Preaching from God’s scriptures is a great privilege, as well as a significant responsibility. So it is right that preachers weigh up how they are preaching as they develop in their discharging of this privileged responsibility. One of the ways I have found helpful to do that is by setting an aim for expository preaching that encompasses at least these five things: contextual, clear, concrete, compelling and Christocentric.
Preaching from God’s scriptures is a great privilege, as well as a significant responsibility.
There is significant overlap between the five areas, so they aren’t neat and tidy. Nevertheless, I have found these categories helpful in both self-evaluation and also in the training and equipping of others, especially upcoming preachers. The questions listed under each category below have either come from convictions about what is important in our preaching, or they have come in response to areas where preachers (including myself) might regularly be dropping the ball.
So here are five sets of questions for each area, for preachers.
1. Was It Contextual?
Here, we are seeking a preaching that faithfully flows from the biblical or theological context into our context.
- Did it faithfully exegete or interpret the passage itself, drawing on the structure (how this was written) and pastoral purpose (why this was written) and inherent application (found, not forced) of this particular passage?
- Did the preaching match the genre (eg. preaching narrative as narrative, poetry as poetry, epistle as epistle, and so on)?
- Did it help us to see where God the Spirit from the scriptures is saying what he is saying here?
- Was it contextual in terms of the book, but also the Bible overall (Biblical and Systematic Theology) where necessary?
- For expository preaching: did it preach so many other passages that it didn’t expose the meaning and beauty of this particular passage?
In applying to us, did it faithfully understand our context in terms of:
- Who this message is for (students, kids, oldies, men/women, Christian, non-Christian, mixed audience, etc.)?
- Where we live (our country, places, people, history, culture, words, issues, etc.)?
- Where we are in history (and even drawing on Historical Theology)?
2. Was It Clear?
Here, we are aiming for all the various elements—main point, flow, segues, structure, logic, wording, etc.—to be helpfully and obviously able to be followed.
- Was the main point clear enough? In other words, if you asked someone what the main point was, would they be able to easily answer?
- Did it preach the passage, exposing the meaning with clarity?
- Did it make the listeners have to work harder than they should have to in terms of making sense of what is going on?
- Were any major questions or difficulties left unanswered?
- Was the flow easy to follow?
- Were the points (if used) clearly from the passage?
- Were the concepts clear and rational?
- Was there logic throughout?
- Were the links or segues between the points or segments clear and helpful in moving us along?
- Were the spoken sentences used too bulky or too long to follow?
- Was the language and word usage helpful, or did it hinder (jargon, technical elements not explained)?
- Did the illustrations aid or impede making points clear?
3. Was It Concrete?
Here, we are after a grounded preaching that shows what this passage means for our lives in relation to God, others, and our world.
- Was there a concrete application for both Christians and non-Christians?
- Where a passage is more naturally for either the Christian or the non-Christian, did the passage also apply or raise implications for the other? (eg church settings with the gospels; non-Christian settings with the epistles)
- Did it understand the life and heart situations of the people in the room?
- Was the application only tacked on to the end, or throughout?
- Was it both negative (don’t) and positive (do)?
- Did it understand and apply how the passage might be teaching (truth/anti-error), training (behaviour for or against; how to and how not to), testing (how to measure ourselves), or exhorting us (challenge, encouragement, spurring us on)?
- Did the application match the passage and understand that there are necessary, probable, and improbable applications and implications?
- Was there too little, or too much application?
- Was it too much teaching and not enough preaching to the people present?
- Did it aim for our heads, hearts, and hands?
- Did it ground the imperatives (what we are to do) in the indicatives (what God has done)?
- Did it make the mistake of seeing all applications as merely doing something?
- Was it sufficiently relational, understanding that most of life is about us in relation to God and to others?
4. Was It Compelling?
Here, our focus is on a sermon that engages and connects with people in the right ways.
On the introduction, was it:
- Interesting, helpful, or engaging?
- Too long, or too short?
- Clearly linked to the actual passage?
- Necessary, or could the direct passage (or an idea from the passage) have been used as an introduction itself?
Then, broader questions concerned with how compelling the sermon was:
- Was the talk content dry or boring?
- Was the talk content unnecessarily ‘same-same’ and lacking the vibrancy or flavour of the specific passage?
- Did the speaker, where possible, paint verbal pictures that engaged our imagination or even emotions—using similes, metaphors, or beneficially vivid word choices?
- Was the delivery dry or stilted?
- Was there variation in pitch and tone and speed at the right moments in voice usage?
- Were there unhelpful or distracting tics or repetitions of language?
- Was there a good use of questions and other engagements?
- Was it read or overly bound to notes, instead of preached with an engagement of the people present?
- Did it have the language and sentence structure of written speech, rather than conversational speech?
- Did the language and speech and tone used match the speaker as a person, or was it foreign or put on? Did it mostly sound like them? Did it fall into ‘preacher’s voice’ mode?
- Did it engage with people’s experiences or thinking or backgrounds or beliefs?
- Crucially: did it engage with our heart and desires and affections?
- Was it too long overall, or in certain places (which places)?
- Was the narrative and story used well, or enough?
- Was there sufficient understanding of nuance and complexity? Or did all areas and ideas or issues simply get painted in black and white?
- Was there grace and charity, especially in difficult sections or questions?
- Did it land things well?
- Did technology (PowerPoint, devices, etc.) get in the way of people following and being engaged?
- Was there sufficient ‘breathing room’ for people to listen throughout the sermon?
5. Was It Christocentric?
Here, we are pursuing preaching that makes much of God: the Father’s plans and purposes by the Spirit in Christ.
- Did it include an understanding of our sin?
- Did it explain sin, and the good news of Jesus using the language or images or doctrines of the passage?
- Did it make much of Jesus as the centrality of the Father’s plans and the Spirit’s work (his worth, sufficiency, exclusivity, beauty, identity, life, work, return, and lordship)?
- Was too much made of the preacher, his ideas or his cleverness?
- Did it have the right gravitas (weightiness) of eternal matters?
- In light of the scriptures as God’s sufficient and authoritative revelation for us, was the proclamation necessarily confident, trusting that God the Father, by God the Spirit, works powerfully through the message about God the Son?
- Did it encourage us to delight and find comfort in the Triune God, his character and ways, and our relationship with him?
Do More Than ‘Get the Text Right’
In some Reformed circles in Africa, there is a healthy resurgence in training for preaching, and especially expository preaching. For which we thank the Lord, and pray it may continue. But sometimes it can seem like preaching is boiled down to ‘getting the text right’. And while those sentiments are foundational for a reason, far too frequently, that focus can lead to preaching that people really struggle to listen to—or through.
That focus can lead to preaching that people really struggle to listen to.
What’s more, that preaching then often stands in stark contrast to the more exciting (but frequently biblically unmoored) preaching found in other dominant forms of Christianity in Africa. The areas listed above lean heavily towards ‘getting the text right’ (although I dislike that clinical phrasing), but also try to holistically recognise biblical preaching as far more than just that.
