Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast. On Friday, Pastor John, we talked about how you write books, which is a really interesting episode. And this week we're going to talk about preaching to celebrate your new book on preaching titled Expository Exaltation. And today's question is a question from a preacher named Brad.

"Hello, Pastor John. How do you define expositional preaching? I ask because many preachers in my neck of the woods, to them, expositional preaching is opening the Bible, reading a text, and then proceeding to say a lot of true things about that text. While this approach is certainly better than many alternatives, often what seems to be missed is the main point of the text.

Thus, God's agenda in the text is sometimes lost for what the preacher finds most interesting, curious, or personally uplifting. What would you say to preachers and to congregants looking for expositional preaching? What exactly is it?" Well, I totally agree with Brad. If you don't tell people the main point the author, the biblical author, is trying to communicate in the text, you're not doing faithful exposition, no matter how many good things you say about the text, no matter how many interesting things or true things or how much application you give.

Exposition, so here's my definition, exposition is communicating to people what the biblical author was trying to communicate through his inspired words. But I want to hasten to say that in my new book, Expository Exaltation, I go way beyond that definition of exposition, because I think many young preachers, and probably older ones as well, get the idea that in exposition we are dealing mainly with getting ideas from the biblical author's head into the head of those who are listening to the preaching.

So when I use the language of finding the author's intention in our exegesis and then transferring it into the minds of the listener through exposition, I can give the impression that the main task of preaching is idea transfer. And of course, I don't want to belittle that. Exposition can never be less than that, because there are life-changing ideas in all the chapters of the Bible, and these ideas do need to be known by Christians.

But it doesn't take much reflection to realize that the intentions of the inspired writers of the Bible are never, and I repeat, never to simply transfer information from their minds to our minds. Their intentions are always, and I repeat, always larger than information transfer. For example, when Paul says, "Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God," his intention is not only that our minds would have some new ideas—namely, that justification is by faith, and that through this one can enjoy peace with God—his intention also includes that we grasp, that we see with the eyes of the heart, that we are moved by the wonder and the beauty and the glory of what justification is, and what faith is, and what peace is, and what God is, and not only know what all those words mean but taste what all those realities are so that the reality behind the words becomes an experience of our whole being.

That's part of their intention. And if this is true, then exposition can never, and I repeat, never be content with idea transfer. So when I define exposition as communicating to people what the biblical author was trying to communicate through his inspired words, I include in what the biblical author was trying to communicate not only the ideas, but the reality behind the ideas—the reality of God, the reality of justification, the reality of faith, the reality of experiencing peace with God, and the experience of those realities, the transformation that comes through the experience of those realities, all of which Paul certainly wanted, intended, hoped, prayed would happen as he wrote that sentence for the Roman Christians, which is why I define 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. Expository exalting, expository exaltation. It is, in my mind—I hope I don't overstate it—prostitution of the biblical text, to deal with it in a way that does not pray and seek to embody emotionally the reality behind the text, so that our people don't just hear ideas; they see the reality behind the ideas being experienced by the preacher.

Let me see if I can sum it up like this. I was at a conference recently where my assignment was from the leaders, "Talk to us for 20 minutes about what you would do if you were 22 again." And one of the things I wanted to say was that I would read my Bible every day if I was 22.

I would read my Bible every day for the next 50 years. No misses. Read it more often than I kiss my wife, because sometimes she's not with me on a trip, but my Bible is always with me on a trip. So I'm sure I've read my Bible more often, more days than I've kissed my wife.

That's really important to kiss your wife. It's more important to read the Bible, because otherwise you won't kiss her like you ought to kiss her. But that's another podcast. But since I wrote this new book on preaching, I am so keenly aware how many layers there are to reading your Bible every day, what that really means.

I've learned a few things in the last 50 years since I was 22, and if I were 22 again now, the way I would state my Bible-reading resolution would go like this—and this is my intention to summarize what a preacher does with his Bible, both for his own soul and for his people.

I resolve every day in reading my Bible to push through the haze of vague awareness to the very wording of the text. And I would push into and through the wording of the text to the intention of the author's mind, both human and divine. And I would push into and through that intention of the author to the reality behind all the words and grammar and logic.

And I would push into that reality until it became an emotionally experienced reality, with emotions that correspond to the nature of the reality. And I would push into and through this proportionately emotional experience of the reality behind the text until it took form in word and deed in my life.

And I would push through this emotionally charged word and deed until others saw the reality and joined me in this encounter with God. And really, what I was doing in describing my resolution as a 22-year-old to read my Bible every day, what I was doing in describing that was describing the task of the preacher and what I have come to see as the great and wonderful calling of expository exaltation.

Hey, man, what a loaded episode. How to preach the Bible, yes, but working back into how we read the Bible. And of course, we cannot separate the right preaching of the Word from the right reading of the Word, and you cannot separate the reading of the Word from what you think the Bible is in the first place.

And that makes preaching the theme of Pastor John's new book, Expository Exaltation, which is a capstone on his 1,000-page trilogy, which answers these three critical questions. Question number one, can we trust the Bible? And that was answered in book number one of the trilogy titled A Peculiar Glory. And then question number two, how should I go about reading the Bible to get God's meaning?

That was answered in book number two, which is reading the Bible supernaturally. And then finally, question three, what should I expect from my church and my pastors when they proclaim this book to me? That is finally answered in book number three, now out, entitled Expository Exaltation, Christian Preaching as Worship.

It is a beautiful hardcover with a gold foil stamped cover. It's now available. Sinclair Ferguson calls the book simply a must-read for every preacher of the gospel. It's high praise. And it's not only for pastors, but consider buying your pastor a copy of Expository Exaltation. Next time I'll ask John Piper, what is the proper place for Christian eloquence in the creative process in sermon making?

I am your host, Tony Reinke, and I've jotted down for a future episode how to kiss your wife like a disciplined Bible reader. That should be interesting. We'll see you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening. 1. What is the proper place for Christian eloquence in the creative process in sermon making?

2. What is the proper place for Christian eloquence in sermon making?