Expositional Imposters (Expanded)

….is to help the pastor/teacher understand that he’s falling into one of these traps. I don’t believe anyone really fesses up to this except under some duress.

In a dual-elder church, it’s easier to get and receive feedback about your sermons.

your job as the person in the pew listening to the message, is to take what you can get out of it. Your job is NOT to critique the sermon. Go ahead, but it will ruin your hour, day, week, month, year, and life. Simply take out of the sermon what you can.

Sometimes, springboard sermons are ok! Yes… I said it. You want to see a springboard sermon? Try half of Spurgeon. He quotes half a verse, closes his Bible, and talks for 75 minutes. And he is the Prince of Preachers. Relax.

You’re right. I’m preaching this week on the three core “missions” of our church. I’ll be pulling from three separate texts to do this; one for each “mission.” This is not an expositional sermon. It may be considered one, insofar as the texts I choose to support each mission are represented fairly and can reasonably be seen to gel with their contexts, but it really isn’t an expositional sermon.

I like expository preaching. But, some people are hermeneutical purists who need to lighten up a little. It’s also true that sermons such as described in the article can be quite bad! I remember preaching exegesis without application in years gone by. Sadly, JMac has come to this in recent years. Listening to him is like listening to a commentary on Audible.

Spurgeon was not an expositor in the usual sense. However, he NEVER preached for 75 minutes. He set a limit for himself at 45 minutes, and regularly stayed within his self-imposed boundary.

Acts 17:11. Sorry, Mark, but the job of the believer IS to do some level of critique of teaching, affirmed by no less than Luke. Jesus also promotes this practice by linking His teaching to the Old Testament and appealing to what His hearers already knew. So does Paul. Really, if you’re not doing some level of critique, you’re very likely to be a “hearer only” and not a doer of the Word.

Regarding Spurgeon, if only his example was as far as things get. Spurgeon takes a short text (I’m listening to “The Blood” right now, thanks SermonAudio and Charles Koelsch) and then puts it into historic/Biblical context—he’s (per GN) really exegeting, though not in the form that the “young, restless, and Reformed” would favor. What I’m getting at is the practice of hardly even acknowledging the text. Spurgeon, on the other hand, circles back and back and back to his text.

And nothing against topical preaching. It’s just that preaching ought to be connected with the text, and too often, I don’t see that. If you don’t see that, and you’re doing your Berean job at taking a close look at what’s being said, that’s awesome and I’m glad. But I see the “springboard” approach way too much.

[G. N. Barkman]

Spurgeon was not an expositor in the usual sense. However, he NEVER preached for 75 minutes. He set a limit for himself at 45 minutes, and regularly stayed within his self-imposed boundary.

G. N.

Please forgive my egregious error. #don’tmissthemainpoint

Something tells me you major on critiquing…

is not that there is not bad preaching, erroneous preaching, and fluff preaching. My point is to worry less about what other people are doing, and focus on my preaching and my pastor. I am not going to tear him up and down like a lot of people do. I am going to support him.

What the pastor does at First Church of the Relevant Sermon I could care less. I can do nothing about it, so why waste effort on it?

In my first several years as a pastor, I read two or three of Spurgeon’s sermons every week, eventually numbering several hundred. I learned a lot from him. I don’t preach like Spurgeon. I don’t believe I can, nor can many others. He was one of a kind. In truth, every preacher’s style is as different as his unique personality. Those who try to imitate others seldom excel. We learn from others, but must develop our own style. I agree with Mark that listening to sermons with a critical spirit is not beneficial. But because of my life-long experience as a preacher and trainer of preachers, it is impossible for me to listen to sermons without critiquing them. However, I actually find that beneficial. Because I am listening carefully, I probably gain more than does the person sitting next to me on the pew.

[Mark_Smith]

Something tells me you major on critiquing…

Mark, maybe address the reality that the example of the Bereans, as well as various other comments made by Christ, Paul, and others, which clearly commend the practice of analyzing/critiquing the sermon. For that matter, take a look at Paul’s instructions to Timothy and Titus, which clearly state that an elder/overseer/shepherd must be “apt to teach”. You would determine that someone is “apt to teach” without critique….how? Iron would sharpen iron sans critique/feedback…..how?

Really, sometimes I get the feeling that too many of my brothers in Christ would like to fill the pulpit without ever hearing any negative feedback. And then we wonder why the pulpit gets so badly abused.

I recently attended a Charles Simeon Trust Workshop that was extremely beneficial in addressing expositional preaching. They certainly “knocked the rust” off my personal tools. BTW, the CST has recently connected with 9Marks.

They described 4 types of expositional preachers.

Unconsciously Incompetent

Confidently Incompetent

Consciously Confident

Unconsciously Confident

[Bert Perry]

Mark, maybe address the reality that the example of the Bereans, as well as various other comments made by Christ, Paul, and others, which clearly commend the practice of analyzing/critiquing the sermon.

Bert, let’s be clear. The Bereans were engaged in careful study of the content of Paul’s sermon not his style or delivery of the sermon. Too many people today are quick to nitpick style or delivery, but spend little time carefully studying the context of the passage and the content of the sermon.

I hate springboard sermons. Hate them. If you’re preaching something that’s Scriptural, why not just preach a text that actually says what you want to say? As a pastor I realize that preaching is more than just the message I’m delivering, it’s training my congregation in the right use and handling of God’s word, so it’s cumulative effect is more than just the outlines and illustrations I use. This doesn’t require only expositional sermons, but whatever we preach must be driven by the actual text of Scripture. No excuses.

Tom, to be sure, Acts 17:11 does not per se address one’s delivery, but I’d argue that 1 Tim. 3:2 clearly does. For that matter, does not the very position of “teacher” or “preacher” imply an ability to communicate? Let’s be serious here. Experts in communication point out that only a small part of spoken communication is the actual words; the rest is tone of voice, style, delivery, and the like.

Now that’s not what I was getting at at first—I was (with Paul) mostly frustrated at things like “springboard” sermons, where the actual text and context has little or nothing to do with the points made—but if we think that the style and delivery don’t matter, we’re fooling ourselves.