The expository method of preaching is best fitted to communicate the knowledge of scriptural trust in its connection. The knowledge of the Bible is something more than the knowledge of its isolated sentences. It includes a full acquaintance with the relation which every proposition sustains to the narrative or argument of which it is a part.
This is particularly true of trains of reasoning where everything depends on a recognition of the links that connect the several truths, and the order in which those truths are presented. Large portions of holy writ are closely argumentative and can be understood in their true intention only when the whole scope and sequence of the terms are considered. This logical connection is no less the result of inspiration than is any individual statement. In some books of Scripture, the argument runs from beginning to end, and the clue to the whole is to be sought in the analysis of the reasoning … But … in the other methods of preaching (other than exposition) this great advantage is sacrificed. It is true that a man may announce as his text a single verse or clause of a verse, and then offer a full and satisfactory elucidation of the whole context; but, so far as this is done, the sermon is expository, and falls under the kind which we recommend.
But this species of discourse is becoming more and more rare. In the sermons of the Nonconformists this was usually the plan of proceeding. In modern sermons, there is, for the most part, nothing which resembles it. A text is taken, usually with a view to some preconceived subject; a proposition is deduced from the text; and this is confirmed or illustrated by a series of statements which would have been precisely the same if any similar verse, in any other part of the record, had been chosen. Here there is no interpretation, for there is no pretence of it. There may be able theological discussion, and we would by no means exclude this; but where a method merely textual or topical prevails, there is an absolute forsaking of that which we have maintained to be the true notion of preaching. We can conceive of a hearer listening during a course of years to every verse of the epistle to the Hebrews, laid open in connection with as many sermons of the popular sort without obtaining thereby an insight into the grand scope ;and intricate contexture of that wonderful production. Now we say that the method which makes such an omission possible is unfit to be the exclusive method.
As a remarkable instance of what is meant, we may adduce the sermons of the Rev. William Jay, who is justly celebrated as one of the most fascinating and instructive preachers of Great Britain. In those sermons we find many valuable scriptural truths, many original and touching illustrations, much sound argument, pungent exhortation, and great unction. In themselves considered, and viewed as pulpit orations, they seem open to scarcely a single objection; yet, as expositions of scripture, they are literally nothing. They clear up no difficulties in the argument of the inspired writers; they give no wide prospects of the field in which their matter lies; they might be repeated for a lifetime without tending in the slightest degree to educate a congregation in habits of sound interpretation. The same remark applies to the majority of American discourses …… The text is a sign or motto, after announcing which the preacher glides into a gentle train of common-places, or a series of thoughts which, however ingenious, interesting, and true, have no necessary connection.
The mental habits of any Christian community are mainly derived from the preaching which they hear. It is fair to ask, therefore, from what source can the Christians of our day be expected to gain a taste and ability for interpreting the Scripture in its connection?
From the Pen of J. W. Alexander (1804-1859)