I have yet to read T. David Gordon’s book, Why Johnny Can’t Preach, but I’m tempted to wonder if part of the reason for Johnny’s homiletical ineptness is that he feels constrained to preach one paragraph at a time. Mind you, I have nothing against the lectio continuo, that is, preaching and reading through entire books of Scripture rather than building homilies out of the three or four different lessons assigned by the lectionary. The former invites expository preaching while the latter encourages pious thoughts on biblical themes (with lots if illustrations from television series). At the same time, when you hear stories of men spending three years in Romans and think that an average Christian in a lectionary church has heard the entirety of Scripture read during the same time, you begin to wonder about the side effects of devotion to bite-sized texts.
One sign of problems with such preaching is to consider whether a pastor loses sight of the original reason for the book of Scripture through which he is sermonizing. During the first two or so chapters into one of Paul’s letters, for instance, the pastor is generally attentive to the context and the particular problems that vexed the Corinthians. But come chapter thirteen, a minister may have grown weary of reminding the congregation of Paul’s original context and so begin to treat the later passages in isolation from the actual situation in Corinth.
This problem leads to another, at least associated with epistles, which is, are letters meant to be read a paragraph at a time? Maybe some lovers will savor each graph of their beloved’s letter, like the last chocolate in the box. But generally speaking, whether for business or personal communication, we read letters from beginning to end. Why, many New Testament experts have said that Hebrews was regularly read in one sitting to the early church. So how much does expository preaching slow down a natural approach to texts?
Is there a solution? Probably not. But I do wonder if ministers might mix their approach to books of the Bible in the same way that they may vary the genres the choose to preach. Why not every third sermon series decide to preach an entire book – and I mean a longer one like a Gospel or Romans – in six sermons? If a pastor did this and was forced to preach through the entire book only six times, how would that organize his thoughts and presentation? Would he miss a lot? Yes. And given the way that some ministers do word analysis in their sermons, covering a pericope at a time is a sprint through Scripture. So the size of sermon texts is relative, just as speed and exposition are in the eye of the behold. But a six sermon allotment would help the congregation to see the entire book and its main points. If the pastor were so inclined, he could come back to certain passages that deserve greater attention. But again, in order to keep before the congregation the overarching point of a specific book, is a seventy-six week series the way to go?
And if we could preach entire books in greater speed, maybe we could also introduce catechetical preaching, which would give a summary of the entire Bible’s teaching – if you’re following Heidelberg – in one year.
I also wonder if giving more attention to the high points of the Bible and its books would be a way to prevent some of the balkanization that goes on in conservative Reformed circles when pastors take on pet doctrines or harbor beloved themes. If preachers had to look more to Paul or God to organize their thoughts than to their own abilities to find three or four points in a paragraph, maybe conservative Presbyterians would get along. As it stands, our manner of preaching splits up texts in ways that seldom bring unity to the very words we revere.
Old Life 
Now, this is an interesting point, one which I never thought much about before. When I think back to the way we were taught to compose business correspondence (more decades ago than I care to remember!) I recall that, after a brief greeting, a letter should contain a short paragraph summarizing the purpose for writing – the statement of a problem, a commendation, perhaps a sales pitch. The body of the letter included several paragraphs articulating the issue at hand in the introductory paragraph. Finally, a closing paragraph might contain a recommended solution, a request for help, or an emphatic product statement that pointed back to the opening sentences.
When I read Paul’s epistles I see them doing the same thing in an exacting manner. Some, dealing with more serious issues, are longer, containing a more detailed explanation of why he saw the issue in his opening paragraphs a problem. Paul’s shorter letters follow the same format, just with less necessity for him to build his case.
As in the case of the business letter, extracting a few sentences at a time out of the context of the epistle can result in the loss of some, if not all, of its impact. Elaboration on the body alone makes one wonder if there is a main point; focus only on the closing can leave one guessing whether the writing was really justified.
If expository preaching is falling into this kind of a rut it makes me wonder (and fear) whether a bit of evangelical Biblicism might be creeping into some congregations. I certainly hope not, because the next step always seems to be sermons preached for entertainment purposes – ones that include lots of stories, dramatic gesturing, and vivid testimonials – perhaps leaving the congregation with a good feeling, but wondering if there was any point to what they just heard.
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Great post. So true.
Our church practices the kind of preaching described above. What I’ve found interesting is that when our pastor starts doing “one sentence at at time” sermons, his sermons end up being topical anyway. Pretty ironic, given how proud our chruch is of its “exegetical” preaching.
As a Bible study leader in the church, I have found this method to influence how quickly (or slowly, rather) people want to go through the Bible on their own. I try to take my group through an epistle in no more than 2 months, but even still, after 2 years, people say that is too fast. This worries me because the style of preaching you’ve described teaches people that they don’t need to understand the writer’s flow of thought, because it leaves that out. I still can’t get my group to outline a small epistle like Colossians. It’s too hard, and they just want to know “What does this text mean to me?” Any ideas on how to work on this with the laity?
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Great points! Do read Gordon’s book; it is worth every pericope. I heard one very good expositor preach through a portion of Hebrews – but I felt I got lost in the few verses he expounded – so there is a potential unintended problem with exposition of a few verses. Perhaps variety is what is needed.
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Mark Dever is very adept at taking chapters at a time and preaching them. He also did a series where he preached each book of the Bible, then each testament, and then the Bible as a whole.
Well worth the time to check them out. Very edifying.
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I would think that the hobby horse would be more accessible by macropreaching (“big picture”)than in micropreaching (verse by verse). A chief advantage of micropreaching is dealing with all of the scripture rather cherry picking.
The two-service format lends itself well to one kind of preaching in the morning and another one in the evening.
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Ben, but Dever is a Baptist. ewww.
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Christ the Center had a good interview with David Gordon about his book that is worth listening to. I attend a church that uses the lectionary and have preached using the lectionary myself. The ability to preach from the lectionary depends on the preacher, but it involves more than pious thoughts. Ideally, the lectionary readings for any Sunday should fit together in some way, but they can be preached separately and in an expository fashion. Our preachers do a good job of speaking from the assigned texts in a responsible way.
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In a preaching class at WTS with Ed Clowney, some one confused pericopes with periscopes leading Dr. Clowney to draw a picture of a periscope.
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Dr. Hart…
Google… “facepalm”.
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DGH: Good suggestions. I too find it important to study – er, describe to the congregation – the forest as well as the trees. If more ministers get on board with recognizing the importance of both types of focus, then they can inform candidates & credentials committees to look for, encourage these things (and do the same with their interns as well).
An example for those interested.
I have a small paperback, The Acrostic Bible (author – Huddleston?). The procedure was to take a book of the bible, create a summary statement to match thee theme of the book. This statement had one letter for each chapter. Then each chapter was summarized in 4 words, the first word beginning with that letter the spelled the theme of the book. Thus Ephesians with 6 chapters is represented: CHURCH. Where
ch 1 Calling of the Church
ch 2 Heavenly position for individuals
ch 3 Understanding of the mystery
ch 4 Reasons for spiritual gifts
ch 5 Christ’s example for marriages
ch 6 Help in spiritual warfare
The published acrostics sometimes featured a clunker, some chapters (as imposed way after composition) artificially include disparate topics, so it’s an editorial call. But the fun was studying them and trying to come up with better ones with the rules of the layout. Had I ever gone for licensure/ordination as teaching elder, I would have memorized this book for knowledge of English Bible.
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Great thoughts. As a pastor trained at Dallas Theological Seminary (I’m now what many would call TR, though), I have usually leaned on expository preaching. However, this past year, I began preaching the Heidelberg Catechism as we recite it as an affirmation of faith every Sunday morning. I have been stretched in my sermon preparation, in a good way, and I have found that the sermons are very edifying and Christ centered. My congregation has enjoyed the change of pace as well. I will certainly be mixing it up a little more in the future.
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I do think that the arguments in the book are largely correct – and for this reason I share you skepticism that the alternative you propose will lead to better preaching.
Too many preachers seem to find it hard to structure their preaching around a continuous narrative – and don’t seem to realise that the best way to preach through a shorter passage may not be to engage in a word by word grammatical exercise (humourously described here http://pastoralia.org/church/resolved-not-to-think-too-rigorously-about-jesus as “listening to a live version of the Amplified Bible” ). I suspect if the same preachers were preaching through larger segments of scripture you’d end up with sermons which were either very long, very confused or both.
I can’t help but think that this is a problem is caused by whatever teaching people get at seminary. Here in the UK, the people who seem to get it consistently right are conservative evangelical Anglicans who have been trained at seminaries that stress both good rhetoric and faithfulness to Scripture.
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I am in something like my 69th sermon on Romans (we are about done and we took breaks, so it took me about 5 semesters total). So that is about 5-10 verses per sermon I guess. But here is the thing: it is not hard to see Paul return to the main theme of Romans in pretty much every passage, if one remembers to look for it (justification by faith alone –> humility –> church unity).
Moreover, in my sermon introductions, I almost always review where we have been since Chapter One, and make sure that the Gospel is clearly explained right there at the beginning. I have no problem “boring” my congregation with the Gospel again, since it is the power of the Christian life, cf. Romans 1:16-17. (Or else, why do we keep having the Lord’s Supper.) Plus, I know we have visitors and seekers and the unconverted there each week.
Then I get to the passage at hand, and we usually end up back at the Gospel by the end, anyway. (e.g. Romans 14-15 –> “why do we enjoy Christian Freedom and welcome one another?” Because the Gospel grants that to us and compels us to welcome others as God has welcomed us — by grace!).
We also always make sure that the OT reading that day either comes from the Romans passage, or is closely related to it. In other words, I trust my own ability to do Biblical Theology a bit better than the Lectionary, which always seems a bit disjointed to me. Plus, I could be wrong, but I don’t think the standard Lectionary actually does go through the whole Bible — it picks and chooses. For instance, I believe it only includes a couple of readings from the Book of Judges, at least according to Gordon Hugenberger.
So, I certainly think your concern about expository preaching is well taken, but pretty easily overcome by decent hermeneutics and a Christ-centered approach.
Blessings.
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