Haddon Robinson is the prince of Expository Preaching. As I discuss EP with people, their eyes often glaze over and they start to uncontrollably sleep. But that is becasue of a classic misunderstanding of EP. Haddon gives the following as an explanation for this problem.
PreachingToday.com: Some preachers avoid expository preaching because they think it's less dramatic. Do you feel that's a valid conclusion?
Haddon Robinson: There are folks who think of expository preaching as a dull, plodding through the text that gives out information nobody wants and answers questions nobody’s asking. There’s nothing dramatic about it because there’s no tension. If that’s what people mean by expository preaching, I can understand why they walk away from it.
But that’s a wrong definition. Expository preaching is more of a philosophy than a method. It’s the answer to the question.
Do you bend your thought to the text, or do you bend the text to your thought?
Preaching that takes the text seriously can be dramatic. The Bible is filled with drama. Paul didn’t sit down one day and say, “Well, I haven’t written to the folks at Galatia in a while. Let’s see. What will I write about? Oh, I’ll write about legalism. I haven’t covered that topic.” No, he was upset when he wrote. He saw them giving up the gospel. That’s why he begins without any introduction and just says “if anyone preaches any other gospel, either me or an angel from heaven, let him be damned.” That’s dramatic. He’s concerned about what’s happening to those people …
This came from a recent article at Preaching Today.com.
There are a lot of ways that we let our minds, bend the scripture. When I want to find a text about prayer and I look up the passage in Matthew 18 that says, “When two more more are gathered …” and then I preach that if we have a small group of people all agreeing together about a matter of prayer, then God is with us and he will give us what we want. The problem with this is its not true. And the other more important problem is that is not what the passage is about. It is about redeeming a wayward brother and when two of us agree on the punishment for this unrepentant brother, then God is in agreement with us, so long as we are being biblical and seeking his/her redemption.
Another way people bend scripture is in alliterative preaching. We have 3 S’s on giving and we have a fourth point that doesn’t quite fit; you can’t come up with an S. So you look in a Thesaurus and keep looking till you find a word that is similar but not really saying what the bible says. When you preach that text you have to spend 20 seconds explaining why you chose the 4th S word. It makes that point a little fuzzy and your hearers will be a little less clear.
A better way to help people remember your points is not to alliterate them, but find some overarching image or story that communicates the central truth of a passage. When you find that basic and concise truth that the passage is about (Matthew 18 is about redemption of a wayward brother) then you can find something that illustrates that idea. Then make each point hang off that illustration. For example, I preaching on Nehemiah 4-5 recently. It talks about how his opposition tried to derail the building of the Jerusalem wall. Nehemiah knew it was God’s will so he didn’t let them do it. I used as my introductory illustration a story from my youth. I had a bully named Joey. And he would always try to beat me up. So I talked about the lessons from Nehemiah on the basis of a bully. How do we respond when a bully triest to get you? We run home to mama (prayer). We remember where we are going (my mother sent me to the store for milk but Joey tried to stop me. I reemembered her mission and I was motivated to complete it for her.) We avoid conflict but don’t stop doing God’s will. (I went a different path to the store trying to avoid the conflict, but I still went to the store). This simply helps people hang the truths on an experience or image they can relate to.
