Along with the many students who studied at Moore College under the Principalship of Dr. Broughton Knox, I have deep gratitude for his twice-weekly lectures to first year students, Doctrine 1.
What struck me most was Dr. Knox’s determination to test all things against Scripture. We studied using T.C. Hammond’s, In understanding be men, and Dr. Knox would even correct that fine book, in minor areas, when he believed it to be inconsistent with the Bible.
In 2 Timothy, Paul’s last letter in the New Testament, Paul reminds his young mentee, Timothy, of the nature of Scripture.
All scripture is God breathed, he says in 3:16, and that is the basis of its usefulness, to teach, reprove, correct and train in righteousness.
So in 4:2 Paul urges Timothy to preach that word and do what the word was designed to do, reprove, rebuke and exhort.
Exposition exposes rather than imposes. The basis of our conviction that preaching must be expository is the inspiration, the breathed-out nature, of Scripture. The Bible is the book of God, His word, it is God’s speech to us.
Paul had in mind Scripture as what we know as the Old Testament but it is clear that the New Testament recognised itself as Scripture as well (1 Thess 2:13; 1 Tim 5:18; 2 Pet 3:16).
It is Scripture which is to be the focus of the sermon—exposition is based on exegesis, bringing out (ex-) of the passage what is there.
John uses the word from which we get exegesis in John 1:18 where he says that Jesus has the unique ministry of being the exegesis of God, bringing God from the realm of invisibility to be visible.
I recently attended church in another state where the Bible was read and yet the sermon made little reference to the text. Rather the preacher told stories of peoples’ interactions with God and then of his own experiences. All the while God’s breathed out word, what God had to say, having been read, lay unpreached.
In either our ignorance or arrogance we think we can say it better than God has said it.
The goal of the Expository Preaching Trust is to promote expository preaching which is faithful to the biblical text and engaging with the listener.
The believer knows the value of such preaching because the believer recognises the voice of Jesus and recognises nourishment when they are receiving it (John 10:27; Ps 19:7-10; Matt 4:4.).
A favourite quote of the late R.C. Sproul sums it up well: ‘I think the greatest weakness in the church today is that almost no one believes that God invests his power in the Bible. Everyone is looking for power in a program, in a methodology, in a technique, in anything and everything but that in which God has placed it, His Word. He alone has the power to change lives for eternity and that power is focused on the Scriptures.’
One commentator on 2 Timothy says it is impossible to read the letter, Paul’s last, without a veil of tears in the eyes. What a final encouragement God gives to Timothy and to us through these words of Paul.
God has given us a great gift, the Bible. Preach it with confidence that the Spirit who breathed it out is the Spirit who will illumine the minds of our hearers.
‘The primary task of the church and the Christian minister is the preaching of the Word of God’— Martyn Lloyd-Jones said it as well, and so did our Apostle!
David Cook