A Crisis of preaching In The Church

One of the hallmarks of our time is that we face a crisis of preaching. Indeed it would be an exercise in self-delusion if we tried to pretend that nothing is wrong with the preaching that happens in most evangelical churches. Let me ask some honest and difficult questions: If you picked an evangelical church at random and attended a Sunday morning service there, how likely is it that you would hear a faithful expository sermon, one that takes its message and its structure from the biblical text? If you answer that question honestly, you’ll admit that your expectation would not be very high. Further, do you believe that as time passes it is becoming more likely or less likely that you would hear an expository message in that random church?

I am convinced that we add to the confusion by discussing expository preaching as merely one kind of preaching—or even the best kind. When we fall into that pattern, we do serious injury to the scriptural vision of preaching. Let’s be clear. According to the Bible, exposition is preaching. And preaching is exposition.