Book Review - Christ Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

Amazon affiliate link.

Christ-Centered Preaching by Bryan Chappell is the product of the author’s many years of experience as a teacher and practitioner of expository preaching. Mixing biblical principle and practical pastoral wisdom, Chappell endeavors to present an approach to sermon preparation and delivery that is both faithful to the biblical text and engaging and applicable to the listener. Christ-Centered Preaching is essentially the author’s seminary homiletics course in book form.

Chappell describes the burden of the book as follows:

The time has come for redeeming the expository sermon—not only reclaiming a needed voice of biblical authority for our day but also rescuing the expository approach from practitioners unaware of (or unconcerned about) cultural forces, communication requirements, and biblical principles that cause their sermons to be disconnected from God’s power and God’s people. (p. 19)

To that end, the first two sections of the book are devoted to establishing a biblical basis and definition for expository preaching and unpacking Chappell’s approach to sermon preparation and delivery. The third and final section of the book tackles the second concern mentioned in the above quote—to unleash the power of God’s Word in the lives of God’s people by taking an explicitly redemptive approach to preaching. Chappell argues that when Christian sermons offer mere moral instruction, they “present a faith indistinguishable from that of morally conscientious Muslims, Unitarians, Buddhists, or Hindus” (p. 294). To be distinctively Christian, says Chappell, a sermon must have a redemptive focus, meaning it must emphasize the sufficiency of Jesus Christ for both justification and sanctification. Appended material addresses a number of practical matters, such as how a preacher should dress, pulpit demeanor, messages for weddings and funerals, and recommended resources for a pastor’s library.

Christ-Centered Preaching serves as a kind of companion volume to Haddon Robinson’s classic Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages, which is also published by Baker Academic. Chappell frequently references the works of such expository preaching luminaries as John A. Broadus, Robert G. Rayburn, Jerry Vines, and John Stott. In particular, Chappell seems anxious to show that expository preachers of previous generations have shared his concern that preaching should be application-oriented and redemptive, and that preachers who omit Christ-centered application from their sermons in the name of expository preaching actually fall short of the pattern set by expository preaching’s best practitioners, not to mention the pattern of Scripture itself.

Chappell’s commitment to expository preaching rests on his conviction that the Word of God is powerful. The Word is powerful “because [God] chooses to exercise his power through it and to be present in it” (p. 28). This being so, “a faithful preacher must serve the text” (p. 28). Christ Himself is active and working in ways beyond the preacher’s comprehension and ability as the truth of the Word is presented and applied. Chappell convincingly demonstrates that expository preaching is a logical corollary to the evangelical commitment to the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture. If the Bible is God’s Word written, and if it is indeed living and active, then the preacher’s task is simply to present that Word.

This Word is most clearly proclaimed through exposition of the text—discovering and disclosing the author’s flow of thought and purpose. The author defines an expository sermon as follows:

… a message whose structure and thought are derived from a biblical text, that covers the scope of the text, and that explains the features and context of the text in order to disclose the enduring principles for faithful thinking, living, and worship intended by the Spirit, who inspired the text. (p. 31)

This definition reflects the author’s conviction that a faithful sermon must include a lucid explanation of a passage’s significant thoughts as well as application of the passage to the hearers’ lives.

An extraordinarily helpful insight noted by Chappell, and perhaps the most memorable contribution of Christ-Centered Preaching, is that every passage contains, explicitly or implicitly, a “fallen condition focus” (FCF). The FCF of a passage is “the mutual human condition that contemporary believers share with those to or about whom the text was written that requires the grace of the passage for God’s people to glorify and enjoy him” (p. 50). The FCF links present-day hearers of the Word with the text’s original readers or participants, and shows how the grace of God addresses the frailty and sin they share in common. Identifying the FCF allows the preacher to make each point of the sermon more personal to the listener, and naturally connects the explanation and application components of a sermon.

The middle portion of the book presents Chappell’s approach to sermon preparation from initial reading of the text to final draft. It contains the practical, nuts-and-bolts advice necessary to any good homiletics text. Chapters are devoted to the exegesis of a passage to discover its meaning and the organization of this information so that it will be explicable to the hearers. Advice on developing illustrations and making faithful and relevant application is offered as well. Some of this information is very detailed, so the beginning preacher should expect to refer to this material on an ongoing basis as he hones his craft. While mastering the specifics will certainly take time, Chappell’s “double helix” diagram of a sermon, first introduced in chapter 4 and elaborated upon in subsequent chapters, provides a memorable summary of the key points of his approach. The double helix depicts the expository sermon’s three primary components—explanation, illustration, application—and shows how one naturally flows into the other via transitions and summary statements (p. 223).

The book’s title and subtitle, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon, reveal Chappell’s particular burden for the application portion of a sermon. Chappell laments that sermon application among evangelicals too often amounts to nothing more than moral lessons. He urges the reader to avoid “be” messages—messages that urge the hearer to be disciplined, be good, or be like a Bible character, because such messages imply that the hearers can fix their fallen condition in their own strength. Instead, Chappell maintains that sermon application should focus on how God in Christ supplies the lack revealed by the sermon’s FCF. This is what Chappell means by “Christ-centered” preaching. Moral commands must be rooted in the grace of the gospel. He goes on to explain how and in what sense Christ can be preached from any passage, even those in which he is not explicitly mentioned, by providing a brief overview of biblical theology. The preacher must show the text’s connection to salvation history. A sermon is Christ-centered not because it imposes Christ upon a passage allegorically, but because the sermon legitimately shows the relation of the passion at hand to the broad sweep of redemptive history.

Christ-Centered Preaching is a notable contribution to the expository preaching discussion because of its insistence that a text has not fully been explained unless its “fallen condition focus” and Christ-centered “redemptive focus” have been identified, explicated, and applied to the hearers. These insights have enriched my personal Bible reading tremendously and brought greater clarity to my teaching. The book’s approach to sermon development looks to be a useful reference tool for the beginning preacher who wishes to sharpen his skills over time as well as for the seasoned expository veteran who is stuck on a particular passage or feels his sermon preparation and delivery have grown stale. Chappell has convincingly made the case that true expository preaching involves not only careful explanation of a text historically and grammatically but also Christ-centered application of the text to the human sin and weakness the text reveals.

Josh Neisler is an MDiv student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY). He and his wife, Gretchen, are graduates of Maranatha Baptist Bible College (Watertown, WI), where Josh wrote for MBBC’s Advantage magazine. They have a nine-month-old daughter named Susie. The Neislers are members of Clifton Baptist Church in Louisville, where they serve in the children’s ministry and lead a small group.