Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages

Originally published in 1980, Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of ExpositoryMessages, has been a treasured companion for seminaries and pastors throughout the world, in helping us better understand and practice the art of expository preaching. In this classic guide, Robinson takes his readers through a step-by-step process of developing and delivering an expository sermon, and gives ample evidence of why this process is important to the preacher and his audience.

In defining the expositional sermon, Robinson says, “Expository preaching is the communication of a biblical concept, derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, and literary study of a passage in its context, which the Holy Spirit first applies to the personality and experience of the preacher, then through the preacher, applies to the hearers” (p.21).

I believe this book is an important read for every teaching pastor, seminary student, and would be Bible teachers, as Haddon Robinson’s work is a wonderful contribution to the Christian faith.

Top 10 QUOTES:

• Those in the pulpit face the pressing temptation to deliver some message other than that of the Scriptures – a political system, a theory of economics, a new religious slogan, or a trend in psychology. Ministers can proclaim anything in a stained-glass voice… Yet when they fail to preach the Scriptures, they abandon their authority… God speaks through the Bible. The type of preaching that best carries the force of divine authority is expository preaching (p.20).

• Preaching is a living interaction involving God, the preacher, and the congregation and no definition can pretend to capture that dynamic (p.21).

• The passage governs the sermon (p.21)

• “Relevant” sermons may become pulpit trifles unless they relate the current situation to the eternal Word of God (p.30).

• A subject cannot stand alone. By itself it is incomplete, and therefore it needs a complement. The complement “completes” the subject by answering the question, “What am I saying about what I am talking about?” A subject without a complement dangles as an open-ended question. Complements without subjects resemble automobile parts not attached to a car. An idea emerges only when the complement is joined to a definite subject (p.41).

• Men or women who speak effectively for God must first struggle with the questions of their age and then speak to those questions from the eternal truth of God (p.74).

• Preachers should pour out the message with passion and fervor in order to stir souls. Not all passionate pleading from a pulpit, however, possesses divine authority. When preachers speak as heralds, they must cry out ‘the Word.’ Anything less cannot legitimately pass for Christian preaching (p.20).

• Expository preaching is the communication of a biblical concept. That affirms the obvious. A sermon should be a bullet not buckshot. Ideally each sermon is the explanation, interpretation, or application of a single dominant idea supported by other ideas, all drawn from one passage or several passages of Scripture (p.35). 

• A well-prepared sermon is the embodiment, the development, the full statement of a significant thought (p.37).

• To be effective, sermons must relate biblical truth to life. The most effective sermons are those that do this in a specific, not a general, way. If you do not apply the Scriptures to people’s life experience, you cannot expect that they will do it. James warned us about the danger of “hearing the Word” but not acting on it. Listeners are deceived if they simply know God’s Word but do not practice it. As preachers, we dare not contribute to that delusion. Our hearers need both truth to believe and specific, life-shaping ways to apply it (p.96).