Preaching the Book God Wrote (Part 5)
June 1st, 2007
(By John MacArthur)
This concludes our series on the critical relationship between biblical inerrancy and expository preaching.
OUR CHALLENGE
One of the most powerful and effective preachers ever to live was Scotland’s Robert Murray McCheyne. In the memoirs of McCheyne’s life, Andrew Bonar writes:
It was his wish to arrive nearer at the primitive mode of expounding Scripture in his sermons. Hence when one asked him, if he was ever afraid of running short of sermons some day, he replied—”No; I am just an interpreter of Scripture in my sermons; and when the Bible runs dry, then I shall.” And in the same spirit he carefully avoided the too common mode of accommodating texts—fastening a doctrine on the words, not drawing it from the obvious connection of the passage. He endeavoured at all times to preach the mind of the Spirit in a passage; for he feared that to do otherwise would be to grieve the Spirit who had written it. Interpretation was thus a solemn matter to him. And yet, adhering scrupulously to this sure principle, he felt himself in no way restrained from using, for every day’s necessities, all parts of the Old Testament as much as the New. His manner was first to ascertain the primary sense and application, and so proceed to handle it for present use. (Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray McCheyne, 94)
The expositor’s task is to preach the mind of God as he finds it in the inerrant Word of God. He understands it through the disciplines of hermeneutics and exegesis. He declares it expositorily then as the message which God spoke and commissioned him to deliver.
John Stott has deftly sketched the relationship of the exegetical process to expository preaching:
Expository preaching is a most exacting discipline. Perhaps that is why it is so rare. Only those will undertake it who are prepared to follow the example of the apostles and say, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables….We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word” (Acts 6:2, 4). The systematic preaching of the Word is impossible without the systematic study of it. It will not be enough to skim through a few verses in daily Bible reading, nor to study a passage only when we have to preach from it. No. We must daily soak ourselves in the Scriptures. We must not just study, as through a microscope, the linguistic minutiae of a few verses, but take our telescope and scan the wide expanses of God’s Word, assimilating its grand theme of divine sovereignty in the redemption of mankind. “It is blessed,” wrote C. H. Spurgeon, “to eat into the very soul of the Bible until, at last, you come to talk in Scriptural language, and your spirit is flavoured with the words of the Lord, so that your blood is Bibline and the very essence of the Bible flows from you.” (The Preacher’s Portrait, 30-31)
Inerrancy demands an exegetical process and an expository proclamation. Only the exegetical process preserves God’s Word entirely and exactly as He intended it to be proclaimed. Expository preaching is the result of the exegetical process. Thus, it is the essential link between inerrancy and proclamation. It is mandated to preserve the purity of God’s originally given inerrant Word and to proclaim the whole counsel of God’s redemptive truth.
McCheyne rules! I’ve been so blessed by his memoirs.
I find it incredibly refreshing to read a man’s writing from the 1800’s–a world without electricity as we know it, air conditioning, Ipods, microwaves, Internet and all the filth this great invention can bring into one’s home, cars, airplanes…Oh, what a simpler world this was.
Yet, man’s heart condition was the same!
As “Truth War” comes out and is read, the reviews will come hard and fast. The Emerging Church will not be pleased.
I just got back from a Christian men’s group tonight where the need for truth was so evident. I am encouraged these men want to have a Christ centered ministry, but the need for skilled men handling the truth is an area they need to develop. There are some who earnestly want to minister but are naive.
The great need for men who can communicate Scripture accurately, defend various doctrines and keep the application towards cultural and personal questions both relevant and honoring to truth is as relevant as ever.
I think the real issue for me is that there will be a cost. There is a cost to presenting the truth in love and with *tenderness* (something McCheyne mastered).
I felt for a man who had to leave tonight from the group because his view of Jesus as Savior didn’t include Him as Lord. It is the issue of Lord that caused him to leave because he didn’t want to deal with past sins.
If there is a man in here that is skilled with church matters, I would appreciate asking a question about tonight and why this man left. If you are interested, email me at: scampydrums@hotmail.com write: *Pulpit* in the subject line.
As a babe in arms to being a small child ever so quietly sitting by my mother(often receiving a quarter from the elderly lady in the pew in front of us for sitting so very still and dressed so pretty) through later sitting in Sunday School or the youth choir or behind the organ(in other words ~ fully “churched” in “doing” yet void of “being”), that very small congregation of fellowship heard more of a variety of ministers “briefly stepping out of retirement to keep the doors open” sharing of their mother, wife, children, vacation, dinner, career, etc. and less of God’s Word. The Lord was working even then and graciously led me to have a husband that is a believer and placed me in the company of pastors/preachers/teachers that as His workmanship tire not in loving God and pointing others to what has always mattered, what matters now, and what will still matter in 100 years: knowing God and knowing…really knowing…what He says and means. His glory. I am so very grateful.