What is Preaching?

Last year, Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., (the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) wrote a book on the subject of preaching called, He is Not Silent. Having personally read a myriad of books on preaching, I can honestly say that this particular work is one of the clearest and most compelling presentations on what biblical preaching really is. I wish every pastor would read this book once a year as a reminder of what their primary calling is - namely - to feed God's sheep (John 21:15,17). In Chapter Three of Mohler's book, he plainly defines what preaching is and what it is not. This one portion of the book should be read carefully and searchingly by every pastor. Consider what Dr. Mohler wrote:

"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 structures 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.

Here we must deal not only with what preaching really is but also with what it is not. Much of what happens in pulpits across America today is not preaching, even though the preacher - and probably his congregation along with him - would claim that it is. Preaching is not the task of saying something interesting about God, nor is it delivering a religious discourse or narrating a story.

Many evangelicals are seduced by the proponents of topical and narrative preaching. The declarative force of Scripture is blunted by a demand for story, and the textual shape of the Bible is supplanted by topical considerations. In many pulpits, the Bible, if referenced at all, becomes merely a source for pithy aphorisms or convenient narratives...One sympton of our modern confusion is found in the fact that so many preachers would claim that their preaching is expository, even though this often means no more than that the preacher has a biblical text in mind, no matter how tenuous may be the actual relationship between the text and the sermon. One of the first steps to a recovery of authentic Christian preaching is to stop saying, 'I prefer expository preaching.' Rather, we should define exactly what we mean when we say 'preach'. What we mean is, very simply, reading the text and explaining it - reproving, rebuking, exhorting, and patiently teaching directly from the text of Scripture. If you are not doing that, then you are not preaching...Essentially, [therefore] this is what it means to preach. The heart and soul of expository preaching - of any true Christian preaching - is reading the Word of God and then explaining it to the people so that they understand it.