“All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable … (2 Tim. 3:16a). “The Office of Minister of the Word is to preach and teach the Word of God,” says the Constitution of the Reformed Church in America. This is a lifetime calling. No preacher can ever finish proclaiming the whole Word of God.
People today need to know the Bible as a whole and the whole counsel of God through the Bible. The preacher’s job is to explain the whole Bible or as much of it as he can during his life.
Take one book of the Bible and preach all the way through that book with as few interruptions as possible. Divide the book into sections. Treat each section in one sermon.
Read the passage of Scripture until it speaks to you. Read at least six versions in English to observe shades of meaning. Read the passage in as many other languages as you can read easily. Make a brief outline of what the passage says to you. Then check with a concordance, a Bible dictionary, and several commentaries. Finally, pray and think through the application to the congregation.
Let the Holy Spirit guide in your selection of two or three books of the Bible to expound during the year. Give about one-third of your life as a preacher to the Gospels, about one-third to the Acts, Epistles, and Revelation and about one-third to the Old Testament.
Select some great expository preacher as your model. Mine is John Calvin. During twenty-five years in Geneva, with sometimes as many as seven sermons a week, he managed to preach through most of the Bible once. If you do not wish to read the Middle French of Calvin, select some English or American preacher. Study carefully the sermons of one of the great preachers, for example F. W. Robertson, Charles H. Spurgeon, Alexander Maclaren, George Adam Smith, John Bunyan, D. L. Moody, Horace Bushnell, Phillips Brooks, or James S. Stewart.
In preaching from the Old Testament you will have to make some selective adaptation of the consecutive expository method. John Calvin preached 159 consecutive sermons on the Book of Job. I found my congregation getting a little tired of sermons from Job after I preached thirty. Calvin preached 200 sermons from Deuteronomy. I have never had the nerve to do more than twenty-four, though Deuteronomy is a vital book with which to meet talk about “the new morality.”
However, after you have become accustomed to the discipline of the expository method there is no reason why you should not preach at least 100 consecutive sermons on the Gospel According to Matthew. If you study as thoroughly as does D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, you will preach 300 sermons in about six years from Matthew.
In your work as pastor and teacher you will draw from many parts of the Bible during the course of a year. In your daily devotions you will study and meditate upon at least twelve books of the Bible. As a Bible school teacher you will study intensively at least four more books of the Bible. And it will occur to you that certain books of the Bible are especially ripe for the times.
You will have to balance the appropriateness of a book of the Bible in addressing the moral climate of the era over against the long-term preparation required for a thorough exposition of a Prophet, a Gospel, or a Letter.
If you live near a Bible college or a theological seminary, take advantage of any courses in books of the Bible offered to graduate students. I have always been grateful for courses in “Preaching from John” and “Preaching Values in Mark” under the late Andrew W. Blackwood. Also helpful were the courses in Jeremiah and Mark under the late Howard T. Kuist. Dr. Emily Werner in courses on Luke and Acts pointed the way to popular-style exposition.
After it becomes clear to you which book of the Bible you are going to study carefully, prayerfully, and thoroughly in order to preach it, begin your preparation by reading the book once each day for thirty days. Make an outline on a newspaper-sized sheet of paper or cardboard or a series of sheets of paper. A paragraphed Bible may help you to note the most logical units for preaching. Make as many inductive observations à la Ruskin as you can. Let God speak to you through the pages of Holy Writ. Note topically as many detailed applications as come to you clearly.
Next you should compare the results of your prayer and study with what has been written by authorities on the book of the Bible you are hoping will become alive to others through you. You should have on file a collection of Bible-book studies. From 1956 through 1961 CHRISTIANITY TODAY published a series of articles on the “Bible Book of the Month.” Most of these articles included excellent lists of books for further study. Interpretation sometimes carries invaluable Bible-book studies. Popular introductions to the Bible such as The New Bible Handbook, published by the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, contain useful suggestions for analyzing a book of the Bible. Most dictionaries of the Bible also provide useful comparisons at this point. Finally, make sure you own five or six of the best commentaries on the book of the Bible you are preparing to expound.
When you have finished all this, you will have done more than half the work of preparing your series of sermons on a book of the Bible. Moreover, you will have allowed a large place for subconscious incubation controlled by the Holy Spirit. The final detailed preparation for each sermon can then be completed in about one full working day. Every preacher develops his own system of final preparation. Perhaps I have allowed necessity to be the mother of invention, but I find one hour per day for six days better than one straight eight-hour day.
The consistent use of the expository method imposes certain limitations upon the preacher. (1) He must have a quiet study. (2) Since the total preparation of a sermon using the expository method requires, on the average, about two full days, the minister’s life should be free from petty distractions, such as fund-raising. The preaching of the Gospel should be supported by tithes and offerings, in order that the work of the Holy Spirit may not be frustrated. (3) The pastor’s participation in the social life of the congregation will not be great. He can enter into selected social activities. Otherwise he should save his time for prayer and study. (4) The expository method is best adapted to long-term pastorates. Having served nearly nineteen years in one church, I find I have hardly completed half of what I ought to have done. It is difficult to see how a man could develop a solid program of expository preaching with less than five years in one place.
The rewards of Bible exposition are great. Most worshipers follow the Scripture lesson with open Bible in hand. They are vitally interested in what the Bible has to say to them.—The Rev. LEROY NIXON, Queensboro Hill Community Church (Reformed Church in America), Flushing, New York.
