How We Speak God’s Word Today 9Marks Building Healthy Churches
David Helm
This is part of the 9Marks series designed to help pastors and churches with everything from discipleship to evangelism. I have found of this the second book of the series I have read that they are very helpful despite being short books. I choose to read this book before I realized it was part of that series. I’m always looking for preaching books to read.
In the introduction to the book, the author talks about how expository (or expositional) preaching is not a new concept. It’s been happening since the nineteenth century at least. It flows out of exit Jesus, the bringing out of the text of Scripture the truth of what the Bible is speaking of. Expositional preaching is preaching that results from that study method. The author several times mentions a preacher from the 1800s who had as his goal to do this.
The first chapter talks about contextualization, which is not a bad thing if you do it the right way. He describes three types of preaching that fall short of the biblical text. The first is the “blind adherence” problem, the one where a pastor takes from devotional reading or just picks a verse or two to preach on. Without doing any homework, the preacher develops a few thoughts and proceeds to preach from them. This ignores the historical and literary context of that passage.
A second approach the author calls “Impressionistic Preaching,” which is much like the Impressionist movement that made a somewhat realistic impression without being completely realistic. The preacher gets close to what the biblical text is Satan in in its context, but stops short of doing the hard work of fit in the text from its world to ours faithfully. This preacher is still more concerned to keep his audience’s attention more than honor the biblical text completely.
He next describes “inebriated preaching,” which is when a preacher selects a biblical text to prove what they think it means, instead of researching it to know what it means. They lean on the text like a drunk leans on a light pole for support. They go to a text because they think it says what they want to talk about in their sermon, only to find out if they pay any attention that it doesn’t say what they think it says.
Finally, he describes “inspired preaching,” the idea of “waiting for God to speak about your passage. You don’t do any study for yourself. You simply wait for God to tell you what to say, and then say it. This “spiritual” approach neglects understanding your passage as much as you can before you begin preaching. The author reminds us that every preacher at one time or another has approached the Bible in all of these ways. But, he contends, expositional preaching helps us to avoid these pitfalls approaches
In Chapter 2, Helm concentrates on beginning to show how expositional preaching works. It starts in the pastor’s study, looking closely at the text for the sermon. He contends for observing the context of the passage and letting it take control. There are some very detailed components to this chapter and the next. I liked the author going into detail on what to look for. He explains that two contexts are key: literary context. The pastor can also make good use of biblical and systematic theology to confirm the texts place in theological issues.
Chapter 3 highlights theological reflection as another important step before the preacher preaches the message. He talks about how Jesus had great theological instincts, and how the preacher can develop these instincts as well. One thing that has become a challenge, or maybe a danger, to theological preaching today is the historical critical method. He goes into detail about it. Then he gives further information on how to use biblical and systematic theology to prepare the sermon properly.
The final chapter deals with how the preacher can expositional he preach today. He talks about how to understand the makeup of your audience, and how to preach to them expositional he after doing your homework. He also explains how to arrange a material for best effect. He finishes the chapter by giving pointers on how to apply your material to your listeners. He concludes the book by returning to this preacher from the nineteenth century, Simeon. He also has an appendix where he answers questions pastors ask about preaching. I liked this book for its brevity, but it was thorough. To be sure, there are more steps to the exegetical process to preach expositionally. But it gives you a great head start. The author referred to Simeon an awful lot. If you have never approached to wed your exegetical study with your preaching, this book is a great place to start. I recommend it for any preacher to get a lay of the land for expository or expositional preaching.
