Baptist Worship, Ordinances, and Preaching — Unit 6: Expository Preaching in the Baptist Tradition

Key Verse

"Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching." (2 Timothy 4:2, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain why the sermon holds such a central place in Baptist worship.

2. Define expository preaching and tell it apart from textual and topical preaching.

3. Name the biblical examples that support preaching that explains the text.

4. Follow five basic steps for building an expository sermon from a passage of Scripture.

5. State the main objections to expository preaching and give the Baptist answer to each.

The Voice of This Unit

This unit is written from inside the Baptist tradition, for Baptist pastors and preachers. It is conservative: it holds that the Bible is the inspired and fully trustworthy Word of God, and that the pastor's first duty in the pulpit is to open that Word and let it speak. Other Christians, and some Baptists, see parts of this subject differently. We state their views fairly and then give our answer, because Scripture says, "Test all things; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

The history of how Baptists began is told in Course 1, and the doctrine of Scripture is taught in Course 2. We do not repeat them here. This unit asks a practical question: what kind of preaching best serves a church that stands on the Bible alone?

Why the Sermon Is Central for Baptists

Baptist churches have no priest who offers a sacrifice, and no liturgy that carries the service by itself. We have two ordinances, baptism and the Lord's Supper, and we treat them seriously. But the weekly center of our gathering is the open Bible and the preaching of it.

This is not an accident. Baptists teach that the Scriptures are the final authority for faith and practice. The Second London Confession of 1689, which Particular Baptists used, begins with the Holy Scripture, and the Baptist Faith and Message (2000) also begins with it. A church that believes this must give the Bible the main place when it meets. If God has spoken in His Word, then the best thing a pastor can do on Sunday is to help the people hear what God has said.

Baptists also hold the priesthood of all believers. This does not make the preacher unnecessary. It makes his work different from a priest's. He does not stand between the people and God. He stands beside them and helps them understand a book that belongs to all of them.

What Is Expository Preaching?

Preachers have long divided sermons into three kinds. John A. Broadus, whose textbook we study in this course, discusses these kinds in his book on preaching, and later writers use the same terms.

Topical preaching. The preacher chooses a subject, such as prayer, forgiveness or the family, and gathers what the Bible says about it from many places. The subject controls the sermon. The strength of this method is that it can treat a whole doctrine. Its danger is that the preacher may bring his own idea to the Bible and then look for verses to support it.

Textual preaching. The preacher takes a short text, often one verse or part of a verse, and draws the main points of the sermon from its parts. The text controls the sermon, but only a small piece of it.

Expository preaching. The preacher takes a passage of Scripture, which may be a few verses, a paragraph, a story or a chapter, and explains what it means in its own setting. The main point of the sermon is the main point of the passage. The outline follows the shape of the passage. The application grows from what the passage teaches.

The simplest way to say it is this: in expository preaching the Bible passage decides what the sermon says. The preacher does not decide first and then find a text. He listens to the text and then speaks.

These three are not sharp walls. What matters is who is in control. Does the passage lead, or does the preacher's idea lead? A faithful preacher can use any of the three forms honestly. But the Baptist tradition, at its best, has held that the regular diet of a church should be exposition, because it is the method most likely to teach the whole counsel of God.

The Biblical Roots of Exposition

Nehemiah 8. After the exile, Ezra and the Levites gathered the people and read the Law. Then we are told, "So they read from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading" (Nehemiah 8:8). The pattern is plain. First the Word is read. Then it is explained so that ordinary people understand. That is the heart of exposition.

Jesus Himself. After His resurrection, two disciples met Him on the road to Emmaus. Luke writes, "And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (Luke 24:27). The Lord did not offer His own ideas. He took the Scriptures and opened them.

The apostles. In the synagogue at Antioch of Pisidia, Paul stood after the reading of the Law and the Prophets and spoke from the Old Testament (Acts 13:14-41). Peter at Pentecost built his sermon on Joel and the Psalms (Acts 2:14-36). In Ephesus Paul could say that he had not held back anything that was profitable and had not shunned "to declare to you the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:20, 27). The whole counsel of God cannot be taught if a preacher only returns to his favorite subjects.

The charge to Timothy. Paul writes that "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The very next words are the charge in our key verse: "Preach the word!" (2 Timothy 4:2). The reason for preaching the Word is given in the verses before it: the Word is God-breathed and sufficient. A preacher who believes that must preach what the Word says.

The Baptist Roots of Exposition

Baptists did not invent careful preaching of the Bible. They received it from the Reformation and from the English Puritans, who taught that the sermon should be plain, built from Scripture, and applied to the heart. The first Baptists in England came out of this world.

John Bunyan, John Gill and Benjamin Keach were Baptist preachers who worked in this way in the 1600s and 1700s. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great London pastor of the 1800s, and John A. Broadus, a Southern Baptist professor, followed in the same line. Unit 7 tells their stories.

There is an honest limit to what we can claim. Not every Baptist sermon in history has been expository, and some famous Baptist preachers used topical and textual methods often. Spurgeon, for example, was known for sermons built on a short text. So we do not say that expository preaching is the only Baptist method. We say that it is the method that fits Baptist convictions best, and that it has been the backbone of the tradition's strongest ministries.

Building an Expository Sermon: Five Steps

A pastor who has never done this can begin with five steps. Unit 8 gives a fuller plan for preparing and delivering the sermon. Here we only show how exposition shapes the work.

Step 1: Choose a passage that makes sense on its own. Do not start in the middle of an argument or stop before the thought is finished. A paragraph, a parable, or a short story is often the right size. In Paul's letters, follow the flow of his reasoning. In the narratives, take a scene.

Step 2: Study the passage in its setting. Ask who wrote it, to whom, and why. Read the verses before and after. Notice what kind of writing it is: story, law, poetry, proverb, prophecy, letter or gospel. Each kind speaks in its own way, and a psalm should not be read like a legal contract. Use a commentary only after you have read the passage carefully yourself.

Step 3: State the main point. Ask, "What is the one central thing this passage says?" Try to write it in one clear sentence.

Step 4: Shape the outline from the passage. The divisions of your sermon should come from the passage itself, not be forced on it. If the text has three commands, your sermon may have three parts. If it tells a story, let the story give the order.

Step 5: Apply the truth. A sermon that only explains is a lecture. A sermon that only applies has no authority. After saying what the text meant to its first readers, he asks what it asks of the church today. What should we believe? What should we repent of? What should we do? Paul told Timothy that Scripture is profitable for reproof, correction and instruction, and these are the tasks of application.

Preaching Christ from the Whole Bible

Baptists confess that the whole Bible points to Christ. Jesus told the leaders, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me" (John 5:39). After the resurrection He showed the disciples how the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms spoke of Him (Luke 24:27, 44).

This does not mean that every Old Testament verse must be turned into a hidden picture of Christ. Giving fanciful meanings to every detail of a story is called allegorizing, and it makes the Bible say what the preacher likes. The better way is to ask how the passage fits the whole story of God's saving work, which finds its center in Christ. A sermon on Ruth or on the Psalms can honestly lead the listener to the Savior without twisting the text.

Objections and Our Answers

Here are five objections, stated as their holders would state them.

Objection 1: Expository preaching is dry and boring.

Some church members say that preaching through a book is like reading a commentary aloud, and that people want something practical.

Our answer. Dry preaching is a fault of the preacher, not of the method. The Bible is full of stories, struggles, songs and commands about real life. A preacher who understands his passage and knows his people will find that the text is already practical. Ezra's hearers wept when they understood the Law (Nehemiah 8:9). The remedy for dullness is better study, plain speech, and honest application, not leaving the Bible.

Objection 2: Topical preaching meets people's needs better.

People face sickness, debt and family conflict, and ask for sermons that answer their questions now.

Our answer. We agree that preaching must meet needs. But the Bible knows human needs better than we do. If a pastor preaches through the Scriptures, he will meet the church's real needs, including some the people did not know they had. Topical sermons have their place, and a wise pastor will occasionally preach on a pressing question. But a church fed only on topics chosen by the pastor may never hear the parts of Scripture he finds hard or uncomfortable.

Objection 3: The Spirit leads the preacher, so we should not plan so rigidly.

Some believers feel that careful study and a set plan limit the Spirit's freedom.

Our answer. The Spirit who inspired the Scriptures is the same Spirit who helps the preacher understand them. Careful study is a way of seeking His help, not of resisting it. Ezra "prepared his heart to seek the Law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel" (Ezra 7:10). Preparation and dependence on the Spirit belong together.

Objection 4: Some historians say the early church did not preach this way.

Many sermons recorded in Acts are evangelistic addresses to unbelievers, not verse-by-verse studies. Some historians conclude that expository series are a later habit, not a biblical command.

Our answer. The point is fair as far as it goes. But even there the apostles argued from the Scriptures (Acts 17:2-3), and when Paul taught believers he gave them the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27). Nehemiah 8 and Luke 24 show Scripture being explained to God's people. We do not claim that Scripture commands a single method. We claim that the pattern of explaining the Word, and the charge to preach the Word, make exposition the wisest regular practice.

Objection 5: Our people learn by stories and speeches, not by explanation.

In many parts of Latin America and Africa, oral cultures love story, song and proverb. A careful explanation may seem foreign.

Our answer. A large part of the Bible is story, song and proverb. An expository preacher in an oral culture should keep these forms alive. He can tell the narrative well, use the images of the psalm, and repeat the main point clearly. Exposition is about what controls the message, not about a cold or academic style.

Pastoral Application

A young pastor in a small town has recently started leading a church of about forty people. In his first year he has preached on whatever came to mind each week: faith one Sunday, giving the next, then a sermon about a news event. A deacon speaks to him kindly. "Pastor, we love you, but I sometimes feel we are hearing your thoughts more than God's Word. Can we go through a book together?"

The pastor is hurt at first, but he takes the matter to prayer. Then he does three things. First, he chooses a short book, the Gospel of Mark, and tells the church he will preach through it over several months. Second, each week he picks one paragraph and writes down its main point before building the outline. Third, he keeps a "needs list," and when a family is in crisis, he lets the next passage speak to it, or pauses the series for a single message.

After several months the deacon tells him that the church knows the life of Jesus better than before. The pastor has learned that the people were not asking for less, but for more of the Word of God.

Summary

Baptists place the sermon at the center of worship because they hold that the Bible is the final authority and that every believer is a priest who may read it. Expository preaching makes the passage control the sermon, unlike topical preaching, where the subject controls it, and textual preaching, where a short text supplies the points. Scripture supports exposition in Nehemiah 8, in the ministry of Jesus on the Emmaus road, in the preaching of Peter and Paul, and in the charge to Timothy to preach the word. The Baptist heritage of Bunyan, Spurgeon and Broadus drew from the Puritan stream. A pastor can follow five steps: choose a passage, study its setting, state its main point, shape the outline from the text, and apply the truth. Objections that exposition is dry, that topics meet needs better, that planning limits the Spirit, that Acts shows other methods, and that oral cultures need stories can each be answered. Exposition is not the only legitimate method, but it is the most faithful regular practice for a church that stands on the Word.

Further Reading

• John A. Broadus, On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons (first published 1870), the CTS companion textbook for this course.

• Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students (public domain).

• The Second London Confession (1689), chapter 1, "Of the Holy Scriptures" (public domain).

• The Baptist Faith and Message (2000), Article I, "The Scriptures."

• Benjamin Keach, writings and sermons (public domain).

• John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress (public domain), as an example of Scripture-saturated Baptist communication.

Submit Exam & Check Pass Reset