The Primacy of Preaching

Continuing our look at Ephesians 3:8 that Paul was called to preach among the Gentiles, the following pointed words are those made by Martyn Lloyd‑Jones in his monumental work, Preaching and Preachers, which was based on a series of lectures delivered at Westminster Theological Seminary over a six-week period in the Spring of 1969: “The work of preaching is the highest and the greatest and the most glorious calling to which any­one can ever be called . . . I would say without hesi­tation that the most urgent need in the Christian Church today is true preaching. . .preaching must always come first, and it must not be replaced by anything else” (pp. 9, 37).

The fact is, however, that preaching has, indeed, been replaced by everything else. Preaching is called “irrelevant” and “old-fashioned.” No longer is just preaching Truth enough. Church “ministry” today must be must be slick, current, appealing, crowd-pleasing, and “seeker-sensitive,” and Biblical, expository preaching simply does not fit that bill; it is not appealing.

In his short but powerful little book, Preaching for God’s Glory, Scottish preacher Alister Begg, who now pastors here in American, makes this pointed statement: “About fifty years ago W.E. Sangster, a great Methodist preacher in Britain, began a volume on preaching with these words, “Preaching is in the shadows. The world does not believer in it” . . . Today at the beginning of a new millennium, the situation is graver still. Preaching is still in the shadows, but this time much of the church does not believe in it.  Much of what now emanates from contemporary pulpits would not have been recognized by . . . Sangster as being anywhere close to the kind of expository preaching that is Bible-based, Christ-focused, and life-changing—the kind of preaching that is marked by doctrinal clarity, a sense of gravity, and convincing argument. We have instead become far too familiar with preaching that pays scant attention to the Bible, is self-focused, and consequently is capable of only the most superficial impact upon the lives of listeners. Worse still, large sections of the church are oblivious to the fact that they are being administered a placebo rather than the medicine they need. . . . In the absence of bread the population grows accustomed to cake! Pulpits are for preachers. We build stages for performers” (pp. 10–11; emphasis in the original).

In stark contrast to today’s so-called preaching, there is the Biblical model. Using one Greek word or another, preaching is referred to 250 times in the New Testament alone. Does this leave any doubt that preaching is the primary ministry of the Church?

In his first letter to Timothy (who was at that time pasturing the church in Ephesus), Paul writes, “Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine” (4:13). Most ministries today are built on entertainment, personality, crowd-gathering events, gimmicks, programs, and many other things that simply appeal to the flesh. But the truly Biblical minister builds only on the Word of God. Paul makes it very clear that until he returned, Timothy was to do one thing only: keep preaching the Truth in which Paul had instructed him (cf. 2 Tim. 2:2, “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”). “Give attendance” translates prosechō, which was a nautical term for holding a ship in a direction, to sail onward. The idea then was to hold on one’s course. And what course was Timothy to hold? Not entertainment or people’s “felt needs.” His course was to be the Word of God alone.

Pastor and author Alan Redpath, who joined the Lord in glory in 1989, wrote: “God is trying to tell us that our current popular version of Christianity—comfortable, humorous, superficial, entertaining, worldly-wise—is exposed for the irreverent presentation of the Gospel of Christ that it really is. A preacher is commissioned to give people not what they want but what they need. No man has any business walking into the pulpit to entertain. He is there to present Calvary in all it fullness of hope and glory.”

It is because of this primary Biblical ministry, that Grace Bible Church (Meeker, CO) is committed to the expository preaching of the Word of God as the only authoritative and sufficient revelation of God to man. And we sincerely invite you to worship and open God’s Word with us at 10:30 A.M. and 6:00 P.M. each Lord’s Day. Again, these blog posts are taken from a 3-1/2 year exposition of Ephesians.