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PREACHING SKILLSA Definition of Biblical PreachingJohn Stott
I intend to supply a definition of biblical exposition and to present a case for it. It seems to me that these two tasks belong together in that the case for biblical exposition is to be found in its definition. Here then is the definition: To expound Scripture is to open up the inspired text with such faithfulness and sensitivity that God's voice is heard and his people obey him.
Now let me draw out the implications of this definition in such a way as to present a case for biblical exposition. The definition contains six implications, two convictions about the biblical text, two obligations in expounding it, and two expectations as a result.
Two convictions about the biblical text
(1) It is an inspired text. To expound Scripture is to open up the inspired text. Revelation and inspiration belong together. Revelation describes the initiative that God has taken to unveil himself and so to disclose himself, since without this revelation he would always remain the unknown God. Inspiration describes the process by which he has done so, namely by speaking to and through the biblical prophets and apostles, and by breathing his Word out of his mouth in such a way that it came out of their mouths as well. Otherwise his thoughts would have been unattainable to us.
The third word is providence, that is, the loving provision by which God has arranged for the words that he has spoken to be so written down as to form what we call Scripture, and then to be preserved across the centuries as to be accessible to all people in all places and at all times. Scripture then is God's Word written. It is his self-disclosure in speech and writing. Scripture is the product of God's revelation, inspiration, and providence.
This first conviction is absolutely indispensable to preachers. If God had not spoken, we would not dare to speak, because we would have nothing to say except our own threadbare speculations. But since God has spoken, we too must speak, communicating to others what he has communicated in Scripture. Indeed, we refuse to be silenced. As Amos put it, "The Lion has roared—who will not fear? The Sovereign Lord has spoken—who can but prophesy?" that is, pass on the Word he has spoken. And similarly, Paul echoing Psalm 116 wrote, "We believe and therefore we speak." That is, we believe what God has spoken, and that is why we also speak.
I pity the preacher who enters the pulpit with no Bible in his hands, or with a Bible that is more rags and tatters than the Word of the living God. He cannot expound Scripture because he has no Scripture to expound. He cannot speak because he has nothing to say, at least nothing worth saying. Ah, but to enter the pulpit with the confidence that God has spoken and that he's caused what he has spoken to be written and that we have this inspired text in our hands, why then our head begins to swim and our heart to beat and our blood to flow and our eyes to sparkle with the sheer glory of having God's Word in our hands and on our lips.
That is the first conviction, and the second is this.
(2) The inspired text to some degree is a closed text. That is the implication of my definition. To expound Scripture is to open up the inspired text. So it must be partially closed if it needs to be opened up. And I think at once I see your Protestant hackles rising with indignation. What do you mean, you say to me, that the Scripture is partly closed? Is not the Scripture an altogether open Book? Do you not believe what the sixteenth century Reformers taught about the perspicuity of Scripture, that it has a see-through quality, a transparent quality? Cannot even the simple and the uneducated read it for themselves? Isn't the Holy Spirit our God-given teacher? And with the Word of God and the Spirit of God, must we not say that we need no ecclesiastical magisterium to instruct us?
I can say a resounding yes to all of these questions, but what you rightly say needs to be qualified. The Reformers' insistence on the perspicuity of Scripture referred to its central message—its gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone. That is as plain as day in Scripture. But the Reformers did not claim that everything in Scripture was plain. How could they, when Peter said there were some things in Paul's letters that even he couldn't understand? If one apostle did not always understand another apostle, it would hardly be modest for us to say that we can. No, the truth is we need one another in interpreting the Scriptures. The church is rightly called to hermeneutical community, a fellowship of believers in which the Word of God is expounded and interpreted. In particular, we need pastors and teachers to expound it, to open it up to us so we can understand it. That is why the ascended Jesus Christ, according to Ephesians 4:11, is still giving pastors and teachers to his church.
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