The Pattern of Biblical Preaching: An Expository Study of Ezra 7:10 and Nehemiah 8:1-18

By Steven J. Lawson

[Steven J. Lawson is Senior Pastor, Dauphin Way Baptist Church, Mobile, Alabama.

This is article three in a four-part series, “A Passionate Call for Expository Preaching.”]

Walter Kaiser, a leading evangelical scholar, issued a simple but striking statement in his commencement address at Dallas Theological Seminary in April 2000. It was a stirring challenge that should grip the hearts of all who are called to the ministry of biblical preaching and teaching. Those who enter the pulpit to preach, Kaiser admonished, should always be pointing to a text of Scripture.

When a man preaches, he should never remove his finger from the Scriptures, Kaiser affirmed. If he is gesturing with his right hand, he should keep his left hand’s finger on the text. If he reverses hands for gesturing, then he should also reverse hands for holding his spot in the text. He should always be pointing to the Scriptures.[1]

This is sound advice. Both literally and figuratively, the preacher should always be pointing to a biblical text. This Word-centered focus in the pulpit is the defining mark of all true expositors. Those who preach and teach the Word are to be so deeply rooted and grounded in the Scriptures that they never depart from them, ever directing themselves as well as their listeners to its truths. Biblical preaching should be just that—biblical—and all who stand in the pulpit must show an unwavering, even relentless, commitment to the Scripture itself. Much as a practicing physician knows and prescribes medicine, so every preacher should be ever studying, learning, and dispensing heavy doses of the healing balm of God’s Word to all his patients. Whatever the ailment, there is but one cure for the soul—the Word of God applied by the Spirit of God to the human heart.

But this biblical prescription is an unknown remedy for many preachers today. In their zeal to lead popular and successful ministries many are becoming less concerned with pointing to the biblical text. Their use of the Bible is much like the singing of the national anthem before a ballgame—something merely heard at the beginning, but never referenced again, a necessary preliminary that almost becomes an awkward intrusion to the real event. In their attempt to be contemporary and relevant, many pastors talk about the Scriptures, but, sadly, they rarely speak from them. Instead they rush headlong to the next personal illustration, humorous anecdote, sociological quote, or cultural reference, rarely to return to the biblical text. How can pastors expect dying souls to become spiritually healthy if they never give them the prescriptive remedy? How can pastors expect sinners to be converted (1 Pet. 1:23–25) and Christians to be sanctified (John 17:17) if they fail to expound God’s Word?

Writing almost a half century ago, Merrill Unger saw this dangerous departure from biblical preaching already at hand and threatening the vitality of the church. Sounding a warning, he wrote, “To an alarming extent the glory is departing from the pulpit of the twentieth century. The basic reason for this gloomy condition is obvious. That which imparts the glory has been taken away from the center of so much of our modern preaching and placed on the periphery. The Word of God has been denied the throne and given a subordinate place.”[2] What Unger saw looming on the horizon—the dearth of expository preaching—is now fully upon the church. “Where such exposition and authoritative declaration of the Word of God are abandoned,” Unger wrote, “Ichabod, the glory is departed, must be written over the preacher and over the pulpit from which he preaches.”[3] Boice wrote shortly before his recent death, “These are not good days for the evangelical church, and anyone who takes a moment to evaluate the life and outlook of evangelical churches will understand that.”[4] Now more than ever, pastors must come back to the centrality of the Word of God and preach it in the power of the Holy Spirit.

A Pattern for All Preachers

Amid the many examples held before preachers today one biblical expositor who stands out as worthy of emulation is an Old Testament priest and scribe named Ezra. Highly regarded “as a proficient guardian and expositor of the Mosaic Torah,”[5] this postexilic reformer of ancient Israel provides a timeless pattern for preachers today. God used Ezra to ignite a great revival when he returned to Jerusalem (Ezra 7–10). After Zerubbabel led a large contingent of Jews from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild their ruined temple (538 B.C.), Ezra escorted a second group to the holy city to restore the Word of God to its rightful place (458 B.C.). As he led God’s people to humble themselves beneath His mighty right hand, the key to Ezra’s ministry was undoubtedly his resolute determination to learn, live, and proclaim the Scriptures. The verse that uniquely summarizes his life and ministry is Ezra 7:10, which states that he “set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel” (italics added). Here is the threefold pattern of Ezra’s ministry. He was thoroughly committed to study, practice, and teach God’s Word.

Before opening his mouth to teach the Law, Ezra lived a life of obedience, practicing what he preached. But before he practiced and proclaimed the Word, he first set his heart to study it. God’s sovereign hand of blessing was on him (7:6, 9, 28; 8:18, 22, 31) because he was so completely immersed in His Word (7:10). It was Ezra’s all-absorbing commitment to the Scriptures that enabled him to impact his generation. These three aspects of his Word-oriented ministry—learn it, live it, and let it out—formed the solid foundation of his life and ministry, and provide a clear and compelling pattern for all who preach and teach the Word today. Kidner notes, “He is a model reformer in that what he taught he had first lived, and what he lived he had first made sure of in the Scriptures.”[6] Unquestionably Ezra’s life transcends the centuries and challenges this present generation of expositors to a high standard of excellence in the Word, providing “an inviolable order for a successful ministry.”[7] All biblical preachers and teachers would do well to follow this pattern of Ezra’s ministry, which involved knowing (“study”), being (“practice”), and doing (“teach”).

Study the Word

First, Ezra was a devoted student of Scripture, being diligent to dig out its rich truths from the inexhaustible mines of God’s Word. “Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord” (Ezra 7:10). This was the deep shaft in which his spiritual life struck gold—his personal study of the Word. Several marks of his personal study of the Scriptures are worth noting.

Consuming Study

Ezra “set his heart” to study God’s Word. The phrase “set his heart” (כִין לְבָבוֹ) conveys the idea of being firmly committed to a particular course of action with unwavering steadfastness. The verb signifies being “established, prepared, fixed” in a determined pursuit.[8] For example the same root is used to portray God’s intentional acts when He established the heavens (Prov. 3:19; 8:27). Thus the expression carries the idea of a determined purpose and unwavering resolution to act in a prescribed way to bring something to pass. The New King James Version renders this, “Ezra prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord” (italics added), underscoring his purposeful activity to pursue the Scriptures intently. Elsewhere this verb is likewise used to describe fixed intention, settled determination, resolute action (1 Chron. 29:18; 2 Chron. 12:14; Ps. 57:7). This is precisely how Ezra applied himself to the study of the Law. His mind “was zeroed in on the primary intention of studying God’s Word.”[9] He was not a man of many pursuits in life, but was possessed with one chief concern—the Word of God. “Ezra thus concentrated his whole life on the study of the law.”[10]

The “heart,” in which Ezra purposed to study the Scriptures connotes “the totality of man’s inner or immaterial nature”[11] or “the entire inner life of a person.”[12] The Hebrew word for “heart” (בָב) represents the center or middle of something, often referring to the physical heart, the blood-pumping organ which supplies life for the entire body. However, of the approximately 850 times it occurs in the Old Testament, its most common meaning is spiritual, signifying a person’s inner or immaterial being—his or her mind, emotions, and will. Thus the heart denotes the intellect, by which one thinks, analyzes, compares, and understands a matter (1 Kings 3:12; 2 Kings 5:26; 2 Chron. 9:23; Prov. 11:12; 16:23); the emotions, or the deepest innermost feelings of a person (Prov. 17:22, 25:20); and the volition, the seat of the will where choices are made (Num. 16:28; Judg. 9:3; 2 Chron. 12:14). When Ezra set “his heart” to study the Word he poured the whole spectrum of his inner life into doing so. In other words, the study of Scripture absolutely consumed his life.

John Bunyan, seventeenth-century English preacher and author, was also consumed with the study of God’s Word. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who read Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress every year, once remarked, “He had studied our Authorized Version … till his whole being was saturated with Scripture; and through his writings … he … [makes] us feel and say ‘Why, this man is living Bible! Prick him anywhere; and you will find that his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his soul is full of the Word of God.’ ”[13] So it must be with preachers today. The Scripture itself—not merely books about the Bible—must saturate the minds of pastors if it is to flow from their lives and lips as “Bibline.”

Careful Study

Also Ezra was committed to the careful and competent “study” of God’s Word. The Hebrew word translated “study” (דָּרַשׁ) means “to seek with care, inquire.”[14] For example this word was used when Moses “searched carefully” to find out what happened to the sin offering (Lev. 10:16) or when David “inquired” to find out who Bathsheba was (2 Sam. 11:3). The word “study” (or “search”) means to “go to see” and “inquire about” a matter by “seeking and asking.”[15] It includes the idea of “investigating, searching, being concerned about, striving for.”[16] As it relates to the investigation of the Scriptures, this word means to “investigate and examine” its true meaning in careful study.[17] Thus Ezra studied the Word by carefully searching it, investigating its truths, probing its parts, surveying its whole, striving to understand its meaning, being concerned to grasp its message, leaving no stone unturned. He was not content to skim the surface and gain a superficial knowledge of the text.

Reflecting on his early days of pouring over the Scriptures,[18] Martin Luther said, “When I was young, I read the Bible over and over and over again, and was so perfectly acquainted with it, that I could, in an instant, have pointed to any verse that might have been mentioned.”[19] He also wrote, “For a number of years I have now annually read through the Bible twice. If the Bible were a large, mighty tree and all its words were little branches, I have tapped at all the branches, eager to know what was there and what it had to offer.”[20]

“He who is well acquainted with the text of Scripture,” Luther noted, “is a distinguished theologian. For a Bible passage or text is of more value than the comments of four authors.”[21] Holding forth Luther’s intense, careful study of Scripture as an example for every preacher, Piper writes, “At the heart of every pastor’s work is bookwork. Call it reading, meditation, reflection, cogitation, study, exegesis, or whatever you will—a large and central part of our work is to wrestle God’s meaning from a book, and then to proclaim it in the power of the Holy Spirit.”[22] If the preacher is to be powerful in the pulpit, he must first be proficient in his study.

Comprehensive Study

Moreover, Ezra pursued a comprehensive study of God’s Word. This is seen in the way he studied “the law of the Lord” and applied its “statutes and ordinances.” This comprehensive threefold designation—the Law of the Lord, statutes, and ordinances—indicates that he studied all facets of God’s Word. Tradition says he was the founder of the Great Synagogue where the Old Testament canon was first recognized.[23] Another tradition says that Ezra had memorized the entire Law of God.[24] The point is that Ezra poured over the full counsel of God written in holy Scripture, mastering its content, leaving no part unexplored. No wonder he was described as a “skilled scribe” of the Word (Ezra 7:6). As a “skilled” (מָרִיר) person he had “the highest efficiency” and was “a professional of highest order.”[25] Such expert precision with the entire biblical text was the result of his diligent study. “Thus, the efficiency of Ezra is connected to his knowledge of the law of Moses.”[26]

Conclusion

Every preacher should follow Ezra’s example and be committed to the study of the Scriptures in a way that is consuming, careful, and comprehensive. Pastors must guard against the seemingly endless, mounting pressures placed on them to sacrifice their study of the Word on the altar of their growing list of “priorities.” A shrinking study time may result in shrinking power in the pulpit. The church needs more men like John Wesley, the powerful eighteenth-century preacher who cried out, “O give me that Book! At any price, give me the book of God.”[27] In like manner all expositors must be serious students of God’s Word who will devote themselves to the relentless pursuit of deepening and expanding their knowledge of biblical truth. The day the preacher stops studying God’s Word, whether he realizes it or not, is the day he begins losing spiritual passion and vitality in his preaching.

In a revealing interview Billy Graham was asked, “If you had to live your life over again, what would you do differently?” His answer is noteworthy. “One of my great regrets is that I have not studied enough, I wish I had studied more and preached less. People have pressured me into speaking to groups when I should have been studying and preparing. Donald Grey Barnhouse said that if he knew the Lord was coming in three years, he would spend two of them studying and one preaching.”[28] There is no substitute for the man of God being a diligent student of the Word of God!

Obey the Word

Ezra was committed to practice the Scriptures in his own life. “For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord, and to practice it” (Ezra 7:10, italics added). Ezra mastered the Word, and the Word mastered him. His careful study led to a holy life. His personal integrity became the platform from which he carried out his public teaching ministry. What he learned in the Scriptures, he lived. Thus after he studied the Word and before he preached it, he was careful to obey it.

Personal Obedience

The words translated “set his heart” are directed toward all three of Ezra’s activities—his study, practice, and teaching.[29] The same determination that marked his personal study also described his personal obedience. The Hebrew word for “practice” (עָשָׂה) carries the idea of expending energy in the pursuit of something[30] (Exod. 23:22; Lev. 19:37; Deut. 6:18), which in Ezra’s case was personal obedience. It is used to describe God’s creative efforts in making the world (Gen. 1:7, 16, 25, 26, 31). This word was also used to describe man’s industrious efforts, such as Noah’s building the ark (6:14), Jacob’s constructing a house (33:17), and the tabernacle workers’ making the ark of the covenant (Exod. 25:10–11, 13, 17).

Ezra built the Scriptures into his life through personal obedience. Far from merely stockpiling biblical knowledge in his head, much as raw materials would be stored in a warehouse but not used, Ezra labored to practice the truth he learned, putting it into practice. With much personal effort, he crafted a holy life.

Such personal obedience is essential for all who preach. Those who teach the Word will be held to a higher accountability by God, not only to teach it accurately, but also to live it correctly. As James wrote, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we shall incur a stricter judgment” (James 3:1). The overseer who is “able to teach” must be “above reproach” in every area of his personal life (1 Tim. 3:2–7). Who would select a banker who is personally bankrupt? Neither will people receive a preacher who does not obey his own message. Moody said, “God did not give us the Scriptures to increase our knowledge but to change our lives.”[31] Such personal transformation is always the expositor’s goal in preaching, and it must begin in his own life.

Prompt Obedience

Implied in this threefold sequence of activities in Ezra 7:10—study, practice, teach—is Ezra’s prompt obedience of Scripture. After he studied the Word and before he taught it, he obeyed it. In other words somewhere between his study and his delivery, the Word was put into practice in his personal life. Here lies a logical, unfolding progression of activities. The second activity (“practice”) builds on the first (“study”), and the third (“teach”) rests on the first two. Thus in being quick to obey the moral requirements of the Law of the Lord, Ezra serves as a model for preachers. The expositor must not only practice what he preaches, but he must also practice before he preaches. Puritan Thomas Adams once noted, “True obedience has no lead at its heels.”[32] Nowhere should prompt obedience be more clearly seen than in the life of the one who ministers God’s Word. Delayed obedience is no obedience. As Tozer wrote, “Theological truth is useless until it is obeyed. The purpose behind all doctrine is to secure moral action.”[33] This is to say, Scripture learned is useless until it is Scripture lived. To know and not to do, as an old adage says, is not to know at all.

Passionate Obedience

Moreover, Ezra obeyed the Word with the same “heart” devotion with which he studied it. Centuries later a class of scribes arose in Jesus’ day who sought to follow the Law, but not from the heart. With full heads but empty hearts, these scribes attempted to teach the Word, which prompted Jesus to say, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me” (Matt. 15:8). Ezra, however, was a scribe who wholeheartedly kept the Word, not with mere external ritual or empty routine, but with a deep internal desire. Describing this kind of passionate obedience, George Mueller, nineteenth-century church leader in Bristol, England, warned that the Word can be studied but not obeyed just as water can run through a pipe and not be absorbed.[34] The Word must be internalized before it is passed on to others.

Plenary Obedience

Ezra not only studied all the Scripture; he also sought to obey all that it taught. As he labored to understand the whole “Law of the Lord,” including its “statutes” and “ordinances,” he was equally determined to obey all its commands, to follow all its precepts, and to heed all its warnings.

Should it be any different for preachers today? Puritan Thomas Brooks wrote, “No man obeys God truly who does not endeavor to obey God fully.”[35] The one who brings the Word must bow first before the Word and fully keep it. Selective obedience is no obedience. Partial obedience is nothing more than disguised disobedience. To be compelling in the pulpit, preachers must be complete in obedience. Thus Ezra was given to an obedience that was personal, prompt, passionate, and plenary. Biblical expositors today must follow in his steps.

Teach the Word

Ezra was diligent to teach others the Word he learned and lived. Biblical teaching seeks to guide people to follow the will of God, not by offering mere human opinions or suggestions but by bringing “the authoritative declaration of the Word of God.”[36] This is the true nature of biblical preaching and teaching. As Stott suggests, it is “to open the inspired text with such faithfulness and sensitivity that God’s voice is heard and His people obey Him.”[37]

How did Ezra teach the Word? Insight is given into Ezra’s teaching ministry in the Book of Nehemiah, which records the fact that fourteen years later (444 B.C.) Nehemiah lead a third group from Babylon to Jerusalem in order to rebuild the broken walls around the city. Nehemiah 8:1–8, which records one of the greatest revivals in Scripture, reveals facts about how Ezra taught the Word.

Reverence for the Word

As Ezra taught the Word, his heart was gripped with deep-seated reverence for the Scriptures. Nehemiah 8:1 reads, “And all the people gathered as one man at the square which was in front of the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel.” A large multitude—a gathering of 42,360 people—assembled at the square in front of the Water Gate, a site near the rebuilt temple, and asked Ezra to bring out “the book of the law of Moses.” He stepped forward before the people with the Scriptures in hand (v. 2), mounted a wooden platform (v. 4), and unrolled the scroll (v. 5). With reverential awe the people instinctively stood to their feet, recognizing its divine authorship and sovereign authority (v. 5). They knew they would be hearing not a mere man speak his own ideas, but they would be hearing the very Word of God.

With the same reverence Ezra then offered a benediction to God, blessing His holy name, and the crowd responded by raising their hands and saying, “Amen, Amen” (v. 6). This awe-filled affirmation conveyed the intensity of their reverence for God’s Word. With solemn humility they “bowed low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground” (v. 6). Fear gripped their trembling hearts, for God would now speak through His Word.

Such reverence for the Scriptures must always be present in the heart of the preacher. Before the people can be expected to have a healthy, holy fear of the Word, the same soul-gripping reality must mark the one who expounds it. Such reverence was the basis of Paul’s charge to young Timothy when he wrote, “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom; preach the Word” (2 Tim. 4:1–2). Could there be any more heart-sobering motivation by which a preacher would approach the Scriptures than this?

Commenting on the reverential awe with which Martin Luther entered the pulpit, Spurgeon once said, “I believe Luther would have faced the internal fiend himself without a fear; and yet we have his own confession that his knees often knocked together when he stood up to preach. He trembled lest he should not be faithful to God’s Word. To preach the whole truth is an awful charge. You and I, who are ambassadors for God, must not trifle, but we must tremble at God’s Word.”[38] John Calvin noted, “We owe to the Scripture the same reverence which we owe to God because it has proceeded from Him alone, and has nothing of man mixed with it.”[39]

Many preachers bear more resemblance to entertainers than expositors, stand-up comics rather than knee-shaking servants. God-fearing, Scripture-reverencing men remain the need of the hour in pulpits today. John Knox, the great Scottish Reformer, once said, “I have never once feared the devil, but I tremble every time I enter the pulpit.” Where are such men who, like Knox, tremble when they open the Word of God?

Reading the Word

Surrounded by certain Levites, Ezra read aloud the text. Nehemiah 8:8 states, “They read from the book, from the law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading.” Before the Word was explained, it was introduced to the minds of the listeners through its public reading. This was no dull, dry reading of the biblical text with a lifeless monotone voice. Rather, the Hebrew word for “read” (קָרָא) means “to call, proclaim.”[40] It is the same word used to describe the fiery proclamation of Jonah in Nineveh when he “cried out” to the people (Jon. 3:4). It signifies the passionate delivery of the truth marked by a full conviction, deep feeling, and zealous intensity by the preacher. This is precisely how Ezra read the Scriptures. Ezra took great pains to give the “exact pronunciations, intonation and phrasing, so as to make the units of the piece and its traditional sense readily comprehensible.”[41] Deuel adds, “Interpretive comments served only to enhance the reading, not the other way around.”[42] Thus Ezra read the Word with deep-seated conviction and care.

This practice of reading Scripture is seen throughout the pages of the Bible. For example Jesus launched His public ministry by reading Scripture. “He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written” (Luke 4:16–17). He proceeded to read Isaiah 61:1–2.

Also the reading of the Scriptures was practiced by the apostles. Peter began his powerful proclamation of Christ on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17–35) by quoting Joel 2:28–32 and then Psalms 16:8–11; 89:3; and 110:1–2. Scripture reading remained the continued apostolic practice in the early church as seen in Paul’s instruction to Timothy: “Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching” (1 Tim. 4:13).

As Dombek wrote, “One of the most wonderful facets of our duty as proclaimers of the Word of God … or in the worship of the Lord is the oral reading of the Word. Through it we proclaim the Word of our Father directly to His people.”[43] Unfortunately the reading of Scripture in worship services today is often relegated to secondary status—if it is even read at all. John Blanchard laments, ‘There are times when I have thought that the Bible was being read with less preparation than the notices—and with considerably less understanding.”[44] Stephen Olford notes the significance of reading the Word: “The reading of Scriptures is the only part of your message that is infallible. Read it as though you believe it.”[45]

Restating the Word

As Ezra read the Scripture, he and the Levites with him explained the text. Thus Ezra “read from the book, from the law of God” and was “translating [מְוֹפרֶשׁ] to give the sense so that they understood the reading” (Neh. 8:8). Some scholars are convinced that this denotes only the work of translation as the Jews, now returning to their land from the Babylonian captivity, spoke Aramaic and needed someone to translate the Hebrew for them into their own vernacular.[46] But this view, Kaiser argues, does not make sense in light of the fact that at that time other Old Testament books were being written and received in Hebrew, such as Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.[47] It hardly seems reasonable that these Bible books would have been written and preserved in the Hebrew language if Hebrew was no longer understood by the people. Most probably, the Jews in Jerusalem in Ezra’s day could understand enough Hebrew to follow his reading of Scriptures. As MacLaren observes, “There is no reason to suppose that the audience, most of whom had been born in the land, were ignorant of Hebrew.”[48] Thus Ezra’s task inclued more than translation. It was probably primarily interpretation and explanation.[49]

Ezra gave “the sense” of the passage, thus helping his hearers understand the text—“they understood the reading” (v. 8). Six times this chapter states that the people “understood” or mentions their “understanding” (vv. 2–3, 7–8, 12–13).

Giving a proper understanding of God’s Word is always at the heart of true Bible exposition, never peripheral to it. Above all, biblical preaching should give the true meaning of a passage of Scripture, moving from the original language in which the text was written to providing a clear understanding in the mind of the listeners, while making personal application that calls for life-changing choices. Stott writes, “With painstaking, meticulous and conscientious care, the Scriptures, the very words of the living God, must be studied and then opened up to others.”[50] As Calvin wrote, “It is the first business of an interpreter to let his author say what he does say, instead of attributing to him what we think he ought to say.”[51] Robinson has written, “At its best, expository preaching is the presentation of biblical truth, derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, Spirit-guided study of a passage in its context, which the Holy Spirit applies first to the life of the preacher and then through him to his congregation.”[52] Biblical preaching finds its message originating solely in Scripture, extracted through careful exegesis and correct interpretation in which the original God-intended meaning of Scripture is explained and applied to people today. Along this line Unger writes:

No matter what the length of the portion explained may be, if it is handled in such a way that its real and essential meaning as it existed in the mind of the particular Biblical writer and in the light of the over-all context of Scripture is made plain and applied to the present-day needs of the hearers, it may properly be said to be expository preaching. It is emphatically not preaching about the Bible, but preaching the Bible. “What saith the Lord” is the alpha and the omega of expository preaching. It begins in the Bible and ends in the Bible and all that intervenes springs from the Bible. In other words, expository preaching is Bible-centered preaching. Whatever extra-Biblical material is employed—illustrations from human experience, history, archaeology, philosophy, art or science—must be purely subsidiary and strictly fitted into one single aim—to elucidate the portion of Scripture chosen, whatever its length, and enforce its claims upon the hearers.[53]

Conclusion

Kaiser writes, “Regardless of what new directives and emphases are periodically offered, that which is needed above everything else to make the Church more viable, authentic, and effective, is a new declaration of the Scriptures with a new purpose, passion, and power.”[54] This was clearly the pattern demonstrated in the life of Ezra. So it must be with all who preach today. Kaiser poignantly issues a clarion call to all preachers.

Too often the Bible is little more than a book of epigrammatic sayings or springboards that give us a rallying point around which to base our editorials. But where did we get the audacious idea that God would bless our opinions or judgments? Who wants to hear another point of view as an excuse for a Bible study or a message from the Word of God? Who said God would bless our studies, our programs for the church, or our ramblings on the general area announced by the text? Surely this is a major reason why the famine of the Word continues in massive proportions in most places in North America. Surely this is why the hunger for the teaching and proclamation of God’s Word continues to grow year after year. Men and women cannot live by ideas alone, no matter how eloquently they are stated or argued, but solely by a patient reading and explanation of all of Scripture, line after line, paragraph after paragraph, chapter after chapter, and book after book. Where are such interpreters to be found, and where are their teachers?[55]

This is the question of the hour. Where are such expositors? Where are such Bible teachers? These heart-searching questions should rally all who preach and teach to overcome the present dearth of expository preaching. Kaiser then states, “How long will it be before the people of God rise up in holy horror and say, ‘Enough is enough, already; we will no longer tolerate the few scraps of Scripture that we receive as an excuse for evangelical teaching and preaching?’ ”[56] This present-day “famine” of “hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11) must be traced back to a famine of preaching the Word. Surely Stott is right when he observes, “The low level of Christian living is due more than anything else to the low level of Christian preaching.”[57] May preachers today expound the Book, the whole Book, and nothing but the Book!

Notes

1. Walter C. Kaiser Jr., “A Call to Renew the Work of God,” commencement address, Dallas Theological Seminary, April 29, 2000. See also Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Revive Us Again (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1999), 166.
2. Merrill F. Unger, “The Need of Expository Preaching in the Twentieth Century,” Bibliotheca Sacra 111 (July-September 1954): 231.
3. Ibid.
4. James Montgomery Boice, Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001), 19.
5. Merrill Unger, Unger’s Commentary on the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody, 1981), 2:630.
6. Derek Kidner, Ezra and Nehemiah (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1979), 62.
7. John Martin, “Ezra,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary,Old Testament, ed. John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1985), 666.
8. John N. Oswalt, “כּוּן,” in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke (Chicago: Moody, 1980), 1:433.
9. George J. Zemek Jr., “Aiming the Mind: A Key to Godly Living,” Grace Theological Journal 5 (fall 1984): 206.
10. F. Charles Fensham, The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 100.
11. Andrew Bowling, “בָב,” in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, 1:466.
12. Alex Luc, “ב,” in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, ed. Willem A. VanGemeren (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 2:749.
13. Charles Spurgeon, Autobiography (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1973), 2:159.
14. Leonard J. Coppes, “דָּרַשׁ,” in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, 1:198–99.
15. David Denninger, “דרשׁ,” in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, 1:993.
16. S. Wagner, “דָּרַשׁ,” in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ed. G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 3:294.
17. Denninger, “דרשׁ,” 1:993.
18. All biblical expositors owe a great debt to John Piper for his outstanding research in surveying the personal study of Martin Luther. See the chapter on Martin Luther entitled “Sacred Study” in Piper’s book, The Legacy of Sovereign Joy (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2000), 77–111.
19. Hugh T. Kerr, A Compend of Luther’s Theology (Philadelphia: Westminister, 1943), 17.
20. Ewald M. Plass, comp., What Luther Says: An Anthology (St. Louis: Concordia, 1959), 3:1359.
21. Ibid., 3:1355.
22. Piper, The Legacy of Sovereign Joy, 79.
23. John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (Nashville: Word Bibles, 1997), 638.
24. Ibid., 649.
25. Fensham, The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, 100.
26. Ibid.
27. Michael P. Green, Illustrations for Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997), 36.
28. “Taking the World’s Temperature: An Interview with Billy Graham,” Christianity Today, September 23, 1977, 19.
29. Mervin Breneman, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1993), 129–30.
30. Eugene Carpenter, “עשׂה,” in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, 3:546.
31. D. L. Moody, quoted in John Blanchard, comp., Gathered Gold (Welwyn, UK: Evangelical, 1984), 19.
32. Thomas Adams, quoted in John Blanchard, comp., More Gathered Gold (Welwyn, UK: Evangelical, 1986), 213.
33. Ibid., 216.
34. George Mueller, quoted in Kent Hughes, 1001 Great Stories and “Quotes” (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1998), 24.
35. Thomas Brooks, quoted in Blanchard, More Gathered Gold, 214.
36. Unger, “The Need of Expository Preaching in the Twentieth Century,” 231.
37. John R. W. Stott, “Christian Preaching in the Contemporary World,” Bibliotheca Sacra 145 (October-December 1988): 364.
38. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit (Pasadena, TX: Pilgrim, 1975), 35:105.
39. John Calvin, quoted in J. I. Packer, “Calvin the Theologian,” in John Calvin: A Collection of Essays, ed. James Atkinson et al. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), 166.
40. Edwin Yamauchi, “Ezra, Nehemiah,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1988), 4:724.
41. Michael A. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 109.
42. David Deuel, “An Old Testament Pattern for Expository Preaching,” Master’s Seminary Journal 2 (1991): 135.
43. David A. Dombek, Reading the Word of God Aloud: The Preacher and Preaching, ed. Samuel T. Logan (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyerian and Reformed, 1986), 424.
44. John Blanchard, quoted in Hughes, 1001 Great Stories and “Quotes,” 24.
45. Stephen Olford, “Why I Believe in Expository Preaching,” audiotape of pastors’ luncheon message at Dauphin Way Baptist Church, Mobile, Alabama, March 22, 1999. “The reading of Scripture is the most important part of public worship. Even the sermon must come under the sentence of the Word!” (Stephen F. Olford with David L. Olford, Anointed Expository Preaching [Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1998], 24 [italics theirs]).
46. Fensham, The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, 217.
47. Kaiser, Revive Us Again, 166.
48. Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 3:376.
49. “The basic meaning of the word in question (meporas) is ‘to make distinct, or separate,’ which could denote either that the reading was well articulated or that the law was read and expounded section by section. Either of these would be appropriate, probably both were true” (Kidner, Ezra and Nehemiah, 106). Unger adds that the Hebrew word מְוֹפרֶשׁ “suggests not only the translation of the Hebrew into the vernacular Aramaic, but also the exposition of the sense of the passage, as the rest of the verse emphasizes” (Old Testament Commentary, 647). Martin agrees that both translation and explanation may have been involved (Martin, “Ezra,” 689). Also MacArthur notes, “This may have involved translation for people who were only Aramaic speakers in exile, but more likely it means ‘to break down’ the text into its parts so that the people could understand it. This was exposition or explanation of the meaning and not just translation” (The MacArthur Study Bible, 670).
50. Stott, “Christian Preaching in the Contemporary World,” 368.
51. John Calvin, The Epistle to the Romans, quoted in F. W. Farrar, The History of Interpretation (New York: Dutton, 1886; reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1961), 347.
52. Haddon W. Robinson, “What Is Expository Preaching?” Bibliotheca Sacra 131 (January-March 1974): 57.
53. Merrill F. Unger, “Expository Preaching,” Bibliotheca Sacra 111 (October-December 1954): 333-34.
54. Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Toward an Exegetical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), 242.
55. Kaiser, Revive Us Again, 166–67.
56. Ibid., 167.
57. Stott, “Christian Preaching in the Contemporary World,” 365.