This past Sunday in worship at Houston Lake Presbyterian Church we considered Daniel 9:24-27. As I said, this was one of the hardest passages on which I’ve ever preached. It’s a hard passage to interpret and then to explain all the while trying to keep the sermon to a reasonable amount of time. If you were there, you deserve a t-shirt that says, “I heard Pastor Paul preach on Daniel 9:24-27… and lived.”
It was tempting to skip that passage and take the easy way out. However, we didn’t. Our refusal to skip over passages is a reflection of our commitment here at HLPC to the authority and inspiration of Scripture and to expository preaching. Below are some words I included in a chapter on preaching in my dissertation for my Doctor of Ministry degree that I thought were appropriate to share:
One more thing to note in this brief look at the theology of preaching: a high view of preaching flows out of a high view of Scripture. A commitment to the authority and inspiration of Scripture should then lead a preacher to a commitment to expository preaching. Expository preaching attempts to let the Scriptures themselves determine the content of the sermon as opposed to the preacher’s whims. A helpful definition would be: “…expository preaching endeavors to discover and convey the precise meaning of the Word. Scripture rules over what expositors preach because they unfold what it says. The meaning of the text is the message of the sermon. The text governs the preacher” (Bryan Chapell, Christ Centered Preaching, p.23).
A theology of preaching is well summed up for us in these words of Dennis Johnson:
…preaching must be Christ centered, must interpret biblical texts in their redemptive-historical contexts, must aim for change, must proclaim the doctrinal center of the Reformation (grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, God’s glory alone) with passion and personal application, must speak in a language that connects with the unchurched in our culture, shattering their stereotypes of Christianity and bringing them face to face with Christ, who meets sinners’ real needs- felt and unfelt (Him We Proclaim, p.54).