Expositional Preaching, Jesus's Lordship and the Church

If you have attended our church at least once, you have probably heard the term "expositional preaching." David Helm defines that "Expositional preaching is empowered preaching that rightfully submits the shape and emphasis of the sermon to the shape and emphasis of a biblical text." To put it in a simpler way, expositional preaching is the act of preaching a passage whilst remaining bound to what God's interpretation is for that passage.

Hence, expositional preachers strive to put aside any political bias, preconceptions and even their personal intentions in order to have God's full intent for the text. Thus, to properly convey God's intent for a Scriptural passage, expositional preachers tend to use other Scriptures as their main interpreter. The Scriptures are to interpret themselves, so ultimately, we have God's Word being interpreted by God Himself.

Aside from the exclusion of most forms of pastoral subjectivism, there are many other reasons why a preacher should submit himself to expositional preaching, and one of the most important reasons for that can be found in Christ's Lordship over the church. Scripture teaches (e.g. Col. 1:18; Eph. 1:22-23) that Christ is the head of the church, but, practically speaking, how does Jesus exercise His headship over her? He exercises His headship when He speaks to her through His Word (Ep. 5:26-27).

Since preachers are not the head of the church, they are not to preach from their minds, but they are to be bound to The Head and let Him exercise His headship through their expositional sermon. In other words, preachers are essentially the Old Testament prophets who say, "Thus says the Lord." Sadly, today, many preachers, in a desperate attempt to entertain and entice people to come to their churches, seek to feed Christ's flock with non-expositional preaching, which is normally only concerned with presenting personal life applications without the proper Biblical exposition of the text. This act robs the elect of the way God designed salvation to come, from Christ's word (Romans 10:17). It also fails to properly edify Christ's body and usurps Christ from the exercise of His headship. Thus, through a simple attempt to make the sermon more "desirable," preachers end up removing its power and turning it into a temporal makeup over a dirty sheep or a dead body.

Proper expositional preaching leads to proper worship of God since the adequate understanding of the Scriptures leads the Christian into maturehood in the person of Christ (Ephesians 4:12-15). The preacher's main job, thus, is to explain the text in the way God intended, and when that happens, Christ's voice is heard by His body. Charles da Silva