In his chapter, Thomas outlines several bad homiletical models. Surprisingly, every model indicts our heroes. Thomas is quick to say that the model itself may not be the problem, but the use of it often is. Even our favorite preachers or favorite kinds of preaching carry with them great dangers, especially when they are held up as the way to do things.

My favorite book on preaching that no one talks about is the Soli Deo Gloria edited volume Feed My Sheep, A Passionate Plea for Preaching. The book contains excellent essays by Boice, Piper, Ferguson, MacArthur, and many others. The most important 33 pages may be Derek Thomas’s chapter on expository preaching.

No doubt, most readers of this blog are proponents of expository preaching. And yet, it’s one thing to be a fan and another to be a practitioner. I wonder if more of us think we love expository preaching than actually do it well or know what it looks like.

In his chapter, Thomas outlines several bad homiletical models. Surprisingly, every model indicts our heroes. Thomas is quick to say that the model itself may not be the problem, but the use of it often is. Even our favorite preachers or favorite kinds of preaching carry with them great dangers, especially when they are held up as the way to do things. Thomas mentions four of these bad homiletical modes.

1. The Puritans. While Thomas loves the Puritans, he admits that “in the matter of consecutive expository preaching, the Puritans are not always a model for us to follow.” Surely, Joseph Caryl’s example of 24 years and 424 sermons in Job is rarely, if ever, worth emulating. We mustn’t take too long on one verse or stay too long in one book.

2. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He may have been the greatest English speaking preacher of the twentieth century, but that doesn’t make him the best model for preaching. Few of us have the necessary skills and gifts to unpack a single verse for six weeks and few have the right congregation to enjoy such exposition.

3. C.H. Spurgeon. Again, Spurgeon was undoubtedly a great preacher. And in theory he was an expositor. But in practice, “he could sometimes introduce matters into the sermon that did not properly emerge from the text, and he never engaged in consecutive expository preaching.” Reading Spurgeon’s sermons is a treat, but it also makes you say, “I could never do that.” Usually a good sign this man’s method is not the best model.

4. Redemptive-historical preaching. Thomas notes that the emphasis on context and the sweep of the salvation story is appropriate. And yet, “what often results from this hermeneutic has a sameness to it.” The mood and point of every sermon sounds the same. The fear of moralism guts the message of necessary application and imperative. A model which was breathtaking the first time around becomes predictable months later.

Sometimes our favorite preachers do not make the best homiletical models. And sometimes those most committed to expository preaching do not actually exposit the text.

Derek Thomas mentions four sermon types that fail to “display what is there.”

1. The “I want to tell you what is on my heart” sermon. The message may start with a text and end with a bang, but the preacher’s concerns come through more clearly than the passage’s concerns. The exposition is full of passion without precision. It’s “earnest but effervescent, relevant but un-related.” Even if the content is true, people are learning to treat the text carelessly and casually.

2. The “I have been reading Berkhof’s Systematic Theology” sermon. Instead of asking “What was the author’s original intent?” or asking God, “What do you want to say to your people?” we ask “What doctrine does this passage teach?” The result is that sermons get defensive and struggle to handle poetic and narrative genres.

3. The “I have a seminary education and I am determined to let you know that” sermon. These messages interest the intellect but fail to transform the heart or appeal to the affections. There may be much attention to Greek and Hebrew and textual variants, but little attention to connect the text to the lives of the simple and unlearned.

4. The “I am in such a hurry to apply this that you must forgive me for not showing you where I get this from” sermon. The preacher did his homework. It’s all there, but it’s just not where anyone can see it. Listeners feel like they are being lectured at with conclusions they haven’t been led to make on their own.

I want to conclude this (article) in the same way Derek Thomas concludes his chapter, by commending to you the model of consecutive expository preaching. This is not the only way to ever preach. In fact, I try to do at least one preaching series a year that is expository but not consecutive. Still, on balance, I’m convinced that consecutive exposition (lectio continua) is the most effective method for building a healthy, vibrant, biblically faithful congregation.

Thomas notes six advantages to this approach. Although the ideas are largely his, the words are mine.

1. It introduces the congregation to the whole Bible. If all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable, then we would do well to travel through as much of it as possible.

2. It takes us to out of the way places in the Bible. There are chapters, verses, books (and sometimes whole Testaments!) of the Bible that will never be touched with topical preaching. Of course, most preachers won’t stick around long enough (or live long enough) to preach every verse in the Bible. But consecutive preaching gets you around the Bible more effectively than a series on marriage, parenting, and finances every single year.

3. It models for people how to read the Bible and that they can profitably read their Bibles all the way through. One of our chief aims as preachers must be to teach our people how to interpret the Bible for themselves.

4. It exposes a congregation to the full range of God’s interests and concerns. Instead of discerning what our people want to hear, we let Scripture decide what people need to hear. Over time, they’ll hear about divorce, incest, discipline, wrath, racism and a thousand others things they might not know are in the Bible. And when the congregation is hit between the eyes with conviction of sin or a meddling text, they can’t blame the preacher for riding hobby horses.

5. It can help preachers vary the style and mood of their preaching. We might think the consecutive exposition would make for less variety than topical preaching. But if the preacher is paying careful attention to the text, he will shape his sermon to fit the next text instead of picking a topic and then searching for supporting texts. Of course, the benefit of variety requires a suitable pace through longer books of the Bible.

6. It frees preachers from the tyranny of having to choose a text. Preachers can think ahead and plan ahead. They can see the forest and the trees. Consecutive exposition provides continuity from week to week and allows for a freedom that arises out of order.

My prayer, for myself and for the preachers reading this blog, is that we would be increasingly committed to expository preaching and increasingly skilled at actually doing what we say we are committed to.

Kevin De Young has been the Senior Pastor at University Reformed Church (RCA) in East Lansing, Michigan, right across the street from Michigan State University, since 2004.  Kevin blogs at the Gospel Coalition and this article (which in fact is a compilation of three separate blog posts) is reprinted with his permission.