{"id":4671,"date":"2013-04-29T14:38:44","date_gmt":"2013-04-29T19:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cottrillcompass.com\/blog\/?p=4671"},"modified":"2013-04-27T14:39:47","modified_gmt":"2013-04-27T19:39:47","slug":"expository-preaching-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cottrillcompass.com\/blog\/2013\/expository-preaching-is.html","title":{"rendered":"Expository Preaching is&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been doing a lot of preaching lately,  and so I&#8217;ve been reflecting a bit on the challenges of preaching and teaching and the strategies that we use. &nbsp;I&#8217;ve been talking about some of these things with the pastor of the church in Jes\u00c3\u00bas Mar\u00c3\u00ada as we try to learn together.<\/p>\n<p>Recently I read a blog post from Brian Croft, who was teaching pastors in Zambia. &nbsp;He was answering the question: <i><a href=\"http:\/\/practicalshepherding.com\/2013\/01\/30\/why-am-i-urging-zambian-pastors-to-preach-expository-sermons\/\">Why am I urging Zambian pastors to preach expository sermons?<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<p>You can read his excellent insights about expository preaching for yourself, but I&#8217;d like to share a few things that I&#8217;ve been noticing recently.<\/p>\n<p><b>Expository preaching <\/b>basically involves working your way through a passage and explaining what it means.&nbsp; This is in contrast to preaching on a theme, for example.<\/p>\n<p>There is a place for various kinds of preaching. &nbsp;And, incidentally, expository preaching does <i>not<\/i> mean you do not mention other Scripture passages when they&#8217;re relevant.<\/p>\n<p>I <i>am<\/i> concerned about some of the sermons I have heard, however, when a verse happens to be read in the beginning but the rest is basically ideas and stories that seem to come from the preacher&#8217;s own imagination. &nbsp;His ideas sound &#8220;Bible-ish&#8221;, but he rarely provides any proof that what he&#8217;s saying is true.<\/p>\n<p>Our job as preachers, I believe, is to read the Bible and explain what it means.&nbsp; Yeah, that&#8217;s pretty much it. &nbsp;Of course, I&#8217;m assuming that we&#8217;re doing that with prayer and the power of the Spirit.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, preaching carefully through a specific passage of Scripture is a great way to do this. &nbsp;Lately, I&#8217;ve found that expository preaching is&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Balancing<\/b>. &nbsp;It&#8217;s so easy to bring our own biases to the study of God&#8217;s Word. &nbsp;Our traditions. &nbsp;That class we happened to take on this topic. &nbsp;Our need to emphasize certain things in our culture. &nbsp;But when I&#8217;m reading and explaining one passage of Scripture, I find that God&#8217;s Word brings about a wonderful balance that we don&#8217;t often have in our everyday conversation.<\/li>\n<li><b>Demonstrating<\/b>. &nbsp;Ok, this was a tricky word to choose. &nbsp;But when I say &#8220;demonstrating&#8221;, I mean that by expository preaching you are demonstrating something that other people can do. &nbsp;Although good education helps, you don&#8217;t need to be a genius or a great speaker or a master in Greek or a human Bible encyclopedia to teach or preach in this way. &nbsp;It also sets an example for anyone studying God&#8217;s Word &#8211; read things in context, don&#8217;t just string together a few sentences (verses) from 6 books and think you&#8217;ve proven something.<\/li>\n<li><b>Focusing<\/b>. &nbsp;I always come to a passage with lots of ideas about what I want to say. &nbsp;But I find that expository preaching forces you to focus on what this passage is <i>really<\/i> saying. &nbsp;Actually, it&#8217;s one of the biggest challenges I find in Bible studies when we&#8217;re going through a passage (ie the Chronological Bible Study). &nbsp;I ask a question about the passage, and miraculously &#8212; all the answers come from elsewhere in the Bible! &nbsp;It&#8217;s dangerous to think that the Bible &#8220;generally teaches x&#8221; &#8211; without really taking the time to focus on what an individual passage is saying &#8211; <i>in context<\/i>.<\/li>\n<li><b>Humbling<\/b>. &nbsp;Oh, this is humbling in so many ways. &nbsp;It&#8217;s humbling because some passages\/sentences\/ideas are very hard to understand! &nbsp;You have to struggle with them. &nbsp;It&#8217;s humbling because it reminds me that we as a Church are <i>under<\/i> the authority of God&#8217;s Word, not the other way around.&nbsp;&nbsp;It&#8217;s humbling because the Holy Spirit has an amazing way to teach these things, and I have to realize that my brilliant plan for an outline doesn&#8217;t fit.<\/li>\n<li><b>Orienting<\/b>. &nbsp;Not only does expository teaching or preaching or studying bring balance, it also brings orientation &#8211; it points you in the right direction. &nbsp;Again, we all have our trains of thought and worldviews, but actually going through a passage in context has an amazing way of directing your thoughts in wise and godly way.<\/li>\n<li><b>Surprising<\/b>. &nbsp;This is one of my favourite things about expository preaching.&nbsp;&nbsp;I never know where I&#8217;m going to end up. &nbsp;Seriously, I might get halfway through, and discover that the Holy Spirit (through the text), is bringing up a topic I never dreamt I&#8217;d be preaching on. &nbsp;Never a dull moment! &nbsp;It&#8217;s a blast.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So yes, I do encourage others to use and demonstrate this method of teaching and preaching. &nbsp;It&#8217;s not the only kind of sermon, but I believe it should be the kind that is regularly used in the Church.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been doing a lot of preaching lately, and so I&#8217;ve been reflecting a bit on the challenges of preaching and teaching and the strategies that we use. &nbsp;I&#8217;ve been talking about some of these things with the pastor of the church in Jes\u00c3\u00bas Mar\u00c3\u00ada as we try to learn together. Recently I read a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6],"tags":[1410,1408,1409],"class_list":["post-4671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotional-and-bible","category-ministry-glimpses","tag-brian-croft","tag-expository-preaching","tag-preaching","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Expository Preaching is... - Finding direction<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cottrillcompass.com\/blog\/2013\/expository-preaching-is.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Expository Preaching is... - Finding direction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;ve been doing a lot of preaching lately, and so I&#8217;ve been reflecting a bit on the challenges of preaching and teaching and the strategies that we use. &nbsp;I&#8217;ve been talking about some of these things with the pastor of the church in Jes\u00c3\u00bas Mar\u00c3\u00ada as we try to learn together. 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