The Biblical Background for Expositional Preaching
The Biblical Primacy of Exposition
God's Word gives clear primacy to exposition.
- Many preachers and pastors today question whether the Bible really gives us any reason to think i that expositional preaching is the best way to preach.
- But the prophetic nature of preaching and the performative nature of God's Word reveal exposition to be best suited to unleashing the power of the text.
Exposition is primary because preaching is prophetic.
- To say that preaching is prophetic is not to say that it is either predictive or ecstatic utterance - preachers are ambassadors, not prognosticators; and their source of revelation is God's mediated written word, not His immediate verbal word. It is rather to say that preaching is about receiving God's word and communicating it to God's people in a way that is faithful to God's intention.
- Preaching is prophetic because it conveys God's Word to God's people. Exposition best handles the prophetic nature of preaching because the expositional sermon is unique for taking the point of the passage as the point of the message. It is therefore the best way to remain faithful to the content and intent of God's Word in any given text.
