POWER IN EXPOSITORY PREACHING
by Faris D. Whitesell
www.fotbc.org
Chapter 1: Power Through MOTIVATION 
Why are there not more consistent, first-rate expository preachers? The answer might be that not enough men have the motivation to achieve proficiency in this field. We need adequate motivation to accomplish anything worthwhile. This chapter is devoted to consideration of the motives which should spur preachers into a ministry of expository preaching. A review of one’s call and commission into the Christian ministry should focus attention on the responsibility to preach the Word of God. The Bible is to be our textbook and guide. It should be the source of preaching ideas and pulpit authority. Jesus commanded Peter, "Feed my lambs…. Tend my sheep" (John 21:15-17, RSV); and Paul exhorted the Ephesian elders "to feed the church of the Lord which he obtained with his own blood" (Acts 20:28, RSV). The best way to feed the children of God is to preach the Bible in big portions. Paul probably had this same work in mind when he wrote to Timothy, "…preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching" (II Timothy 4:2, RSV).
God calls men into the ministry to preach His Word, not their own ideas or the current trends in human thought. A congregation can learn what men think through their newspapers, magazines, and other news media, but the question is: What does God think and say? William M. Taylor was right when he said: "You are to be ministers of the Word: and it is by the knowledge of the Scriptures that you are to be thoroughly furnished for your work. The Bible is your textbook, and that not in the sense of being a hunting-ground for texts, but in that of constituting the groundwork of your discourses."1 
And, was Harry Jeffs of England too radical when he wrote: "The Bible is the preacher’s Book and the preacher’s glory. Bible exposition is the preacher’s main business. If he cannot or will not expound the Bible, what right has he in any pulpit? He is cumberer of the ground, and worse than a cumberer, for he is occupying uselessly ground that might be occupied by a fruit-bearing and soul-nourishing tree. If he does not expound the Bible what else is there for him to do? He may deliver addresses ‘out of his own head’ on any subject that occurs to him, and may do it very well, but why do it in a pulpit?"2
If the preacher reviews his call and commission, but finds that his confidence in the power and authority of the Scriptures has been shattered, what can he do? Occasionally ministers do have this problem and they have our sympathy. Maybe they have studied under critical schol-ars, or have read too deeply in modern philosophy and theology, or have gone through bitter experiences in life. They do not, and say they cannot, hold orthodox views of the Bible. But they can try. G. Campbell Morgan, one of the world’s greatest expository preachers, had such an experience in his early days. His daughter-in-law writes: 
At last the crisis came when he admitted to himself his total lack of assurance that the Bible was the authoritative Word of God to man. He immediately cancelled all preaching engagements. Then, taking all his books, both those attacking and those defending the Bible, he put them all in a corner cupboard. Relating this afterwards, as he did many times in preaching, he told of turning the key in the lock of the door. "I can hear the click of that lock now," he used to say. He went out of the house, and down the street to a bookshop. He bought a new Bible and, returning to his room with it, he said to himself: "I am no longer sure that this is what my father claims it to be—the Word of God. But of this I am sure. If it be the Word of God, and if I come to it with an unprejudiced and open mind, it will bring assurance to my soul of itself. That Bible found me," he said, "I began to read and study it then, in 1883. I have been a student ever since, and I still am (in 1938)."
At the end of two years Campbell Morgan emerged from that eclipse of faith absolutely sure that the Bible was, in very deed and truth, none other than the Word of the living God…. With this crisis behind him and this new certainty thrilling his soul, there came a compelling conviction. This Book, being what it was, merited all that a man could give to its study, not merely for the sake of the personal joy of delving deeply into the heart and mind and will of God, but also in order that those truths discovered by such searching of the Scriptures should be made known to a world of men groping for light, and perishing in the darkness with no clear knowledge of the Will.3 
A similar case closer to our own days is that of Billy Graham, the evangelist. He wrote an article in the October 15, 1956, issue of Christianity Today, telling how he came through such a crisis in August, 1949: "I dueled with my doubts, and my soul seemed to be caught in the crossfire. Finally, in desperation, I surrendered my will to the living God revealed in Scripture. I knelt before the open Bible and said, ‘Lord, many things in this Book I do not understand. But Thou hast said, "The just shall live by faith." All I have received from Thee, I have taken by faith. Here and now, by faith, I accept the Bible as Thy word. I take it all. I take it without reservations. Where there are things I cannot understand, I will reserve judgment until I receive more light. If this please Thee, give me authority as I proclaim Thy word, and through that authority convict me of sin and turn sinners to the Saviour.’ "4 Soon after that came the Los Angeles Crusade which launched Billy Graham into the field of world evangelism, and ever since he has preached the Word with power.
If a pastor wishes to add depth, dignity, direction, and dynamics to his preaching, let him perfect himself in the expository method. The great expositor, William M. Taylor, insists that the preacher’s "…special power is that he has God’s Word behind him, and if through the neglect of expounding that Word he fails to use this power with effect, he is like Samson shorn of his locks, and will be sure to be made sport of by the Philistines of his generation. Hence, as an engine of power, I advocate most earnestly the systematic pulpit exposition of the sacred Scriptures."5
F. B. Meyer claims that the expository preacher has a better chance of appealing successfully to the conscience, and of capturing and compelling the will, because his appeals are based on more Scripture, have a broader basis of truth, and are likely to have more of the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.6
The challenge of following in the train of the great exemplars of expository preaching should be some motivation to a preacher. Think of the spiritual help expository preachers have given to others. Men like Matthew Henry, Joseph Parker, Marcus Dods, George Adam Smith, G. Campbell Morgan, Alexander Maclaren, and W. B. Riley helped not only through their pulpit ministry but through their written ministry! Hardly a pastor’s library anywhere exists without containing one or more volumes from these men, and when the pastor preaches the Bible, he turns to them for help.
Living preachers are putting their best expository sermons into print and thus are extending and perpetuating their lives’ work. Volumes of topical and textual sermons, no matter how popular and how good, soon have done their work and are cast aside. But books of good expository sermons remain in use long after the author has left this world. Expository preachers like Paul S. Rees, Harold J. Ockenga, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Roy Laurin, Alan Redpath, Lehman Strauss, Douglas M. White, and Helmut Thielicke, are producing expository sermon volumes which will be around for a long time. The writer believes that any dedicated preacher can publish at least one book of expositions. He can, if he is willing to write out his sermons in full, revise, rewrite, polish and correct until they meet publishers’ standards.
Does the preacher wish to rise above the level of being a sermon mill or homiletical machine grinding out two or three sermons a week? If he will get into the expository habit and fall in line with the great expository preachers, sermon production will be a joy. He will regret that he cannot spend more time in his study preparing sermons, and that he has such a few years left to preach the Bible.
Joseph Parker, after seven years of preaching through much of the Bible, wrote: "I care less and less for mere catch-texts and for small ingenuities in pulpit mechanics. Our cleverness is our destruction as expositors. In its exercise we lose breadth, substance, and dignity, and become mere tricksters and jugglers. I care very little for mere literary polish in preaching. We want intelligence, unction, and directness. All the rest is comparatively worthless. The preacher is not an author reading his own manuscript; he is a voice, a fire, a herald, bold and eager in his sacred work—an orator speaking in Heaven’s name and strength."7
Are you open for something to renew your ministry? Something to lift you out of the doldrums? Something to make the chores of the ministry take on new importance? Something to thrill you intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually? Something to give you a new grip on the power of God and make you glad you are a preacher? Give expository preaching a realistic trial for a year.
Imagine that you are standing before the judgment seat of Christ. Life’s work is all over and every deed, word, attitude, and thought is passing in review before the fiery test of that day. Will you be most glad for your topical preaching? Your textual? Your expository? Which is most likely to be wood, hay, stubble—which gold, silver and precious stone? Which type would equip you with the most spiritual knowledge and discernment for the heavenly life before you?
Parishioners expect their pastor to be a master of the Bible. Will he ever master it unless he lives in it and preaches all through it in sizable portions? The Bible deserves to be explored, tested, verified, mastered, and preached. The desire to win the respect and approval of his spiritual members—the Bible-believers and Bible-lovers—should prompt a pastor to specialize in expository preaching. True enough, he is to seek to please God rather than men; but if he has some members with the mind of Christ and love for the Word, is he not pleasing God when he pleases them?
How can the pastor make his immature members Biblically literate and spiritually mature? Nothing will help them more than interesting expository preaching.
Harold J. Ockenga has written: "My own conviction is that we must get back to expository preaching, beginning as did Zwingli, the Swiss reformer, in the first verse of the Book of Matthew and preaching right through the New Testament, so that our congregations may be truly conversant with the doctrines, precepts and practices of New Testament Christianity."8
R. Ames Montgomery, discussing the consistent expositor, wrote: "His own congregation will be edified and built up in Christian faith and character. He will gain a reputation for sound and instructive preaching. He will become established in the esteem and affection of his public."9
If the pastor seeks to develop a working and witnessing church, he will go a long way toward achieving this goal by preaching expository sermons. Such sermons will show the people the greatness of the Bible and the God of the Bible. They will be equipped to witness and inspired to work. Sunday school teachers will be better prepared to teach. People will be inspired to read their Bibles and to carry them. Is the church too worldly? Expository preaching will feed the saints, wean them from the world and set their affections on things above. Is the stewardship level low in the church? Expository sermons will, in the course of time, cover all the facets of Christian stewardship without singling it out for an over-emphasis. Is there too little soul-winning zeal and missionary concern? Expounding the Scriptures will bring God’s answer to these needs. One pastor gives this testimony: "After ten years of topical, textual, doctrinal, and general preaching, I have spent the past three years in expository preaching entirely, with these results: More souls have been saved, more improvements have been made to church properties, and more money has been given to missionary causes than in any other similar period in the church’s history; and it was God working through His Word that did it all!"10
Bernard Ramm has this to say: "Expository preaching makes for a well-rounded ministry. Some preachers never get away from the Pauline epistles, others are "bugs" on prophetic themes, others have pet doctrinal themes. But an expository preacher, by his very method, is spread all over the Bible. He and his people survey the entire range of divine truth, from Genesis to Revelation. The result is that there is education, edification, and spiritual matur-ation."11
A pastor should plan to preach through the whole Bible in every pastorate. How else can he preach the whole counsel of God in any given place? This would be impossible if the preacher preached paragraph-by-paragraph through each book of the Bible. But suppose he preached part of the time on the books of the Bible, part of the time on the great events of the Bible (some of them covering several chapters)? He could shift to the great men of the Bible (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Saul, David, Solomon, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Jesus, Peter, Paul, John), and then bring in the great chapters of the Bible. He could preach part of the time on paragraphs and texts and still cover the whole Bible in five to ten years. If he stayed longer, he could go back over the same ground in smaller portions. A plan like this would cause a pastor to stay longer, do better work, and get a call to a better field when it was God’s time for him to move. Men like Matthew Henry, Joseph Parker, Alexander Maclaren, W. B. Riley, and William G. Coltman, did not move around much. They were too busy preaching through the Bible where they were.
A pastor trying to preach through the whole Bible does not worry too much about what to preach. He always has plenty of material before him. His problem will be to stay long enough and live long enough to preach it all. He can easily plan his preaching schedule, except for occasional break-ins, for several years to come.
Bernard Ramm expresses it like this: "Expository preaching makes sermon preparation easy. There is no frantic search for a topic. There is a definite passage of Scripture to be handled, and a definite procedure for the handling. This does not mean that the preacher relentlessly follows his schedule. No, a crisis in the community, a special Sunday (Christmas, Easter), a special church need might call for a topical or textual sermon. But as a basis of his ministry, the expository preacher has a well-defined method which he systematically carries out and which for the most part relieves him of the anguish of knowing or deciding what to preach on next."12
If a preacher is to do lasting work, work that abides for eternity, expository preaching is his method. The Word of God is eternal and is settled forever in heaven. If the pastor can lash his people to the Scriptures in comprehensive and detailed knowledge, they can weather the storms of life and be useful Christians wherever they live. If the preacher hopes to stir young men and women to see the heavenly vision, to answer God’s call to vocational Christian service, and in the years to come to have them serve in pastorates and in the mission fields, let him give them a preseminary training in his expository preaching.
If people are to know the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, they must meet Him in the Scriptures. They can know Him only vaguely through nature, conscience, and history. The God of the Bible is the only God who can save, sanctify, and glorify. Most church members know the Bible only as they learn it from their pastors, and they know only that God they conceive in their minds. Preachers must enlarge their conceptions of God. What a God He is as He walks through the Scriptures—the God of creation, judgment, election, grace, redemption, history and glory! Let preachers give their hearers a full-orbed view of God as they unfold the Scriptures in expository preaching!
Adolph Saphir said it well: "Thus nothing is more needed in our days, both for the church and the world, than a faithful and deep exposition of Scripture, of the whole Scripture, of Scripture in its organic unity and comprehensive fulness, in order that by grace, mind, conscience, and heart may be convinced that here are revealed unto us thoughts higher than our thoughts, divine realities and blessings, things which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man. And thus, while they who believe not will acknowledge that God is in us of a truth, the children of God will be kept stedfast and faithful; they will be furnished unto every good work, and forgetting the things that are behind, will press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."13
If nothing else in this chapter motivates you to undertake a ministry of expository preaching, perhaps some of the testimonies to the value of expository preaching, as given in our survey, will do it. The last item on our questionnaire read: "If you have any personal testimony in favor of expository preaching, please state it briefly." Here are some of the testimonies: 
It enriches the life of the preacher, and strengthens the faith of the congregation. The preacher can deal with problems when they are not sore spots.
It pleases and glorifies God because it points directly to Him, the source of all our help and blessings.
It gives greater variety and usually is more satisfying.
It enables people to recall in their own devotions what was said about the passage.
Encourages Bible reading, Bible study, and the use of the Bible in the church services.
Carries a ring of authority. Sharp and uncomfortable truths are more readily accepted when given from the Bible instead of as the thoughts of the minister.
The Holy Spirit can minister His Word to the people better than the preacher’s words.
Keeps my preaching Bible-centered and meets real needs in congregation.
Needed to prevent religious illiteracy.
Best way to keep fresh in your preaching.
It refreshes me most and leaves a longer impression on the audience.
Produces sound Christians, good church members, and helps you touch problems with a constructive solution that is Scriptural.
Has won souls and has established God’s Word, not the Mass, in the hearts of the people by the Holy Spirit (missionary in Mexico).
Produces the greatest fruit evangelistically and ethically. People want to know what the Bible teaches.
Your ministry gains power as you go: expanded lives, Bible reading and praying result.
Forces deeper research; opens the Scriptures more significantly.
The most powerful preaching; Spirit of God can use it best; provides its own main illustrations.
The best way to prevent too much of the minister showing up in the sermon.
It is the great need of today; it is preaching with authority.
It gives organized knowledge of the Bible as a Book.
Keeps preachers from overuse of more familiar portions of Scripture or using popular portions too often.
Dependence on the Holy Spirit greater in my case.
Best way to keep from riding hobbies and to preach the whole counsel of God. 
What more can we say? The motives for expository preaching are many and powerful. 
Chapter 2: Power Through DIVERSIFICATION 
Expository preaching could grow monotonous if the presentation is not well done