By Mark E. Yurs
Blackwood believed the sermons of the teaching minister should be biblical in substance. In writing of the importance of the sermon's conclusion, he remarked the conclusion is second in importance only to the sermon's text.9 He agreed with Joseph Parker, who once declared, "You can depend on one thing, the only ministry that will last, and be as fresh at the end as it was at the beginning, is a Biblical and expository one."10
While he recognized the validity of a variety of ways of preaching, Blackwood gave the right of way to expository work. He looked upon the expository sermon as one in which the main thoughts come directly from a Bible passage longer than two or three verses. He wanted the emphasis of expository preaching to be on the message, not the exposition. He viewed the aim of an expository sermon to be meeting some human need with help from the Scriptures and not explaining some passage for the sake of explanation.11 As the Scriptures are used in this way to interpret life and meet genuine needs one practical result of each sermon is that it leaves "in the hearer's Bible and in his heart another illuminated text."12
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The teaching minister who would bring expository and other biblical messages to the pulpit needs to be a constant student. To this end, Blackwood called for regular Bible study of at least an hour a day, five days a week. Under Blackwood's plan of study, a preacher would select a Bible book, study it as a whole, and then by way of its paragraphs, preferably beginning with the original languages.13 He was fond of saying we should study the Bible as it was written, book by book, and each book paragraph by paragraph.14
Along with leading the congregation through the Bible book by book, the teaching minister leads the people through the round of Christian doctrine. Blackwood frequently quoted, and always with favor, this line from Phillips Brooks: "Preach doctrine, preach all the doctrine that you know, and learn forever more and more; but preach it ..., not that men may believe it, but that men may be saved by believing it."15
Blackwood defined the doctrinal sermon as "the preacher's interpretation of a vital Christian truth, for a high practical purpose."16 He believed that doctrinal preaching of this sort could be done more or less directly, as when teaching through all or part of the Apostles' Creed. He also valued doctrinal preaching that was more or less indirect, such as when one bases the call to a particular duty or the availability of some help from heaven on a Christian doctrine.
This brings us to the third part of Blackwood's vision that sermons be "Biblical in substance, doctrinal in form, and practical in effect." Whether stressing Bible or doctrine, Blackwood never lost sight of the hearer. The hallmark of expository work was "the use of the Scriptures in meeting the practical needs of men today."17 His book on doctrinal preaching had "the stress ...fall on the pulpit use of one doctrine after another as a God-given way of meeting heart needs of men and women."18 He came to define preaching as "interpreting the truths of God so as to meet the needs of the hearer today, and guide him in doing God's will tomorrow."19 In one of his last books he was critical of preaching that neglects the hearer and discusses "the truth in terms of far away and long ago."20
