Expounding a textual unit is often referred to as “paragraph preaching” in which the author of Scripture communicates a complete thought unit or textual idea. Textual markers are key words such as, “Therefore, since, because, for,” as well as changes in subject matter, verb tenses, audience, time, scenes or characters. Textual markers provide the clues to identifying complete units.

Once text selection is complete, we must be careful not to reach for our favorite commentary! At this stage of preparation, get alone with God, and just read and reread the text, the immediate context and the entire book several times. Soak in the Scriptures. Seek to identify the overall theme of the book, the flow of the writer’s argument, key sections or divisions and repeated phrases and words.

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Most importantly, allow the text speak to your own heart with the intention of James 1:22: “But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Through prayer, submit to the truths the Holy Spirit illumines to your heart. This phase of preparation is the key to incarnational preaching, or as Phillips Brooks said, “Truth coming through personality.”

Don’t rush this process! God’s truth is not microwaveable — we must let Scripture simmer in the crock-pot of our hearts if we are ever going to preach out of the overflow of the Spirit’s work in our own lives.  

Survey the Context of Your Text

Expository preaching takes very seriously the context in which a textual unit is found. This is the “fly-over” view, or the panoramic picture, where we look for the larger context of a book through historical, literary, rhetorical and theological analysis.

First, we look at what immediately precedes and what immediately follows our textual unit. For example, in dealing with Mark 10:17-31 and the rich young ruler coming to Jesus, the careful expositor observes that immediately preceding the account of the rich young ruler is the account of the people bringing little children to Jesus. The rich young ruler brings himself to Jesus on his own terms, a picture of complete independence, while the children must be brought by another, a picture of absolute dependence.

The kingdom of God belongs to “such as these” because the children in their dependence must be held by Jesus (Mark 10:16); the rich young ruler walks away because his heart is already being held by his riches. This exchange between Jesus and the rich young ruler ultimately results in the disciples asking the same question the rich young ruler did: “Who then can be saved?” (Mark 10:26). Jesus answers by referring to the impossibility of man to save himself, but that “all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27).

How does God make this possible? The answer comes from the surrounding context—verses 32-34 of chapter 10 point us to the cross, where the impossibility of sinful man’s salvation was made possible through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

Another reason expositors take very seriously the context of Scripture is because context keeps us from making interpretive mistakes. For example, Paul’s statement in Phil. 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” can be taken out of context to prove a “Superman mentality” in the line of the power of positive thinking.