My Case Against Expository Preaching

I have been a fan of expository preaching for more than a decade now. In fact, I have often supported and made the case for expository preaching in our pulpits, but I have changed my mind.

I am no longer so sure churches should emphasize expository preaching on Sunday morning. In fact, I am becoming more convinced that the pulpit is the one place where “topical” preaching should be encouraged.

I am no seminary student, and I am not even comfortable referring to myself as a lay theologian, but allow me to summarize here thoughts that I have privately and extensively recorded elsewhere.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love the “process” of biblical exposition. In fact, I believe biblical exegesis is the way of reading and interpreting scripture that is most faithful to the text. In other words, biblical exposition is what exegesis looks like in practice.

Seminary on Sunday

However, I am no longer so sure that the pulpit is the place for this precious process — at least not as explicitly or as self-consciously as most expository preachers do it.

I think expository preaching happens because expository Bible study doesn’t. Unfortunately, many of us get our most in-depth understanding of biblical texts from the Sunday Sermon and nothing much else during the rest of the week.

I am not saying that all Christians should be seminary students, but I am saying that all Christians are called to be students of the Word. But it seems most Sunday mornings are incresingly sounding like a seminary course with an application stuck at the end of the session.

While I do appreciate the place of Sunday morning preaching in one’s “growth in the scriptures”, I don’t think the pulpit is the place for learning the mechanics of biblical interpretation — which is what most expository preachers spend most of their sermon time doing.

The pastor as prophet

I think the pulpit is a place for proclaiming God’s prophetic message to His people gathered at a particular time and in a particular context. On Sunday morning, the pastor puts on his “prophetic” suit and proclaims whatever “topical” message he has been led to speak to his congregation.

This message will of course flow from the pastor’s private prayer and study time (and often with strong awareness of what is happening in the society within which his congregation lives)

If we are to use the New Testament church as an example (not as a template, mind you), this is the way the apostles seemed to have addressed congregations. Different congregations went through different issues at different times and they needed exhortations or rebukes depending on the season. From his intimacy with the Word, an apostle such as Paul would address whatever topics he found relevant using the “wisdom” gained from his faithful (read expository) personal interaction with the Word.

This is why Paul would preach to a congregation or a group of people and use texts from the Old Testament in ways that seem like eisegesis (reading meaning into the text) to many of us. However, keen listeners like the Bereans would take this topical message, alongside the biblical references used to support that message, and they would go home and do their homework. They would determine whether or not Paul was expository in his preaching.

“Expository” topical preaching

In this way, both the apostles and their congregations avoided the many dangers often associated with topical preaching without doing away with topical preaching. In other words, the apostles’ preaching had a topical body/shape but an expository soul.

Similar examples abound in the New Testament, from the way Jesus handled scripture before congregations all the way down to his apostles. We need to be topical in our preaching, simply because that’s how basic communication to a group works. Insisting that we are “sticking to the text” by ignoring much of what is happening in the society will often do (and has indeed done) more damage than good.

It is good and commendable to take weeks, months or even years going through one book of the Bible in the name of expository preaching. However, this should not lead us to think that a preacher who sticks to a particular Epistle to guide a series of sermons is not any more expository (faithful to the text) than a preacher who sticks to a particular topic for a week or two.

Both are in danger of taking cross-referencing passages out of context to support their point. The difference is that one is using other parts of the Bible to support the point the author of the Epistle was making to his hearers, while the other is using other parts of the Bible to support the topic they want to address to their congregation.

Either way, both approaches to preaching stand or fall on how expository the preacher is during his sermon preparation time, and how expository the congregation in their personal Bible study and their review of the sermon later on.

A way forward…

My proposal, therefore, is that preachers should embrace expository personal Bible Study and this will show itself even when they preach topically. Insisting on being explicitly expository often renders our preaching wooden and mechanical, insensitive to the pulse of the culture and the immediate pain-points of our hearers, all in the name of being “biblical”.

In the same way, all Christians should embrace expository personal Bible Study so that they can be better hearers of the Word on Sunday. This is what being a Berean looks like. Expository encounters with the Word of God can take place in private Bible reading, discipleship relationships, Community Groups and yes, the morning Bible Study hour at church.

Sidenote: I find it rather ironic that many churches that champion expository preaching rarely find anything strange with being topical in the morning Bible Study hour. Aren’t those sessions also expository in their treatment of scripture?

There is a danger to the health of many Christians who sit under “topical” preaching when they hear topical preaching being bashed by champions of expository preaching, especially online. Many Christians thus feel that the only solution is to move to a more “biblically correct” congregation.

Yet, what is needed, more often than not, is that we be expository in our posture and attitude towards scripture. Biblical exposition is essential to our “growth in the Word”. However, I am strongly persuaded that the assumption that the pulpit is where this primarily happens is largely mistaken.

Or maybe I am mistaken. What do you think?