Category — Preaching

Alternative Title: The Deep Dish Problem

One of many great things about Chicago is Chicago-style pizza, aka “deep dish” pizza. If you like pizza, but haven’t had at least one of these gut busters from Gino’s East or Giordano’s, you have my pity. (I prefer Giordano’s but both are very good.)

Pizza chains like Domino’s or Papa John’s have tried to sell their own version of deep dish pizza, but they have failed. There’s just nothing like the authentic Chicago-style pizza.

Just as there are pizza chains who claim to sell deep dish Chicago-style pizza, there are lots of preachers out there claiming to do expository preaching. Unfortunately, there is no Giordano’s of preaching by which we can distinguish who is really doing expository preaching from those whose preaching is more like Little Ceasars. That is because preachers have different ideas of what expository preaching really is. Some “expository” preachers preach only a verse or two at a time rather than studying and preaching an entire paragraph of biblical text. Some would be expositors move sequentially through a book of the Bible but spend more time cross-referencing other biblical texts than they do explaining the text they are supposedly exposing. Others preach an entire paragraph of Scripture at a time, but they don’t preach through an entire book of the Bible. Each Sunday finds them in a different place in the Scriptures. So, because there are different ideas and definitions of what expository preaching is, it is not always easy to evaluate whether any one sermon really contains all the ingredients necessary for true deep dish preaching.

In this series, I want to explain one particular approach to exposition. It is the approach that I use in developing and delivering my messages. Like Gino’s East or Giordano’s, I think the approach I use is best. I think this not because I came up with it. I didn’t come up with it; I learned it from others, most notably Haddon Robinson who was my Doctor of Ministry mentor in Preaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. So, the kind of preaching I do, which I will explain to you, is best not because I do it; rather, I do this kind of exposition because I self-consciously studied several methods and decided this one is best. By blogging about this in detail, I hope to convince you that it is best, too.^[1]

The title of this post refers to “biblical preaching,” but, so far, the body of this post has used the term “expository preaching.” Like Robinson, I use these two terms synonymously and interchangeably.

Haddon Robinson, in his book Biblical Preaching, offers the following definition of biblical or expository preaching:

Expository preaching is the communication of a biblical concept, derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, and literary study of a passage in its context, which the Holy Spirit first applies to the personality and experience of the preacher, then through the preacher, applies to the hearers.

This definition states three irreducible elements to Robinson’s (and, therefore, my) approach to biblical preaching.

1. Biblical preaching is unified by one Big Idea.
Robinson’s definition claims that biblical preaching is “the communication of a biblical concept.” The singular “concept” is intentional, for Robinson advocates finding what he calls the “Big Idea” of the text. The conviction of biblical preaching is that within every paragraph of Scripture there is one single, all-encompassing point that must be discovered. Not only does the passage have a Big Idea, but the biblical sermon will have a Big Idea as well. The Big Idea of the sermon states the major applicational thrust of the preacher delivering the message.

2. Biblical preaching respects the original intent of the author.
A second distinctive element of biblical preaching is a respect for the text of Scripture; specifically, the sermon must teach the passage or passages from which the sermon is drawn. Robinson’s definition states that the biblical sermon is “derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, and literary study of a passage in its context.” Thus, he argues, the meaning of the Bible is contained in the Bible itself and must be excavated like a fossil using normal hermeneutics. This means that the preacher is constrained to some degree by the passage itself in application.

3. Biblical preaching has an applicational thrust.
Unlike many approaches to expository preaching which do little more than teach the passage, biblical preaching seeks to apply the passage. Robinson writes that the truth uncovered in biblical preaching is that “which the Holy Spirit first applies to the personality and experience of the preacher, then through the preacher, applies to the hearers.” Note that the preacher goes first. As a mediator of the message of Scripture, the preacher is compelled by God Himself to bring his own thinking, feeling, and behavior in line with the truth taught in the passage. After he has made application to himself, he is then to make application to the lives of his congregation. According to Robinson’s definition, biblical preaching must contain the element of specific application. Any sermon that simply stays in the Biblical world may be true and accurate as far as it goes, but unless the truth is applied to modern believers, the preacher has done something less than biblical preaching. This is true becuase God’s Word was given to change lives. When a preacher handles the Bible like a historical artifact to be studied with interest but not necessarily obeyed, he fails to give the Bible the authoritative place God intended.