How to Read the Bible — and Preach It
00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast. On Friday, Pastor John, we talked about how
00:00:09.040 | you write books, which is a really interesting episode. And this week we're going to talk
00:00:14.000 | about preaching to celebrate your new book on preaching titled Expository Exaltation.
00:00:20.200 | And today's question is a question from a preacher named Brad. "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:25.040 | How do you define expositional preaching? I ask because many preachers in my neck of
00:00:30.520 | the woods, to them, expositional preaching is opening the Bible, reading a text, and
00:00:35.760 | then proceeding to say a lot of true things about that text. While this approach is certainly
00:00:41.080 | better than many alternatives, often what seems to be missed is the main point of the
00:00:45.760 | text. Thus, God's agenda in the text is sometimes lost for what the preacher finds most interesting,
00:00:52.800 | curious, or personally uplifting. What would you say to preachers and to congregants looking
00:00:57.840 | for expositional preaching? What exactly is it?"
00:01:01.400 | Well, I totally agree with Brad. If you don't tell people the main point the author, the
00:01:09.640 | biblical author, is trying to communicate in the text, you're not doing faithful exposition,
00:01:17.320 | no matter how many good things you say about the text, no matter how many interesting things
00:01:23.400 | or true things or how much application you give. Exposition, so here's my definition,
00:01:29.840 | exposition is communicating to people what the biblical author was trying to communicate
00:01:39.040 | through his inspired words. But I want to hasten to say that in my new book, Expository
00:01:47.680 | Exaltation, I go way beyond that definition of exposition, because I think many young
00:01:57.120 | preachers, and probably older ones as well, get the idea that in exposition we are dealing
00:02:03.740 | mainly with getting ideas from the biblical author's head into the head of those who
00:02:11.200 | are listening to the preaching. So when I use the language of finding the author's
00:02:17.520 | intention in our exegesis and then transferring it into the minds of the listener through
00:02:26.560 | exposition, I can give the impression that the main task of preaching is idea transfer.
00:02:33.260 | And of course, I don't want to belittle that. Exposition can never be less than that,
00:02:39.360 | because there are life-changing ideas in all the chapters of the Bible, and these ideas
00:02:45.840 | do need to be known by Christians. But it doesn't take much reflection to realize
00:02:53.640 | that the intentions of the inspired writers of the Bible are never, and I repeat, never
00:03:03.260 | to simply transfer information from their minds to our minds. Their intentions are always,
00:03:11.160 | and I repeat, always larger than information transfer. For example, when Paul says, "Having
00:03:21.300 | been justified by faith, we have peace with God," his intention is not only that our
00:03:30.220 | minds would have some new ideas—namely, that justification is by faith, and that through
00:03:38.660 | this one can enjoy peace with God—his intention also includes that we grasp, that we see with
00:03:47.780 | the eyes of the heart, that we are moved by the wonder and the beauty and the glory of
00:03:54.400 | what justification is, and what faith is, and what peace is, and what God is, and not
00:04:03.260 | only know what all those words mean but taste what all those realities are so that the reality
00:04:14.340 | behind the words becomes an experience of our whole being. That's part of their intention.
00:04:22.820 | And if this is true, then exposition can never, and I repeat, never be content with idea transfer.
00:04:35.460 | So when I define exposition as communicating to people what the biblical author was trying
00:04:44.180 | to communicate through his inspired words, I include in what the biblical author was
00:04:52.300 | trying to communicate not only the ideas, but the reality behind the ideas—the reality
00:05:01.020 | of God, the reality of justification, the reality of faith, the reality of experiencing
00:05:07.780 | peace with God, and the experience of those realities, the transformation that comes through
00:05:15.820 | the experience of those realities, all of which Paul certainly wanted, intended, hoped,
00:05:23.100 | prayed would happen as he wrote that sentence for the Roman Christians, which is why I define
00:05:31.660 | preaching not just as exposition but as expository exaltation. That's E-X-U-L—not A-L—E-X-U-L-T-A-T-I-O-N.
00:05:47.060 | Expository exalting, expository exaltation. It is, in my mind—I hope I don't overstate
00:05:53.620 | it—prostitution of the biblical text, to deal with it in a way that does not pray and
00:06:05.220 | seek to embody emotionally the reality behind the text, so that our people don't just
00:06:16.060 | hear ideas; they see the reality behind the ideas being experienced by the preacher.
00:06:25.820 | Let me see if I can sum it up like this. I was at a conference recently where my assignment
00:06:32.700 | was from the leaders, "Talk to us for 20 minutes about what you would do if you were
00:06:39.380 | 22 again." And one of the things I wanted to say was that I would read my Bible every
00:06:46.900 | day if I was 22. I would read my Bible every day for the next 50 years. No misses. Read
00:06:52.660 | it more often than I kiss my wife, because sometimes she's not with me on a trip, but
00:06:56.740 | my Bible is always with me on a trip. So I'm sure I've read my Bible more often, more
00:07:00.420 | days than I've kissed my wife. That's really important to kiss your wife. It's more important
00:07:06.300 | to read the Bible, because otherwise you won't kiss her like you ought to kiss her. But that's
00:07:11.060 | another podcast. But since I wrote this new book on preaching, I am so keenly aware how
00:07:20.100 | many layers there are to reading your Bible every day, what that really means. I've learned
00:07:25.740 | a few things in the last 50 years since I was 22, and if I were 22 again now, the way
00:07:32.420 | I would state my Bible-reading resolution would go like this—and this is my intention
00:07:37.100 | to summarize what a preacher does with his Bible, both for his own soul and for his people.
00:07:43.940 | I resolve every day in reading my Bible to push through the haze of vague awareness to
00:07:51.900 | the very wording of the text. And I would push into and through the wording of the text
00:07:59.220 | to the intention of the author's mind, both human and divine. And I would push into and
00:08:07.300 | through that intention of the author to the reality behind all the words and grammar and
00:08:15.380 | logic. And I would push into that reality until it became an emotionally experienced
00:08:24.700 | reality, with emotions that correspond to the nature of the reality. And I would push
00:08:31.820 | into and through this proportionately emotional experience of the reality behind the text
00:08:39.060 | until it took form in word and deed in my life. And I would push through this emotionally
00:08:49.260 | charged word and deed until others saw the reality and joined me in this encounter with
00:09:00.060 | God. And really, what I was doing in describing my resolution as a 22-year-old to read my
00:09:09.440 | Bible every day, what I was doing in describing that was describing the task of the preacher
00:09:16.900 | and what I have come to see as the great and wonderful calling of expository exaltation.
00:09:24.700 | Hey, man, what a loaded episode. How to preach the Bible, yes, but working back into how
00:09:30.940 | we read the Bible. And of course, we cannot separate the right preaching of the Word from
00:09:35.940 | the right reading of the Word, and you cannot separate the reading of the Word from what
00:09:39.980 | you think the Bible is in the first place. And that makes preaching the theme of Pastor
00:09:44.340 | John's new book, Expository Exaltation, which is a capstone on his 1,000-page trilogy, which
00:09:50.700 | answers these three critical questions.
00:09:53.140 | Question number one, can we trust the Bible? And that was answered in book number one of
00:09:57.300 | the trilogy titled A Peculiar Glory. And then question number two, how should I go about
00:10:01.900 | reading the Bible to get God's meaning? That was answered in book number two, which is
00:10:06.820 | reading the Bible supernaturally. And then finally, question three, what should I expect
00:10:10.940 | from my church and my pastors when they proclaim this book to me? That is finally answered
00:10:16.100 | in book number three, now out, entitled Expository Exaltation, Christian Preaching as Worship.
00:10:23.300 | It is a beautiful hardcover with a gold foil stamped cover. It's now available. Sinclair
00:10:28.420 | Ferguson calls the book simply a must-read for every preacher of the gospel. It's high
00:10:35.140 | praise. And it's not only for pastors, but consider buying your pastor a copy of Expository
00:10:40.820 | Exaltation.
00:10:42.380 | Next time I'll ask John Piper, what is the proper place for Christian eloquence in the
00:10:46.940 | creative process in sermon making? I am your host, Tony Reinke, and I've jotted down for
00:10:53.580 | a future episode how to kiss your wife like a disciplined Bible reader. That should be
00:10:58.700 | interesting. We'll see you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.
00:11:02.060 | [END]
00:11:04.060 | 1. What is the proper place for Christian eloquence in the creative process in sermon making?
00:11:06.060 | 2. What is the proper place for Christian eloquence in sermon making?
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