An Evolution in Preaching the Word

Written by Zhey Chua |Posted on August 13, 2008 | Comments

Still on the Expositor’s Workshop, it was fun to be around pastors for two days and have opportunities to fellowship with some of them. It was refreshing to be surrounded by men of God who strive to equip themselves further in effectively advocating the Word of God. I have seen a handful of pastors who, just by looking at them one would immediately know that coming to the Workshop entailed a lot of financial sacrifices. One even came from as far as Sagada, a mountainous province that is located about 6 hours north of Manila.
The Workshop was organized by two teams of expositors. From the Philippines are Pastors Lito Manguera, Larry John Sy and Alvin Lo while coming from the US are Pastors Frank Yonke, Ray Glinski, Tim Kelly, Daryle Worley and Jeff Johnson.
The main goal of the workshop is to teach our local pastors how to preach the Word from a purely biblical standpoint. Most pastors preach topically, meaning they choose a topic (ie: love, judgment, grace, etc) and expound on it using several bible verses. This preaching style often lead pastors astray from preaching the true Gospel because there is always a tendency to water it down. I heard that there are also pastors who tell stories taken from the Reader’s Digest during Sunday service and use those stories to relate to the supposed topic. The problem with this preaching style is that it usually fails to confront and convict Christians because it fails to give emphasis to the most important aspects of Christianity: sin, forgiveness, repentance.
By expository preaching, the true message of the bible context gets drawn out because it is being tackled verse by verse. Wikipedia defined Expository preaching as “a form of preaching that expounds upon the meaning of a particular text or passage of Scripture.” To be an effective expositor, a pastor usually spends majority of the time studying the text and researching for the original and literal meaning of important keywords in Greek/Hebrew. The preaching of the Word also takes a lot of time, in our church, pastors usually preach for more than an hour, sometimes two, just to cover the whole topic. There are also times when a topic needs to be preached in series because of time constraints.
As an ordinary church goer, I would have to say that my pastors who are both expositors contributed greatly to my Christian growth. Through their preaching I was able to understand clearly and biblically. Adapting their styles, I now study the Word at home expositorally while Warren preaches expositorally during Bible Study. There is no fear of misinterpreting certain passages or coming up with a different message, thereby minimizing the dangers of becoming a misinformed believer. This preaching style is definitely an evolution in the preaching of the Word and it would be great to see more and more Christian pastors adapt it.
For this year’s workshop, which is the very first workshop conducted by the way, only about 40 pastors were able to make it. We certainly hope and pray that the next workshops will be attended by as many pastors as possible, although we have yet to find out when the next one will be.
To see more pictures, click here