The Preaching of Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great Victorian preacher, was possibly the greatest preacher England has ever produced. And with his written sermons available to read, I find, in vain, any that run consecutively through a book of the Bible: Spurgeon was a Kangaroo preacher, hopping all over the place each week.
This may come as a surprise to many in the Reformed wing of the evangelical church who imagine that Expository preaching is the best and only way of preaching.
How come Big Shot Reformed Spurgeon didn't obey their rules?
The basic argument runs like this: only with expository preaching can the congregation hear the whole of God's Word purely without the "interference" of the preacher. That's the received wisdom. Is it true?
Let's evaluate the three preaching styles, Kangaroo, Topical and Expository.
The assumption here is that, say over a ten-year period, a pastor needs/wants/ought to make sure that the congregation hears the whole counsel of God.
Kangaroo Preaching
The advantages of preaching from a different text each Sunday - and making the decision of what to preach the week before before speaking - are at least two-fold. A preacher can be dynamic, responding to the immediate needs of the local congregation and his sense of what the Lord is laying on his heart. And the preaching can be more interesting because the preacher is not tied to a particular book.
The disadvantages are that each Bible book has a divine rhythm and movement of its own which is never fully appreciated by the congregation. And there is the danger of the preacher imposing his own counsel on the church. And is it really possible to take a single text each week and fully understand the original context? That sounds like an exhausting task, week on week.
Topical Preaching
The advantage of this style is that real-life issues, such as money, marriage, parenting and so on can be dealt with in full on a regular basis. One of my personal mentors suggested that I preach on these "big" topics every year, and after 30 years I see his point. Working our way through books of the Bible, it may be 5 years before we deal with marriage, in the meantime a dozen married partners are longing to know how to do Christian marriage. And since our culture changes all the time, it's helpful to be able to deal with topics that are current and immediate.
The disadvantage of topical preaching is that the subjects are in the hands of the preacher / elders. Besides it does get boring after a while.
Expository Preaching
The advantages of this style are obvious: the preacher is obliged to preach through a whole book of the Bible covering subjects he would never otherwise encounter or choose. The church gets to hear a whole book. The preacher's preparatory work is also helpfully diminished because it's the same book week on week.
The disadvantages of this style are rarely explored because it's the paradigm of the reformed evangelical world - just assumed to be the best way.
But there are significant disadvantages.
The notion that the preacher's choice is diminished in this type of preaching is only partially true.
The preacher chooses the book. The preacher chooses the length of the passage to preach on. Inevitably since Scripture is exhaustive, within the chosen verses, the preacher must choose exactly what to preach on and what to miss out.
What is more, the preacher's doctrine plays a decisive role in what he sees and does not see. A preacher with a certain doctrine of the future or doctrine of the Holy Spirit will only see certain truths and be blind - or omit - others.
And over those ten years, the church may only have heard 20 books of the Bible, rather than 66. Certain genres may have been omitted because of the character of the preacher. A logical kind of fellow may go for Romans and Ephesians and neglect Revelation or the Song of Songs. (Example - consider the Bible books that logical Pastor Lloyd-Jones of London preached through).
In other words, the idea that Expositional preaching is neutral, is deeply flawed.
No-one can escape themselves.
Preaching on just one tiny verse, Spurgeon was able to faithfully preach the whole counsel of God to his flock over the years at Met Tab.
Summing it up
So which style is best? I do not believer there is a single answer to the question. If the preacher is a genius like Spurgeon, he may get away with Kangaroo preaching because his understanding of the Scriptures is so great. A listener may well hear the whole counsel of God from his pulpit. Contrawise, a preacher with ordinary gifts sticking to the paradigm of his tribe may bore his congregation with a five year exposition of Job or the omission of certain genres of Scripture which are out of sync with his personality.
Principle 1: Know yourself, know your gifts.
Principle 2: Preach the whole counsel of God prayerfully.
Principle 3: Grow in your doctrine - in this way you will avoid ommitting certain verses which you don't understand / don't agree with (?!)
Principle 4: Mix and match preaching styles.
As someone who has generally preached mostly the Expository method, I have grown to see both its value and its weaknesses. For sure we should never impose this method on the next generation of preachers without explaining its weaknesses as well as its strengths.
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