We Need More Expository Preaching.
The church fathers, the apostles, and possibly even Jesus himself would be shocked and appalled by the lack of biblical literacy among Christians today. We carry around with us devices that contain the entirety of the scriptural canon – not to mention the myriad of commentaries, dictionaries, and other tools to help make sense of it. Meanwhile our brothers and sisters in the persecuted church are keenly aware of how valuable even a page of scripture can be, sometimes risking their lives to obtain it.
In The Insanity of God, Nik Ripken (2013) recounts his opportunity to attend a secret conference of pastors, evangelists, and church planters in China in 1998 (p. 220). Of the 170 church leaders there, forty percent had already spent some time in prison for their faith (p. 250). What he saw – and what is still a reality for some persecuted Christians – should challenge us (p. 253):
“Early one morning I was surprised to come out of my room and see a small group of men walking among the entire assembly of house-church leaders filling the courtyard. From a distance I could see that they were tearing books into shreds and handing loose pages to those sitting on the ground. As I walked closer, I was shocked to realize they were tearing a Bible into pieces.
Noting my reaction, David Chen hurried over to explain: ‘Only seven of the house church leaders at this conference own their own copy of the Bible. Some of us met last night and we decided that when the conference ended each leader would go home to his city, village, or farm with at least one book of the Bible. So that is what we are doing. We are asking each leader what books of the Bible they have not yet been able to teach, and we are giving them each at least one new book.’”
The Blessing of Access
The combination of ubiquitous literacy and widely published printed materials is a relatively new historical phenomenon, and the internet age has only expanded access to information. Even the apostles did not have the New Testament to refer to others; they had not yet written it. It would have been rare in their time for a family to possess their own Torah, likely depending on the local synagogue in order to hear God’s words.[1]
We are extremely blessed to live when and where we do, but as a church we have sorely neglected exegetical, expository teaching. Good pastors ought to exegete the Bible, meaning they interpret it in the context that it was written (historically, culturally, linguistically, etc.) – rather than read into it their ideas of what it says. Then they preach expositionally, teaching through the text in such a way that the hearers can understand its meaning. This style of teaching may move word by word, verse by verse, and paragraph by paragraph through books of the Bible.
It occurred to me recently that a consistent churchgoer in many local congregations could attend a weekly worship service for years and never personally open a bible and read it! Many churches do not even have bibles available in the room. Some churches push small groups for more in-depth study. Unfortunately, only a fraction of churchgoers belong to Sunday School classes or small groups, and not all of those groups study through the Bible. Many use ready-made devotionals, video series, or other books instead.
The Dangers of Topical Preaching
Although there are advantages and appropriate times for topical sermons (e.g., systematic theology), there are obvious dangers of relying too heavily on them. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, a pastor may favor certain topics and thereby avoid particularly troublesome or offensive passages. Additionally, topical preaching makes the pastor the arbiter of truth, deciding what he thinks the congregation ought to hear.
A similar issue is that the preacher, rather than the Bible, determines how frequently to teach on a topic, giving more time to desirable topics and less to undesirable ones. For example, many churches shy away from talking about hell, but it is one of Jesus’ most common topics in the gospels. (It is important to note that he preached hell to the religious as a call to repentance – never to the outsiders as an evangelistic tool.) On the other hand, some churches have rightly earned the designation of being anti-gay because they focus on the topic much more than the Bible does, which is only six times in its entirety.
Consequently, many Christians have little to no biblical literacy and are unable to understand the Bible for themselves. They depend on the pastor to tell them what the Bible says without ever learning how to read and comprehend it for themselves. Like a child never weaned, they remain immature and dependent on another for nourishment.
The Benefits of Expository Preaching
The case in favor of expository teaching is easy to make. First, it ensures that we teach the whole truth, not just the parts we like or deem important. Second, Jesus himself encouraged the scribes of the kingdom to bring out treasures old and new (Matthew 13:52). Third, Jesus commanded we teach disciples everything he commanded (Matthew 28:20). Fourth, actually making congregants’ eyes follow along in the text will engage their minds and hearts much more than merely listening can. God’s words are more important than the pastor’s. Lastly, the hearer, seeing exactly how the pastor interprets and applies scripture, will benefit in his own personal times of scripture study by imitating the process.
Picture this: a somewhat bored teenager, listening to a sermon on the Beatitudes, thumbs his bible open to Matthew 5 and follows along. He loses focus (as one is wont to do), but his eyes keep going. He finds to his surprise that Jesus goes on to talk about a lot of issues relevant to him: looking lustfully at women, making a show of one’s religion, loving one’s enemies. He wants to ask questions, keep going, understand more. The teenager is bought in, reading ahead during the week and looking forward to the next sermon, putting into practice what he’s learning day after day. Over the next several weeks, the pastor exegetes the text from up front, verse by verse. The young disciple has become a student of the Bible and is maturing in his faith. That’s what exegetical, expository teaching can do!
We should not dispense with the milk of topical sermons, but we should no longer deprive disciples of the solid food they so desperately need.
[1] The Public Reading of the Scriptures in the 1st Century Synagogue (torahresource.com)
3 responses to “The Biblically Illiterate Church”
I hear what you’re saying, Cole.
It’s my understanding that some pastors in the PCUSA (of which I’m currently a part) preach according to a lectionary. I think that means that they are given both an Old and New Testament scripture both of which help to guide him/her in their sermon topics (I work for a church, and the pastor has never given his sermons a “title”).
Anyway, I don’t know how or even if that speaks to your point. In my experience, I know that people can use scripture to promote, defend, or dispute their own personal beliefs. I’ve come to believe that these people use the Bible against us when they believe they’re interpretation is “right” and anyone who believes otherwise is “wrong”. It pisses me off.
My older son is now 23-years old. He was baptized and participated in church life up until he was in middle school. He began to see hypocrisy in the church (not just ours) and by the time he was 16, he “quit” church all together. It’s a long story. Your post gives me hope that the church may be willing to listen and consider allowing itself to be vulnerable.
Firstly, thank you for your work in the church! I hope you hear that often. I see benefits to a lectionary, but one of the possible drawbacks is that usually people totally disconnected from your local congregation are determining the scriptures for each Sunday – more on out-of-touch oversight in a future blog post.
Your antagonism to people using the Bible to assert their own personal beliefs is warranted; good exegesis and expository preaching should remedy this. I try to remind myself often of two things: 1) I very well may also be wrong, so I need to practice humility and self-criticism, and 2) those misusing the Bible are likely doing so from ignorance rather than malice. They deserve gentle, loving rebuke (from someone they trust, if they’re willing to listen). After all, that’s what I would wish others to do unto me if I were unwittingly wrong. I wrote more on the need for church discipline in a previous post here.
Your son’s story is an all too common one, unfortunately, and I know it hurts as a parent to see it. My heart goes out to you. All we can do is “church” better – and it starts with each of us, alone, on our knees in prayer. Again, thank you for your ministry and for sharing your thoughts!
I appreciate your reminders. I really needed to hear those.