Why We Teach Expositionally

Today was intended to be a time back in the book of Daniel, but Jim was scheduled to preach it. Sadly, he fell ill this weekend and thus is unable to preach, and I am not going to preach his notes.

So today I’ve dusted off notes of something I’ve taught in the past, although it was before we were meeting on Sunday mornings. In fact, the only ones here who would have heard this particular message would have been Phil and Robin, and of course my family. Everyone else in the room has begun attending Pillar at some point after I taught this.

Introduction

There are many questions in life where prior information makes the answer quite obvious. 2+2 is of course, 4. The Sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

We might even respond to some questions with a snarky remark,

“Is rain wet?”

“Do fish swim? Do birds fly?”

“Is the pope Catholic?” well, maybe that one isn’t as obvious as it used to be.

Those are a bit rhetorical, as they are designed to communicate that someone asked an obvious question, but that’s just the point: the answers are obvious.

Today I am going to take the opportunity of having this break in the schedule to review one of our core values. And truly, for people with our theological convictions, there is a bit of obviousness to this.

Before we get too far down the road, you might ask, what is a core value?

Everyone has core values, though they may not realize it. Everyone operates according a set of standards, a set of values, and the decisions they make are consistent with those values. Many times people aren’t aware of those values, but they exists nevertheless.

It’s a very helpful thought exercise to think intentionally about what you value since every decision you make necessarily flows from something that you value. Perhaps you find yourself in a situation like I have at different points over the years where I was struggling to kick a bad habit, or else struggling to acquire a new good habit, and just frustrated with myself, “Why can I make better choices in this area?”

What do you value? If you value something highly enough, you will change your behavior to match the value. If you don’t, turns out you don’t value it as much as you should.

The good news is that we can act intentionally to refine our values! I don’t want to value this sin anymore, I don’t want to value my own comfort above discipline, I want to value Bible Reading, or working out, or whatever else it may be. You can make a conscious effort to adjust and put more energy into a value until it becomes second nature.

We all have values, and we always act in accordance with those values.

An interesting thing is that organizations and churches have values as well. What we do as a church, how companies conduct their business, how organizations behave....it’s all from their values. And when it comes to organizations or churches like ours, its important to be intentional about identifying and working consistently toward fulfilling those values.

Core values are like guardrails. They keep us on track. For the church, they shape how we go about fulfilling the mission we have been given by Jesus Christ.

Here at pillar fellowship we have seven core values. The first one might be an obvious one. But it is a critical one, because it truly governs all the rest.

We practice expository preaching and teaching with practical application of the whole counsel of the Word of God. Ezra 7:10; Neh 8:8; John 17:17; Acts 2:42; 1 Tim 4:13; 2 Tim 4:2; 2 Pet 1:19-21

My contention today is this.

Proposition: Expository Preaching and teaching is the most effective and most faithful method of preaching and teaching available to us.

Interrogative: Why is it so critical that we practice expository preaching?

Transition Statement: There are at least four reasons why it is critical that we practice expository preaching: The practice emanates from what we believe about the Scriptures, it is exemplified to us in the Scriptures, it is effective for our growth as believers, and it is essential.

Expositional Teaching Emanates from what we believe about the Scriptures

The word emanates simple means it flow from, it naturally follows from from.

When you think about what we believe the Scriptutres are and what they do, it makes it difficult to think that we would do anything else.

Our Doctrinal Statement says,

“We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the verbally inspired Word of God, the final authority for faith and life, inerrant in the original writings, infallible and God-breathed”

2 Tim 3:16 - - God-breathed…the very words of God. The Lord has made himself known! The pages of Scripture are God’s self-revelation to us! Why would look to anything else?? We have the very Words of God!

There is a certain teacher that before every sermon he has the entire congregation stand, hold up their Bibles and repeat a confession of sorts. It goes like this:

“This is my Bible. I am what it says I am, I have what it says I have, I can do what it says I can do. Today I’ll be taught the Word of God. I boldly confess my mind is alert, my heart is receptive, I’ll never be the same, in Jesus name.”

On face value there is a lot to like about this. Yes, I am what this book says I am, have what it says I have, and can do what it says I can do. It is the word of God! We should desire to approach alert and receptive to the Word of God, and it should change us!

The sad reality is that this particular teacher has the congregation repeat that before every single sermon every single week, and yet as soon as they finish he sets his Bible down and doesn’t pick it up again for the rest of the day.

What’s even more sad is that there are countless churches who do the exact same thing on a weekly basis. They say one thing about the Word of God, and then fail to

Being the very words of God, they reflect the character of God and are thus inerrant and infallible.

This is based on the character of God.

God cannot lie….

2 Peter 1:20-21…though men wrote the pages of Scripture, they were written by men as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, thus the Spirit was superintending the process to ensure that, though the original author’s personality, motives, and purposes were preserved, the Scriptures are exactly as God intended them to be as well.

Sufficient

What we have covered already then logically flows to the doctrine of the sufficiency of the Scriptures.

2 Timothy 3:16–17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be equipped, having been thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

2 Peter 1:3 “seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.”

Expositional Teaching is Exemplified in the Scriptures

In Bible College I had a professor who taught one of the very first classes that a bible college freshmen would take. Survey of the Old Testament. He began the first class this is passage:

Ezra 7:10 LSB

For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of Yahweh and to practice it, and to teach His statute and judgment in Israel.

This was Ezra’s focus. He would study the law of the Lord. He would then practice it. He would do it. He would obey it. and then he would teach it to others.

What did that teaching look like? We are given insight into that in the book of Nehemiah:

Nehemiah 8:8 LSB

They read from the book, from the law of God, explaining and giving insight, and they provided understanding of the reading.

Nehemiah 8:8 NKJV

So they read distinctly from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading.

They read from the book of the Law of God, clearly and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

That’s expository preaching and teaching!

They wanted the people to understand! They wanted the people to grasp what God had said.

Acts 20:20 LSB

how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house,

Acts 20:27 LSB

“For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.

I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitiable…for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

Now Paul was not in Ephesus long enough to teach expository through the entire Old Testament, so this cannot mean that he went chapter by chapter and verse by verse though the entire thing. What it does mean that is there is not subject he avoided, and he touched on all the major teachings of Scripture.

Some churches teach systematic theology in Sunday School or as part of a Bible Institute, and I hope to do that here one day. Passages like this serve as a foundational text for that passage. By going through systematic theology, we can cover the whole counsel of God on any given topic, learning what the Scriptures teach as a whole on that topic.

But even then, even as we explore things systematically, it should still be expository. When we look at the texts from which the theology is derived, we still have the responsibility of understanding the text properly in its context.

Expositional Teaching It is Effective.

This is not to say that we are going to chase after whatever appears to be effective and slip into pragmatism. We do not have that liberty.

This is a statement to say that we are going to use the very means ordained by God for salvation and sanctification.

Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

2 Tim 3:15 You have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Heb 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

1 Cor 1:18-25 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Thus, how can we do anything but preach from God’s Word? God says that He intends to use His word to convict and convert, to save and to sanctify. Why would we use anything else? Why would we slip into pop psychology? Why would anyone want to come to hear anything other than the very words of God?

Expositional Teaching is Essential

There is a divine imperative to be about the proclamation of the Word of God:

2 Timothy 4:1 LSB

I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:

2 Timothy 4:2 LSB

preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and teaching.

1 Timothy 4:13 LSB

Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching.

How we practice it now

Bible Study.

Outreach Activities

Open-Air Preaching

How we want to practice it in the future

Sunday Morning Worship Service

Sunday School

Small Groups

Bible Institute