The
only way for a mousy man like me to follow a giant like Ben Haden is through
expository preaching. The only way for any of us to stand in the long
and honorable legacy of gospel preachers is through expository preaching.
Why?
I offer eight concise reasons why expository preaching is the power for the
pastorate, whatever your situation.
1.
Expository Preaching is the Power of the Pastorate because it is Divinely Wrought.
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The
way for Timothy to take his place as "[the] beloved child [of Paul]"
(1:2), to latch on the legacy of "faith that dwelt first in [his] grandmother
Lois and [his] mother Eunice" (1:5), to "fan into flame the gift of
God" (1:6) which was transferred through the apostolic laying on of hands
of Paul himself (1:6), to overcome a "spirit" of "fear"
(1:7), to "guard the good deposit entrusted to [him]" (1:14), to teach
others what he has learned from Paul, thus extending the apostolic succession
to another generation (2:1-2), to avoid getting "entangled" (2:4)
with "civilian pursuits" (2:4), to proclaim and teach the whole counsel
of God, from the old covenant to the new covenant (as Paul speaks of in 2:8-13)
"for the sake of the elect that they may obtain the salvation that is in
Christ Jesus with eternal glory," "to take his place," to "flee
youthful passions and purse righteousness" (2:22), and to do all of the
things he is charged to do at Ephesus like: reminding the saints not to quarrel
about words (2:14), to "avoid irreverent babble" (2:16), to correct
his opponents with the aim of leading them to repentance and a knowledge of
the truth (2:25) so that they may avoid "snare of the devil" (2:26)
— to say it again — the way to be this man and conduct this ministry
is — khrucon ton logon — to preach the Word.
For
Paul makes it clear that the Word of God alone is able to meet the mission of
the preacher. The reason this is so is that the Word of God is the authoritative
instrument from the throne of God to accomplish God's mission in the world.
We remember that Paul's admonition to "preach the word" follows his
teaching that "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that
the man of God may be competent for every good work" (3:16-17). Paul had
been building up to say that in everything he had written previously.
I
love the way Dr. Robert L. Reymond puts it, "the Bible is a Word from
another World." In his New Systematic Theology of the Christian
Faith, Reymond writes, "When God gave his Word to us; he gave us much
more than simply basic information about himself. He gave us the pou sto
("[a place] where I may stand"), or base that justifies both our knowledge
claims and our claims to personal significance."2