Over the years I’ve taught preaching in university courses and mentored a number of preaching apprentices and preachers-in-training. This series summarizes some of the most basic yet most useful preaching points I’ve emphasized in these settings.
Preaching Point #1: Decide if your message is going to be expository (focus on one text) or topical (focus on several texts).
This is one of the most fundamental decisions a preacher must make. Definitions of expository and topical abound. I’ve found it helpful to put it very simply: expository sermons focus largely on just one text while topical sermons utilize numerous texts to explain what Scripture says about a topic.
This is a sermon-by-sermon decision and a series-by-series decision. For example, several years ago I preached a series on the Holy Spirit. I decided to make the series expository and base each sermon in the series out of Jesus’ discourse in John 14-16. This year I am once again preaching a series on the Holy Spirit. This series will be topical – each sermon will utilize a number of different texts throughout Scripture rather than coming from one block of text(s).
I face this same decision with each sermon. For example I began this year with a sermon from Col. 3 which was mildly expository in nature in that it based in Col. 3:1-5 (it was part of a series rooted in Col. 3:1-17). Yet, in order to press home the main focus of this sermon, I found it necessary to bring in a number of additional texts which fleshed the idea only touched on in my Colossians text. This sermon was thus somewhat topical. The next sermon in the series, once again from Col. 3, was strictly expository. It focused solely on the words of Paul from Col. 3.
I’ve found that listeners feel strongly about this distinction. One listener of mine wrestled with my preaching for years because I am generally expository and she believes topical is more “biblical.” She finally came to appreciate the strengths of expository preaching (and I’ve come to a greater appreciation for topical preaching). Historically, preaching has swung from one end of this continuum to the other. There are strengths to both and weaknesses to both. Ideally, a preacher’s sermons ought to reflect a balance of both.
Will your next series be expository or topical? Will your next series be expository or topical? This is a basic question that must be answered with each series and each sermon.
How do you make this decision? Is your preaching more topical or expository? Which do you prefer listening to?
That is probably the first time I have ever heard that topical is more biblical. How can picking and choosing verses (with the danger of out-of-context interpretation and application) be more biblical than going verse by verse, pericope by pericope, through an entire text? That just seems odd to me.
I think expository is highly preferred, as it allows the text to be explored in full while not allowing a preacher/teacher/pastor to avoid the texts they don’t like or don’t want to preach on. Admittedly, expository can be hard to listen to if the deliverer is not a capable speaker, or uses it to do word studies and such; but an able speaker doing expository rightly is such a treasure. It’s how the text is written, and so I think it is how it should be preached. I’d take expository over topical any day. (note: not saying topical does not serve a purpose, it most definitely does; but even so topical can have an expository flare – as you mentioned – and I think that is good).
Grace be with you –
Jr
Jr – I think my friend associated topical with “biblical” because she grew up on a diet of steady “concordance-style” preaching in which the preacher preaches on, for example, baptism and then cites every text in the New Testament that says something about baptism. I agree with you that it is generally preferable to do expository because the preacher is much more likely to take context into consideration. This is my preferred style. However, I’m finishing a series on Hell and have relied on a topical approach in order to try to summarize a large number of texts. It too has been fruitful. Thanks for your comments.
Chris
I am just now catching on to these posts, and I think they are great!!
Both styles can be very helpful to a preacher, and both can truly add to the depth of a preachers arsenal.
My recent focus has really been to “prove it” when I preach. I am still very “young” in my preaching ministry, and no doubt more experience with topical preaching will grow me, but as of now, it is easier for me to communicate the “big idea” through expository, rather than topical.
Do you have a few favorite expository preachers and a few favorite topical preachers, you wouldn’t mind sharing?
Jacob,
Great to hear from you. Topical preachers: Mark Driscoll, John Ortberg; Expository preachers: David Platt, Rick Achtley,
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