Two Essentials for a Biblical & Powerful Ministry
The Necessity of Earnest Prayer & Expository Preaching
Among the seven distinctives that the Gospel Reformation Network hopes to encourage among all the churches of the PCA is Earnest Prayer and Expository Preaching. Rather than innovations, each distinctive represents a kind of plea that our churches would be joyfully conformed to God’s Word and that this foundation would form a ground for healthy unity across our beloved denomination.
Each distinctive named by the GRN is formed as a complimentary pair. In this case we understand the importance of the relationship between prayer and expository preaching. A prayerless preacher is like a solar panel kept in a basement or an attempt to start a fire without a spark. In a similar way, a church without sound expository preaching is like a body without a heart. In terms of the pastor’s weekly ministry, his sermon preparation ought to be deeply devotional, each sermon being strengthened with the mortar of prayer.
A plea for fervent prayer
First, there must be a resolve to practice fervent prayer in the closet and from the pulpit. Before a pastor preaches he must pray. He must pray as he approaches the Scriptures. He must pray as he studies and seeks understanding. He must pray as he considers the best ways to apply the text to those whom he will preach. He must pray with every step he takes to the pulpit. He must pray for the souls for whom he is called to care. He must pray for a fruitful mind and clear words.
The 19th century English churchman Charles Bridges wrote of ministers and prayer: “We cannot feel too deeply the importance of this part of pulpit preparation. To study and meditate much, and to pray little, paralyzes all.” (1) Or consider what Augustine wrote: “Let our Christian orator, who would be understood and heard with pleasure, pray before he speak. Let him lift his thirsty soul to God, before he proclaims anything. For since there are many things which may be said, and many modes of saying the same thing; who, but the Searcher of all hearts, knows what is most expedient to be said at the present hour?” (2)
Praying pastors tend to lead praying churches. Our private and public praying is vital to the health of our churches. Our public prayers ought to be carefully considered whenever possible. When a pastor prays publicly during the service of Lord’s Day worship he is not only entreating God for blessing but is also teaching the gathered people to pray. Pastors should not treat prayer as a pre-sermon but as genuine praise and intercession. It should be reverent but not flowery, solemn but not cold. A pastor’s prayers ought to be weighted with Scripture and reflective of a mind that is trained by sound doctrine and heart inclined toward God with great affection.
A plea for expository preaching
Secondly, in our churches there must be an unbending dedication to expository preaching which informs the mind, transforms the heart, and stirs the affections. Expository preaching is that which exposes or brings out of the text of Scripture what God put there by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Since expository preaching seeks to bring out what is truly in the text, it must also take into full account the broader context in which each passage is placed. That is why expository preaching is typically that which proceeds through entire books of the Bible, line upon line, precept upon precept.
The rationale for expository preaching begins with the nature of Scripture. We believe and confess that the Old and New Testaments are the inerrant Word of God and the only infallible rule of faith and practice. In addition to its Divine origin and holy authority, we hold to the necessity, sufficiency and clarity of Scripture. So preaching the Bible and especially the expository preaching of the Bible is essential to the spiritual maturity and public witness of the church.
Charles Bridges, though commending a place for topical preaching, reserves his highest praise for expository preaching:
“Comprehensive and connected views of truth are thus set forth, equally conducive to Christian intelligence, privilege, and steadfastness. It avoids the habit of building upon a text what is not authorized by the context; and enables our people to read the Scriptures with more interest, because with more understanding, and with less danger of being mislead by disjointed views of truth. Thus is Scriptural doctrine confirmed, more from the general strain of the sacred argument, than from the partial citation of insulated texts.” (3)
The preaching of the Word is God’s chief means to bring sinners to faith.
Preaching God’s Word is a supernatural act. That is, it is a spiritual transaction in which God takes the unspectacular raw material of the pastor and his study and unites it to the ineffable work of the Spirit whereby ignorance is replaced with understanding and light breaks into the darkness. We think of Ezekiel’s remarkable vision in which God calls him to preach to a valley filled with the dry bones of the dead (Ezek. 37). As the prophet preaches the Spirit brings those bones to life until the valley is filled with a vast army. It is a portrait of God’s miraculous work through the proclamation of his Word.
Paul gets at the same thing in 2 Corinthians when he compares the preaching of God’s Word to God’s act of creation in which he brings light out of darkness.
For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (4:5-6).
The preacher’s task is to preach Christ. Through the ordinary means of preaching which is mocked by the world and even diminished in many churches, God promises to say, “Let there be light!” to souls in darkness.
As counterintuitive as it seems, faith is not the product of sight. It is not the fruit of spectacular shows or great visual displays. God has made us to be largely auditory people in matters of faith. So faith is the product of hearing God’s Word. Paul’s spiritual arithmetic in Romans 10 is that since faith comes by hearing the Word of Christ, there must be preachers sent out to proclaim that word (Romans 10:14-17).
God has provided the church its chief evangelistic method – the Word of God proclaimed. Some of the circumstances may change but in God’s economy of salvation it is the preaching of his Word which remains central to the evangelistic labors of the church.
The preaching of the Word is God’s chief means to sanctify his people.
God not only brings life to sinners by the preaching of the Word, he also sanctifies his people in this way. Praying for his disciples and for all those who will come to faith through their preaching, our Lord prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). God means to make his people more Christ-like through the ministry of the Word. And it makes perfect sense given what the Word is: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Calvin writes, “We see that God, who might perfect his people in a moment, chose not to bring them to manhood in any other way than by the education of the church. We see the mode of doing is expressed: the preaching of celestial doctrine is committed to pastors.” (Institutes, 4.1.5)
The pastor’s chief ministry is that of preaching and prayer (Acts 6:1-4). Whatever else must be neglected from time-to-time let these two – prayer and preaching – never be neglected. May God in his kindness bless the PCA with pastors who hold unswervingly to these most essential labors for God’s glory and the good of his beloved people.
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(1) Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry, (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2006) p. 212
(2) Quoted in Bridges, p. 212
(3) Charles Bridges, p. 284-285