Preaching Rediscovered: Broadus' Lost Lectures and the Recovery of Exposition

In 1889 John A. Broadus, the father of expository preaching, offered the prominent Beecher Lectures on Preaching to the campus of the divinity school at Yale University. The preaching ministry of one of the greatest preachers in America was condensed into eight lectures that sought to define the foundations of preaching in the life of the minister and his pulpit.

But what do unpublished lectures on preaching and teaching by John Broadus say to the landscape of contemporary preaching today? What could he say to a generation of 21st-century preachers who have more tools, technology and training than any previous generation?

The enduring influence of John Broadus and his ministry as a preacher, teacher and scholar continue to influence both the Christian pulpit and classroom. The prominent Greek and New Testament scholar A.T. Robertson wrote, “No man ever stirred my nature as . . . [he] did in the classroom and the pulpit.” His works as professor and preacher yielded the production of A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, the most widely used book on homiletics in the 19th century.

Over a century later and through several editions and innumerable printings, the text remains among the most popular and significant volumes on the methodology of biblical preaching. Those nearest Broadus understood his desire to teach and preach with clarion precision and perspicuity. With his indefatigable preaching schedule and scholastic ability, Broadus was among the most prominent preachers in the American pulpit.

His lectures at Yale filled the aisles of the Marquand Chapel with chairs and left many standing in the corners and peering in the windows from outside. But because Broadus never published the materials from the Beecher series, the lectures have been called the “The Lost Yale Lectures on Preaching.” Thus, when in the course of research, I came across the notes Broadus used for his lectures—long lost in a neglected library archive box—it made available to a new generation the insights of one of the master preachers of his day. So what did Broadus have to say to preachers of his day—and ours?

CANONS FOR PREACHING TODAY

Broadus’ conversational style condensed the preacher’s mature thought into practical advice for the young preachers of another generation. Without the formality of a high lecture, Broadus offered the audience a personal, intimate and detailed description of the preacher’s discipline and desire to prepare and deliver biblical sermons appropriately. In the lectures, Broadus displays an intimate familiarity of the demands of the listening audience and the burden placed on the preacher as the communicator of God’s Word.

The Preacher and His “Materials”

The first canon of Broadus’ lectures includes “On Freshness in Preaching” and “On Sensation Preaching.” The content of these lectures provides vivid and practical perspective to preachers. He addresses the “helps” and “cautions” associated with what he terms the “inventiveness of freshness” and the creativity of what he calls “sensational preaching.”