“Preach the Word”: Six Benefits of Faithful Exposition

Writing to the believers in Corinth, the apostle Paul reflected on the weighty task of proclaiming God’s Word:

We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ. (2 Cor. 2:15–17)

Most pastors need careful reminders of what is basic to their task: the responsibility of making sure their preaching begins with the text of Scripture, exalts God, and applies truth to their listeners’ hearts. This kind of preaching—expository preaching—best reflects what Paul had in mind in 2 Corinthians.

Preaching expository sermons has certain benefits that other approaches do not. Here are six reasons pastors should consider preaching expositionally.

1) Expository Preaching Glorifies God

Why do we preach at all? Not ultimately because we take interest in lecturing on theology but because it pleases God. The psalmist writes, “You have exalted above all things your name and your word” (Ps. 138:2). When the Bible is truly preached, God is really glorified. In this sense, preaching the Bible is an act of worship itself, lifting up God’s name and Word.

Expository preaching begins with God and His glory, not with man and his need. It first asks, “What does the Bible say?” and then proceeds to explain and apply the truths of the passage under consideration. The congregation that accepts and expects this kind of preaching will be more tightly tethered to the Word of God and the God of the Word than the congregation in which the sermons begin with their felt needs.

2) Expository Preaching Requires Study

A second benefit of exposition is that it presses the preacher to become a student of God’s Word. If he is going to commit to this method in his church over the long haul, he can’t simply recycle old sermon manuscripts every few years. Each week, he begins with another passage and a blank slate, so to speak. He must study himself full and think himself clear before he steps into the pulpit the upcoming Sunday.

When the Bible is truly preached, God is really glorified.

When pastors commit to the systematic, consecutive exposition of Scripture, they will never exhaust their task. There is always more to learn. This manner of preaching requires a spirit of discovery—learning to look for the surprising details and the overarching emphasis in a particular passage.

Yet while expository preaching engages the mind, it must also reach the heart. The text should deal with us as we deal with it. Sermons that are completely cerebral will seldom make an eternal impact on the listeners. For this reason John Owen aptly warned,

A man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul. And he that doth not feed on and thrive in the digestion of the food which he provides for others will scarce make it savoury unto them; yea, he knows not but the food he hath provided may be poison, unless he have really tasted of it himself. If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.¹

3) Expository Preaching Enables Learning

How pastors preach the Bible impacts how their churches learn and interpret the Bible.

If we’re stringing assorted Scriptures together week after week, picking out parts at random to make a point, then we shouldn’t expect our people to know how all the pieces fit together. But if we preach systematically through biblical books and passages, showing how the preceding and following verses flow from one to the next, we actually reinforce good Bible reading habits. Congregations that sit under expository preaching learn the Bible in the most obvious, natural way.

Preaching the Bible is an act of worship.

Simply put, exposition teaches the Bible by teaching the Bible. We don’t conjure up meanings that are foreign to the text. We preach not generic truths about God and man but particular truths from the passage we read at the beginning of the sermon. And in committing to this method, we help others grasp the Bible’s plain meaning.

4) Expository Preaching Treats the Entire Bible

More than any other kind of preaching, exposition guards against the twin dangers of dwelling on a favorite text or avoiding difficult passages.

Many of us know the preacher who has a hobby horse or two that he will bring with him into the pulpit from time to time, whether it’s eschatology, baptism, or some other fancy. Eventually and inevitably, however, the church that is exposed to one-sided preaching will grow lopsided in their theology. They’ll come to expect only to hear deeper revelations on a select few subjects.

By treating the whole Bible, preachers give their people permission to wrestle with difficult doctrines—matters like predestination, spiritual gifts, the future of Israel, and so on. When we preach the Bible, we touch on all of these matters at some point because the Bible addresses them.

5) Expository Preaching Provides a Balanced Diet

The result of preaching that treats the entire Bible is a congregation that enjoys a balanced diet of God’s Word—Old and New Testament, narrative and epistle, law and Gospel. Over time, this kind of exposition builds out a theological framework for our people.

One example is the framework of progressive revelation that culminates in Christ. We can show our congregations how the Old Testament predicts Jesus; how in the Gospels, He is revealed; in Acts, He is proclaimed; in the Epistles, He is explained; and in Revelation, He is anticipated. Such frameworks help us navigate the complexities of the whole Bible, equipping us to know not just the mere facts of a Bible story but also its actual substance.

By definition, a balanced diet implies variety. Some congregations are dying under the weight of exhaustive and exhausting preaching. Week after week, word by word, the so-called expositor assumes he’s being faithful to the text just because he is granular with its details. We want to affirm the priority of the text without burying our people in the inconsequential nuances of a particular text.

One safeguard against monotonous exposition is to preach the text with its genre in mind. If we’re preaching narrative, we take our people on a journey through the text. If we’re preaching poetry, we highlight the passage’s imagery and structure. If we’re preaching an epistle, we proclaim the commands and emphasize the promises. Above all, we preach Christ from every text.

6) Expository Preaching Eliminates “Saturday Night Fever”

Expository preaching liberates ministers from the pressure of trying to figure it all out on Saturday nights. Where it is systematic and consecutive in pattern, neither the people nor the preacher has to wonder, “What will the sermon topic be today?” If they preach this way, ministers will usually know where to begin study on Monday morning: in the verse immediately following the one preached the day before!

Charles Spurgeon, the great nineteenth-century preacher in London, would often succumb to the burden of “Saturday night fever.” Speaking to young ministers on one occasion, Spurgeon remarked, “My text selection is a very great embarrassment …. I confess that I frequently sit hour after hour praying and waiting for a subject, and that this is the main part of my study.”² Even Spurgeon, brilliant as he was, could not overcome the pressure that accompanies last-minute sermon drafting. The takeaway is clear: Most of us will be better preachers if we avoid the tyranny of Saturday-night sermon preparation.

“Who Is Sufficient for These Things?”

Even as we commit ourselves to preaching that starts with the Bible, points to Christ, and shapes our hearers, we also must humbly ask with Paul, “Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:16).

Aware of our inadequacies, we lean on Christ as we proclaim Christ. We would do well to make Charles Wesley’s hymn our prayer:

O Thou who camest from above
The pure celestial fire to impart,
Kindle a flame of sacred love
Upon the mean altar of my heart!

There let it for Thy glory burn
With inextinguishable blaze,
And trembling to its source return
In humble prayer and fervent praise.³

This article was adapted from the sermon “The Benefits of Expository Preaching” by Alistair Begg.