As those who follow this blog know, I have not been a proponent of "expository" preaching when it is defined as a preacher preaching through a book of the bible Sunday after Sunday. Every sermon should have some exposition of texts being cited or explained, but many textual and topical sermons have lots of exposition in them. I think a preacher going through a book of the bible in a running commentary should rather do this in a bible class or lecture series. I have written on this a few times, especially as it relates to those Baptist churches adopting it for the Sunday messages. (See here; here; here - the latter has links to other articles on the subject) I have contended that textual and topical sermons have been the predominant types of sermons for several reasons. The above posts detail those reasons. The great "prince of preachers" Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a textual preacher but often mixed it with the topical.
As I was reading one of his sermons I noticed the following words of Charles Spurgeon which pertains to this debate on the practice of "expository preaching":
"I don't believe God the Holy Spirit ever intended men to publish three months before hand, lists of sermons that they were going to preach; because there always will arise changes in Providence, and different states of mind both in the preacher and the hearer, and he will be a very wise man who has got an Old Moore's Almanack correct enough to let him know what would be the best sort of sermon to preach three months ahead. He had better leave it to his God to give him in the same hour what he shall speak, and look for his sermons, as the Israelites looked for the manna, day by day." ("The Work of the Holy Spirit"; November 5, 1857)
Though Spurgeon is speaking about preachers having a list of sermons named for each Sunday months in advance, yet the same warning applies to those who use the expository type, for in that case people know in advance what the text and subject will be.
What think ye?
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