Expository preaching is a term and technique that refers to the proclamation of the content of the Bible as it appears in the text, as opposed to an emphasis on application to the hearers.
According to the proponents of expository preaching the weaknesses of the other forms generally center around their inability to strictly expose the original meaning of the text.
The expository method of preaching is favored among those who believe that the Bible is the very word of God and thus worthy of being presented in its purest essence, rather than modifying the message to match the characteristics of the audience.
Some disadvantages of expository preaching are as follows: 1) The truths in a particular Bible passage may not be those most needed by a particular audience at their point of life.
John MacArthur (pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, CA) spent nearly a decade in the book of Luke alone.
Expository preaching took on new life in the Reformation when Ulrich Zwingli began his continuous exposition of the Gospel of Matthew on January 1, 1519 in Zürich.
Though both Oecolampadius and Zwingli died in 1531, the expository form of preaching they (and other Swiss Reformers, like Wolfgang Capito and Martin Bucer) established would be the form inherited, and some would say perfected, by John Calvin himself, who began to draft his Institutes of the Christian Religion in Basel in 1535, where every preacher in every pulpit was now devoted to continuous reading and preaching through books of the Bible.
Zwingli was succeeded in Zürich by Heinrich Bullinger, Oecolampadius by Oswald Myconius in Basel, while John Knox would take the form of exposition he learned from Calvin in Geneva back to Scotland.
Translations of Calvin's expository sermons would inspire generations of Reformed Christians in England and the Netherlands, Puritans on both sides of the Atlantic, and the preachers of the Great Awakening.
J. Vernon McGee of the Through the Bible radio program may be the best exemplar of the purely expository method of preaching in modern American times.
Reputed to be a great evangelical preacher of the 20th century, Martyn Lloyd-Jones was the minister of Westminster Chapel in London from 1939 to 1968.
Other famous expository preachers include Charles Spurgeon, John Stott, and Dick Lucas from England, William Still from Scotland, Phillip Jensen and David Cook from Australia, and Stephen F. Olford, and Fred Craddock from the United States.
In addition, the Calvary Chapel group of churches, headed by Chuck Smith, include the regular use of expository preaching as one of their distinctives.
Many such prominent preachers in the second half of the twentieth century have put on record that to a lesser or greater extent they were persuaded of the importance of systematic exposition as a result of reading the works of A.W.
However, in churches that elevate church tradition, individual experience, and/or human reason to a level on par with Scripture, expository preaching (if used) will include reconciliation of the Biblical text to other sources: Regardless of these differences of emphasis, however, most preachers and congregations would agree that preaching must be honouring to God rather than to human beings.
For those who believe that the dominant source of Christian understanding is the Bible, it may seem obvious that expository preaching should be essential (though this is not the case with the seeker movement).
A third important verse is found in Hebrews 4:12, which says that The word of God is living and active, sharper than any double edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.