The Application School

As a balance to the Exposition School, those of the Application School would suggest that the purpose of preaching has more to do with life transformation than information explained from the biblical text. While members of this school may be reacting to a caricature of expositional models, their concern is for the applicability and relevance of preaching to contemporary life. There is no hint here that the Bible is out-of-date or irrelevant, but their desire is to highlight the ‘so what’ and the ‘now what’ aspects of the text in specific ways. Exegesis is prized, but as a means of arriving at the ‘business end’ of the text and not as an end in itself. Main points of the sermon often highlight the application value of the text rather than seeing application as being chronologically or logically secondary to its explanation. It is hard not to appreciate the desire to highlight the life-transforming power of God through his Word.

We may, however, overbalance our emphasis on application so our sermons become anthropocentric in focus. Moralism and pragmatism may be potential dangers for us if we are not vigilant. We would do well to remember the seasoned advice of Lesslie Newbigin:

I am saying that authentic Christian thought and action begin not by attending to the aspirations of the people, not by answering the questions they are asking in their terms, not by offering solutions to the problems as the world sees them. It must begin and continue by attending to what God has done in the story of Israel and supremely in the story of Jesus Christ. It must continue by indwelling that story so that it is our story, the way we understand the real story. And then, and this is the vital point, to attend with open hearts and minds to the real needs of people in the way that Jesus attended to them, knowing that the real need is that which can only be satisfied by everything that comes from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4).3

The Communication School

A moderating view between the previous two is the Communication School. This is not to suggest that it must of necessity combine the best aspects and be immune to the potential misapplications of the previous two schools. Preachers of the Communication School desire to bring the message of the biblical text to bear on the contemporary congregation in a way that leads to personal response. In a sense, these preachers attempt to balance the message of the text with the rhetorical task of relevant communication. So both exposition and application are important to them. Members of this school often feel free to experiment with different sermon forms so long as they serve the main thrust of the text. What is paramount here is that the main theme or idea of the text is unearthed and communicated in a relevant way. Again, there is ample reason to applaud such an emphasis.

It may be possible, however, for us to focus so intently on the individual pericope that we lose sight of the overarching sweep of the redemption story. So moralism might be a possibility for us here as well. There also may be some texts that by their complexity of argument or movement defy our best efforts to ‘freeze dry’ them into one main theme or idea. We therefore run the risk of miscommunicating the text on those occasions.

The reason for this discussion of perceived schools within Evangelical homiletics is not to increase the ‘party spirit’ between them or to attempt to supply ammunition to those of ‘competing’ schools. Rather, what is needed within the Evangelical family is a greater appreciation of the differing emphases of these ‘complementary’ schools so that together we grow in our common task of preaching the Word with accuracy, passion, relevance and life-transforming power.

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Blayne Banting is Associate Professor of Church Ministry at Briercrest Bible College in Caronport, Saskatchewan, Canada.

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