]
20. See Acts 7: 3, 6-7, 26, 32-34, 37, 42-43, 49-50. [↩]
21. See Acts 13:33-35, 41, 47; 17:13; 18:28; 28:23. [↩]
22. These definitions are borrowed from Richard Mayhue’s “Proving the Priority of Expository Preaching” in John MacArthur’s Preaching: How to Preach Biblically (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2005) 6-7. [↩]
23. Quoted in Steve Lawson’s Famine in the Land: A Passionate Plea for Expository Preaching (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2003) 56. [↩]
24. Quoted in Famine in the Land, 24. [↩]
25. Ibid., 45. [↩]
26. The Apostle James gives this warning for those who are not up to the task in James 3:1, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.” [↩]
27. This is not to say that expository preaching is the only form of preaching that is acceptable.  See footnote 49. [↩]
28. Acts 1:9-11. [↩]
29. Quoted in Philip Schaff’s History of the Christian Church, Volume 3 (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002ed.) 388. [↩]
30. Mounce’s Complete Expository Dicationry of Old & New Testament Words, ed. by William D. Mounce (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006) 533. [↩]
31. Between Two Worlds: The Challenge of Preaching Today (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1982) 130-131. [↩]
32. There may be some instances in which you would want to do so but they are rare.  For instance, it can be helpful to study the Bible chronologically, thus forcing you to read texts out of order.  For a helpful resource with regards to the chronology of the Bible, see The NKJV Chronological Study Bible (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 2008). [↩]
33. Topical preaching is preaching that is done according topic, not according to verse.  Whereas expositional preaching prioritizes the explanation of verses, topical preaching prioritizes the explanation of subjects.  This is not to say that topical preaching does not explain verses, simply that it does not prioritize their explanation. [↩]
34. Be Careful How You Listen (Birmingham, Ala.: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2007) 59. [↩]
35. Quotation found at www.goodreads.com as of 6/5/12. [↩]
36. Philip Schaff, The History of The Christian Church, Volume 4 (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002ed.) 13. [↩]
37. Quoted in Philips Schaff’s The History of the Christian Church, Volume 7 (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002ed.) 350. [↩]
38. 2 Tim 3:16-17. [↩]
39. Prov 30:5. [↩]
40. Ps 119:103. [↩]
41. Heb 4:12. [↩]
42. Jn 17:17. [↩]
43. 1 Thess 2:13. [↩]
44. Ps 119:105. [↩]
45. 1 Jn 2:14. [↩]
46. 2 Tim 3:16. [↩]
47. Isa 55:11. [↩]
48. See footnote 3. [↩]
49. It is not the intention of this FAQ to say that expository preaching is the only way to preach.  There are many other ways to preach a sermon that are beneficial to a congregation and that have the approval of Scripture.  However, it is the intention of this FAQ to say that these other forms of preaching should never replace expository preaching in the life of the church.  The Bible is the Word of God and, as I hope has been made clear, is best taught expositionally. [↩]