Category: Random

Exegesis and Preaching

If genuine exposition of the Word of God is to take place, [everything else] must be subordinate to the central and irreducible task of explaining and presenting the biblical text.

Expository preaching is inexplicably bound to the serious work of exegesis. If the preacher is to explain the text, he must first study the text and devote the necessary hours of study and research necessary to understand the text. The pastor must invest the largest portion of his energy and intellectual engagement (not to mention his time) to this task of “rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15). There are no shortcuts to genuine exposition…

The preacher rises in the pulpit to accomplish one central purpose— to set forth the message and meaning of the biblical text. 

—Dan Dumas, A Guide to Expository Ministry

The Power of the Spoken Word

Preaching the Word of God is not something we can trifle with. Preachers should tremble at the gravity of their jobs:

When God speaks, creation obeys. When he spoke the universe into existence, it happened (Gen 1:3-26). When he speaks into the cold, dead hearts of sinners, a new creation appears (2 Cor 5:17). When preachers exposit the Word of God and announce that Jesus is the Christ, the church is built (Matt 16:16-18). Whenever God’s Word is proclaimed, something comes into existence that wasn’t there before.

—Dan Dumas, A Guide to Expository Ministry 

Not Our Choice

FRODO: (talking about the heavy responsibility of carrying the Ring) I wish it need not have happened in my time!

GANDALF: So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring