If, however, we mean that every sermon on an Old Testament text takes into account the fact that the entire Old Testament is about Jesus Christ, and gives us a history that culminates in the person and work of Jesus Christ, then all Old Testament preaching (and NT too, for that matter!) must be redemptive-historical. One of the most crying needs in our day and age is to put the Bible together for the person in the pew.

A generally helpful post on what expository preaching is not led me to think particularly about redemptive-historical models. His seventh “busted myth” runs like this (quoted in full):

Expository preaching is not always historically-redemptive preaching. Biblical preaching proclaims the Person and Work of Christ. It also explains what the text means by what it says. Surveying the history of redemption may present the gospel and protect the sermon from moralism. But faithful preaching does not ignore the historical and literary setting of the text. 1 Samuel 16 is not primarily about how Christ slays the giant of sin for us. It is about how God helped David defeat Goliath to introduce the young shepherd as the newly-anointed king. We must preach the former without neglecting the latter.

The problem here is one of definition. Some, like myself, would see the first two sentences as a contradiction. If we are to preach the person and work of Christ from the Old Testament, how can we possibly do that without historically-redemptive preaching? Other models would be closer to pure allegory. But the problem here is one of definition. If, by “historically-redemptive” (I usually reverse the terms to read “redemptive-historical”), we mean that the preacher stays inside the history of redemption, and never applies the text, then that isn’t preaching at all, but rather a lecture. If we mean an A.W. Pink-ish tendency to find Christ under every rock and cranny, that is not helpful, either (though some of Pink’s ties to Christ work quite well; we shouldn’t throw out the redemptive-historical baby with the allegorical bathwater!). If, however, we mean that every sermon on an Old Testament text takes into account the fact that the entire Old Testament is about Jesus Christ, and gives us a history that culminates in the person and work of Jesus Christ, then all Old Testament preaching (and NT too, for that matter!) must be redemptive-historical. One of the most crying needs in our day and age is to put the Bible together for the person in the pew. How does it all fit together? So it depends on what Mr. Charles defines as “historically-redemptive” as to whether good expository preaching is or is not historically-redemptive.

Lane Keister is a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and is pastor of Momence OPC in Momence, IL.  This article is used with permission.