POWER IN EXPOSITORY PREACHING
by Faris D. Whitesell
www.fotbc.org
Chapter 3 Power Through EXPLANATION
One of the fundamental purposes of expository preaching is explanation, or exposition of the Word of God. The expository preacher seeks to find the true and exact meaning of the Scriptures and to set that meaning against life today.
The Bible is mostly a foreign book to us. Coming out of the dim and misty past it tells about strange lands, people, customs, events and ideas. We need to explain many of its words, phrases, sentences, names, places, movements, persons, ideas, and situations. Every area of the Biblical world will need explanation: historical, geographical, sociological, theological, biographical, cultural, literary, cosmological, psychological, archaeological, and grammatical. But rarely will we need to use all of these forms in a single sermon.
Many expository sermons will include a large amount of explanation, and other very little. The preacher should learn to compress the explanation and not waste time in it. Sometimes he may need to weigh different explanations against each other, but usually he will do better to arrive at the best explanation he possibly can and then present it. Odd or extreme explanations should nearly always be avoided. The popular mind has an instinct for sensing sound expla-nations and appreciating them. The average hearer will esteem no part of the sermon more than good explanation. People revere the Bible and wish to increase their understanding of it.
To gain a full and complete understanding of a passage from the Bible in order to explain it clearly and forcefully, five areas of investigation may be involved.
I. Background Data
This is information about the passage. Several important items comprise the background materials. 
The writer: Who wrote this passage? What type of person was he? His importance? Any writing characteristics or emphases?
The speaker: Is he different from the writer?
The addressees: To whom written? To whom spoken? What significance?
The time: What year, month, day, hour, if known?
The place: Where did this occur, or where spoken or written? Any significance to this place? Any archaeological light?
The occasion: What caused this passage to be written?
The aim: What was the purpose of the speaker or writer, or both?
The literary form: Is the passage prose or poetry? Is it parable or history? Is it legislation or exhortation? Is it apocalyptic or drama?
The historical setting: Amidst what historical milieu is this passage set? What bearing does this have on the interpretation of the passage?
The revelational stage: How much revelation of God had been given at this point? Was it under law or under grace? Was it before Pentecost or after?
Many of these data can be found in the passage itself or in the nearby context. Others must be gleaned from Bible dictionaries, encyclopedias, histories, commentaries, and geographies. H. H. Halley’s Bible Handbook is a compact and reliable source for many of these items. Let us apply this procedure to Luke 18:1-8: The parable of the unjust judge and the widow who cried to him for justice. 
The writer: He was Luke, the physician and companion of Paul; a Gentile; a cultured and reliable historian.
The speaker: Jesus.
The addressees: The disciples of Jesus (17:22, 37). The Gospel of Luke was addressed to Theophilus (1:3), but probably intended for Gentile readers.
The time: During the later Perean ministry of Jesus, about 29 A.D., not long before Jesus’ crucifixion.
The place: On the way to Jerusalem while He was going through Samaria or Galilee (17:11).
The occasion: He had been talking to the Pharisees about when the Kingdom of God would come, and then to His disciples (17:20-22). Luke alone records this parable of the widow and the judge.
The aim: The aim seems to be to urge His disciples to faithfulness in prayer while they await His second coming.
The literary form: A parable, or a story, which may not actually have occurred, but it was true to life and often such events did occur.
The historical setting: The Roman Empire ruled the world. The Jews were subject to it, and hated it. Perhaps the fall of Jerusalem and its destruction in 70 A.D. had not yet taken place, though some believe it had occurred. Before the crucifixion and before Pentecost.
The revelational stage: This passage has an apocalyptic setting. He had been talking about His second coming in chapter 17 and refers to it again in this passage. These disciples were under the law. Christ was nearing the end of His earthly ministry.
II. Exegetical Data
This concerns information in the passage. What is the true text? the right translation? the proper interpretation?
The easiest place to begin is with the various English translations of the Bible. Read the passage first in the King James Version, then in the American Standard, the Revised Standard, the New English Bible, the American Translation (University of Chicago Press), the James Moffatt translation, the Berkeley Version, and in the Amplified New Testament or Old Testament. For the New Testament many other modern translations exist: Charles B. Williams, Helen B. Montgomery, R. F. Weymouth, J. B. Phillips, the Twentieth Century, etc. If the pastor can read German, French, Spanish, Swedish, or any other foreign language, he should read his passage in these tongues.
If he knows Hebrew and Greek, he should go into the original text. Here he will use his lexicons, grammars and concordances. The Englishman’s Greek Concordance or The English-man’s Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance will give him every occurrence of any word in Greek or Hebrew. J. H. Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament is a standard help, but has been somewhat superseded by the newer W. F. Arndt and F. W. Gingrich A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Either Robert Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Bible or James Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible will help to understand the original languages even though one has never studied them.
The next step should take the student to the exegetical word studies and commentaries by A. T. Robertson, Marvin R. Vincent, W. E. Vine, or Kenneth S. Wuest. The preacher should keep notes on his exegetical studies, and add to them other ideas for illustrations, explanation, argument, or application that occur to him. Let us look at Luke 18:1-8 and indicate some of the exegetical data concerning it.
v. 1: It is a parable, or story, of Jesus, not to be pressed too far in all details. Does "ought always to pray" mean to pray all the time without ceasing, or does it mean to pray at all times, or on all occasions? The Greek word pantote, for "always," occurs forty-two times in the New Testament. The King James Version translates it as "always" most of the times, but sometimes as "ever" and "evermore." Thayer gives the meaning as "at all times, always, ever"; James H. Moulton’s and George Milligan’s The Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament gives "at all times, always" as the meaning, while Arndt and Gingrich say, "always, at all times." Paul uses this word ten times for either giving thanks or praying for people. William Taylor seems to be right that it means to pray on all occasions and under all circumstances, not all the time without stopping to do anything else. "…and not to faint" means "not to give in to evil, to turn coward and lose heart," observed A. T. Robertson.
v. 2: "…a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man" (rsv), "who had no reverence for God nor respect for men" (williams). William Barclay says that he was not a Jewish judge, but: "This judge was one of these paid magistrates appointed either by Herod or by the Romans. Such judges were notorious. Unless a plaintiff had influence and money to bribe his way to a verdict, he had no hope of ever getting his case settled."1
v. 3: "…a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘vindicate me against my adversary’ " (rsv). Jesus does not say who the widow was, but Alexander Whyte, in his highly imaginative way, says this: "There were many widows who had adversaries in our Lord’s land and day, and He must have known more than one of them. Who knows but that she herself was this very widow with an adversary? Nothing is more likely."2
"Avenge me of mine adversary" (kjv) means "Give me justice and protection from my opponent" (williams).
The Interpreter’s Bible comments: "The woman had no money to bribe the unscrupulous judge, and no power to bully him, but she had persistence: she badgered him. Day by day he ‘took a beating’ from her."3
v. 4: The wicked judge held out against her pleadings as long as he could, admitting that he cared not for God or man.
v. 5: "Yet because this widow troubleth me" (kjv); "bothers me" (rsv); "yet this woman is such a nuisance" (phillips). "…lest by her continual coming she weary me" (kjv); "she will wear me out" (rsv); "her continual visits will be the death of me!" (phillips). The Greek word hupopiadza here means "to hit under the eye" or "to give a black eye." R. C. H. Lenski states metaphorically, "lest finally by coming she be knocking me out," not literally, but by her everlasting coming she will break down the judge’s resistance and move him to act.
The Abingdon Bible Commentary says: "The magistrate is not seriously afraid of assault and battery in open court, but was afraid of a scene, by which his dignity would be so badly compromised that, whenever he sat there, people would remember how he was bearded by a widow!"4
v. 6-7: Jesus called attention to the unrighteous judge in order to contrast his character and conduct sharply with the righteous character and merciful conduct of God.
v. 7: God will give justice to His elect who persist in praying. He will not delay long but will vindicate them speedily as He counts time. Barclay says that this does not mean that God always answers immediately. A father must refuse the requests of his children at times, knowing that they do not ask aright. God knows the future perfectly and with it knows exactly when to give what is good for us.
v. 8: "…will he find faith on earth?" (rsv), or "the faith" (Greek). When Christ comes, will He find His disciples holding out in prayer for His vindication? Will their faith stand this test? The whole passage is apocalyptic.
Norval Geldenhuys comments: "He now teaches in this parable that when His coming is apparently slow in taking place, believers are not to become discouraged, but should persist in prayer, knowing that He will indeed come at the right time and will answer their supplication…."5
R. C. H. Lenski says that the elect are always precious to God, but He does not always act to vindicate them with the speed they wish. With God a thousand years is as one day and one day as a thousand years (II Peter 3:8-9). God may wish in this time to discipline His elect until they are mature and patient, but at the end, when Christ returns, He will act with speed and justice. Lenski holds that Jesus did not mean to teach that "the faith" would not exist when He returns. He only raises the question concerning it in order to stimulate His children to keep on crying for justice until He appears.
III. Structural Data
The preacher should determine the thought structure of his passage. What is its subject? What are its possible themes? The subject is broad and general, but the theme is a partitioning of the subject. What are the major ideas in the passage and how are they related to each other? What minor ideas support each major idea? He should outline the passage, giving the major ideas Roman numbers and the minor ones Arabic numbers. This will reveal to him the structure or analysis of his passage. 
The result of this procedure is only a skeleton, not a sermon outline. He has arranged the ideas in the order in which they occur in the passage. This structural analysis may be a long step toward a sermon outline but it still lacks the unity, balance, progress and impact of an outline. He has before him in skeletal form the ideas which he will probably use in making his sermon outline; and in the background and exegetical data he has much of the material he will need to develop his outline. 
When we look at Luke 18:1-8, we ask, What is it about? The answer is, prayer. What kind of prayer? Persistent praying. Our subject then is prayer, and the theme, persistent praying. Since Luke calls it a parable, we have the heading for our structural outline.
A Parable of Persistent Praying The thesis is plainly stated in verse 1, "…men ought always to pray, and not to faint" (kjv).
I. The judge, v. 2 
1.	Lived in a city, v. 2 
2.	Did not fear God, v. 2 
3.	Did not regard man, v. 2

II. The widow, v. 3 
4.	Lived in the same city, v. 3

5.	Came to the judge, kept coming, v. 3

III. The widow’s prayer, v. 3 
6.	She had a definite request, v. 3

7.	She kept coming with it, vv. 3, 5

8.	She asked to be avenged, or to have justice from her opponent in a lawsuit, v. 3

IV. The judge’s reaction, vv. 4-5 
9.	Having no fear of God and no respect for man, he refused to pay any attention, v. 4

10.	The widow kept bothering him with her case, vv. 3, 5

11.	Not wishing to be pestered to death, he yielded and gave her justice, v. 5

V. Jesus’ lesson, vv. 6-8 
12.	Hear what the unjust judge said and did, v. 6

13.	Let this be reason to know that God, the righteous Judge, will do the very opposite, v. 7

14.	He will give justice to His elect, v. 7

15.	God is patient with them and will avenge them speedily, v. 8

CONCLUSION: Let the elect maintain the faith that cries to God day and night and He will give them justice at the return of Christ.	
IV. Contextual Data
What is the relation of the Scripture passage under discussion to its surrounding material? Unless a Bible passage consists of a series of disjointed proverbs or exhortations, its ideas are interconnected over a long stretch. The whole context should be studied in order to understand the meaning of any part, with the immediate context the most important. As the context becomes farther removed from the passage, it is likely to have less bearing on it. But certain characteristic ideas, phrases, and words may run through a whole book of the Bible, including the text the preacher is considering. The words life, light, love, and believe recur with great frequency in John’s writings. We have seen that one great factor in G. Campbell Morgan’s expository power was his loyalty to the contextual principle.
Looking at Luke 18:1-8 again, we see that its context is quite important. It immediately follows Jesus’ discussion of the coming Kingdom and the end of the age in Luke 17:20-37. Jesus’ interpretation of the parable links up with the apocalyptic idea (18:8). The parable of the Pharisee and the publican praying in the temple immediately follows our Scripture passage (18:9-14). Jesus seems to be teaching that true prayer is not only necessary in the light of His coming, but that it should be persistent and sincere.
Our text is set in Luke’s Gospel which is the gospel of prayer and praise, the gospel of the poor, the outcasts and the widows. Luke was especially hard on the rich and sympathetic to the poor. The judge was no doubt rich and the widow quite poor. God will hear the praying poor.
V. Cross Reference Data
Now that the expositor has the data about the passage, within the passage, and around the passage, we suggest that he compare it with other similar references in the Bible. This will enrich his understanding, give him fresh insight, and furnish Biblical support.
While this parable occurs nowhere else in the Bible, we do have a similar story in Luke 11:5-13. There a man asks bread of a friend in order to take care of a guest. The friend does not wish to get up in the middle of the night to help him, but because of his importunity the friend does. A friend can be moved to help by importunate asking. In our parable, an enemy can be moved by persistence. George A. Buttrick treats these two stories together in the same sermon, entitled, "The God Who Answers Prayer."6
When we look up some of the Greek words in the parable in The Englishman’s Greek Concordance, we find that the word "to pray" in 18:1 is used some eighty times in the New Testament. The word "to faint" occurs also in II Corinthians 4:1, 4:16, Galatians 6:9, Ephesians 3:13, and II Thessalonians 3:13; showing wherein Christians may faint, or cave in. In 18:2 the word for "judge" is used often of men, but sometimes of God, as in Acts 10:42, II Timothy 4:8, Hebrews 12:23, and James 5:9. In 18:3 the word for "avenge" or "vindicate" is used four other times, showing the stress put on it. The word for "cry" is used in 18:7, in 18:38 and other places in the New Testament to mean "to cry aloud." The word for "bear long" (kjv), or "delay long over them" (rsv)—makrothumeo (Greek)—occurs eight other times in the New Testament in the verb form and fourteen other places in the noun form, and usually means "patience" or "longsuffering."
The writer does not insist that all these steps must necessarily be followed, or that this is the only way to compile the essential data for explaining a passage of Scripture, but this method will do it without overlooking anything, and will give the expositor assurance that he has done justice to his passage. The expositor might combine all these steps into one but it is doubtful that he would save any time or do it any better. However one does it, the main thing is to gather all this information and evaluate it thoroughly before attempting to speak on a text of Scripture.
When a preacher is preaching serially through a book of the Bible, he will need very little additional background data as he goes from passage to passage, for he has already considered most of that in his opening sermon. But the exegetical, structural, contextual, and cross reference material must be gathered for each passage he expounds.
We will not deal with hermeneutics, the science of sound Biblical interpretation, any more than to affirm that the expositor should be familiar with right principles of handling his explanatory data. He should have utmost confidence in the Bible, handle it reverently, and interpret it with spiritual insight. He will pay attention to the unfolding progressive revelation of the Bible, its essential unity, its various types of literature, and the centrality of Christ in the Scriptures. He will be wary about imposing rigid theological systems upon the Bible or of following those who do. He will seek the basic historical-contextual-grammatical interpretation of every passage in the light of the total teaching of the Scriptures.
The expositor will make notes on how others have explained different parts of this passage (Luke 18:1-8). William Taylor wrote: "The church on earth must never allow herself to become so hopeless and unbelieving, in regard to the second coming of her Lord, as to give up praying for that great consummation, when all her wrongs shall be redressed, and all her troubles shall be brought to a blessed and everlasting end. That is the great lesson of the parable, and it is to that the Saviour reverts when, as he concludes, he says, ‘Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh shall he find that faith?’ for in the original, the article is used, and the reference is to such faith as will continue to the end looking and praying for the coming of the Son of man ‘upon the earth.’ "7 G. Campbell Morgan says: 
We must not forget the connection of the parable with teaching He had recently given. He had been speaking of the fact that in the day of His final Manifestation things would be going on in the world just as they had been in the days of Noah, and in the days of Lot. Conse-quently, the age in which these men were called upon to live would be days of great difficulty. The parable, then, is a revelation of what is necessary for the life of faith, in an age which is not conducive to faith. In such an age, prayer is the very essence of life. Under such circum-stances, our Lord says, in effect, there is one alternative offered to us, prayer or fainting. Our Lord’s outlook upon the age, and of the life of His people through that age, is that unless men pray, the will faint.
It may be asked, How can people always pray? The answer is that we must understand what prayer is. Prayer is far more than uttering words. I can pray when I do not think I am praying. We can pray without any words at all. Prayer, in the last analysis, is the urge of the life towards God, and spiritual things…. Prayer literally means to wish forward. Prayer, then, is desiring towards the ultimate, the urge that for ever masters life for the coming of the Kingdom of God, and the victory of all things spiritual. Now, said Jesus, Unless your life is of that nature, you will faint.8
J. C. Ryle writes this illuminating sentence: "It is prayer without fainting, during the long weary interval between the first and second advents, which Jesus is urging His disciples to keep up."9
Alexander Whyte mingles strong imagination with explanation when he writes: "It was her orphaned and starving children that made their mother to be like a she-bear robbed of her whelps. Avenge me of mine adversary! She stood in the way of the unjust judge’s chariot all day and cried out, Avenge me of mine adversary! She burst in upon the business of his court and cried, Avenge me of mine adversary! She stood under his window all night and cried out, Avenge me of mine adversary! And he would not for a while. But after that day when this wild woman suddenly sprang in upon him with a knife hidden away among her rags—after that day he said, Because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. There is a tinge of blood in the original ink that is lost in the tame translation, because there was a gleam of blood in the widow’s eye on that last day of her warning and appeal to the unjust judge."10
The New Bible Commentary says that the argument of Jesus in 18:6-8 is this: "If an unrighteous judge will give a just judgment in the case of a helpless widow in whom he has no interest because of her ceaseless pleading, how much more will the holy God answer the unwearied cry for justice of His own chosen people? If He does not interpose to deliver them immediately, it is because He is longsuffering to their oppressors."11
The Speaker’s Bible makes this explanation of Luke 18:8: "The parable was spoken to inculcate the necessity of persistent prayer with unabated confidence…. The question (of this verse) is, of course, a rhetorical one. Our Lord is not inquiring for information. But it is not, therefore, to be taken as a counterfeit one. Our Lord is not, in the form of a question, giving information. He neither expects to learn from His disciples, nor does He expect to teach them, by His question, whether such faith as he had been commending to them shall remain on the earth when He comes again. His object is to rouse to effort. What He is aiming at is ethical impression. He wishes to encourage His disciples to preserve that attitude of confident trust in God which it is the purpose of the parable to inculcate."12
George A. Buttrick makes his explanation picturesque: "There were only three ways of dealing with such a judge as is described; he could be bribed, bullied, or besought until he surrendered. The widow had no wealth with which to bribe him and no power with which to threaten. She could only plead with the persistence of despair. So she pleaded against hope. She entreated the judge at his tribunal. She waylaid him as he went home. Wherever he might go, there she would be, waiting to pour her intolerable tale of woe upon him. He could not escape her. At last, for his own comfort (he knew no law but his own gain) he did as she asked; it was the only way to be rid of her."13
The expository preacher should build a library of exegetical commentaries. Sermonic commentaries are useful but not as valuable as those that go down deep into the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures.
In the questionnaire survey we found the following use of commentaries:
•	72 used the Pulpit Commentary 
•	70 used G. Campbell Morgan’s expository works 
•	70 used Matthew Henry’s commentary 
•	66 used The Interpreter’s Bible 
•	54 used Alexander Maclaren’s Expositions of Holy Scripture 
•	43 used The Expositor’s Greek New Testament 
•	41 used the works of A. T. Robertson 
•	37 used The Expositor’s Bible 
•	35 used the works of Harry A. Ironside 
•	24 used R. C. H. Lenski’s commentaries 
•	21 used The International Critical Commentary 
•	14 used the commentaries of William Barclay 
•	11 used Adam Clarke’s commentary 
As to modern English translations:
•	134 used Phillips 
•	98 used the American Standard Revised 
•	83 used the Amplified New Testament 
•	77 used the Revised Standard Version 
•	46 used Weymouth 
•	44 used Moffatt 
•	28 used Williams 
•	20 used Montgomery 
•	17 used the Berkeley Version 
The New English Bible had just come off the press. 
Chapter 4: Power Through ORGANIZATION 
By definition a sermon is an organized discourse. The better the organization, the better the sermon