By the time I graduated from seminary, I was committed to consecutive expository preaching. I believed this was the method best suited to bring out the whole counsel of God’s Word and to guard both the congregation and preacher against unhealthy overemphasis on any particualr doctrinal point. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, there are basically four ways in which the preacher can determine his text for the coming Sunday morning:
1) Choose his texts one by one as each Lord’s Day comes;
2) Preach through a book in a consecutive, expository manner;
3) Preach according to a catechism; or
4) Follow the Church calendar.
Method 1 poses certain dangers for the preacher, if not the congregation. If he chooses his texts each week, he runs the risk of avoiding exegetical, homiletical, and doctrinal challenges. Moreover, he may very well stick to a few tried and true topics, flattening out both his own and his congregation’s grasp of Scripture.
While catechetical preaching brings exposure to the full breadth of confessional doctrine, I must confess I was prejudiced against it by exposure only to its worst form. I had never heard a catechetical sermon before I took an elective course in preaching taught by a prominent minister in the Dutch Reformed tradition. One course requirement was to prepare a catechetical sermon outline; mine was graded down because I submitted an exposition of a Scripture text which illustrated the catechetical question’s doctrine rather than an exposition of the words of the catechism itself.
I also had a presbyterian professor who encouraged the students to consider catechetical preaching. As an example of why this would be helpful, he pointed to a general ignorance amongst many of the assurance Christian parents may take that their children who die in infancy are in covenant with Christ. However, this is not a truth taught in the Shorter Catechism; it seemed to me, then, I would more likely have occasion to proclaim this doctrine if I preached through books of the Bible. And, in fact, this has been my experience: consecutive expository preaching does introduce a range of subjects much broader than found in our confessional standards, and for that reason ought be pursued.
Many, perhaps most, OP ministers have never considered following the Church calendar in their preaching, save for the occasional Easter or Christmas Eve message, but I grew up in mainline Churches where this is the rule, and some of my favorite reformed writers recommend it. Still, it struck me as unduly repetitive. Moreover, the annual returns to Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection struck me as at odds with the linearity of Biblical history. Christ’s Cross work was once and for all; a repetitive cycling back to it seemed to undermine this all-important truth.
I readily grant that choosing a book of the Bible to preach through is still a choice, one which pastors and sessions should make together with a weather eye toward the congregation’s needs in that season. Nonetheless, any given book of the Bible has “surprises” (I preached through 1 Corinthians in order to discuss Church unity, and found myself delivering sermons on sex and gender issues besides!) which will keep the preacher on his exegetical toes and, often, address previously unknown needs within the body. Entering the pastorate, I could think of no reason I would ever do anything other than consecutive expository preaching.
What changed me was a pastoral consideration of my congregation’s needs and how best to address them from the pulpit. Over the years, I discovered some fairly basic doctrines, such as the nature of the Spirit’s work in the present age, are not very well fixed in the minds of many (who often expressed a desire to understand it better). During state elections, congregants asked me why we should even care whether homosexual marriage is legal. It became clear to me that both sections of our Catechisms (what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man, WSC #3) need to be set before our people in a systematic way. Accordingly, our session agreed a number of years ago that I would preach a catechetical sermon once a month, after our fellowship meal.
From the beginning of my ministry, I had been beset by complaints that I did not preach an Easter sermon. Beside the fact that I was preaching on texts the session had chosen, I would usually respond, “Why Easter and not Pentecost?” The danger of such a question, of course, is that one may ask it of oneself. “Why not Pentecost?” What would happen if people heard a sermon about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the New Testament Church once a year? Might they begin to realize every Christian has Spiritual gifts? Likewise, four weeks of Advent each year may begin to help the believer ground all his expectations and hopes in our Lord’s Second Advent, when he will raise up our bodies in glory and make us perfectly blessed in body and soul forever.
That is, I came to realize that while we presbyterians have our Larger and Shorter Catechisms, the Church universal has a catechism in the Church year. In Hebrews 6:1-2, the Apostle reminds us of the basic catechetical doctrines of repentance and faith, baptism, ordination, the resurrection, and eternal judgment. These themes are visited in Advent (Christ’s Second Coming and baptism alongside John the Baptist’s ministry), Epiphany (the revelation of Christ to the world), and Eastertide with Pentecost (Christ’s and our resurrections), sometimes at greater length and in more detail than is found in the Shorter Catechism.
And so we have our current practice at Park Hill Presbyterian Church. From Advent through Pentecost, I preach texts in the morning which have been determined by the Revised Common Lectionary. People get Christmas and Easter, and Pentecost as well! The remainder of the calendar year, it’s consecutive preaching through some book of the Bible. In the evenings, I preach through another Bible book, with the exception of that monthly catechetical sermon. In this way, we are shored up in the essentials of our faith: not only our presbyterian faith, but our catholic and apostolic faith.
Sadly, but perhaps inevitably, recent seminary graduates get some things wrong. Thankfully, the ministry of Word and sacrament provides many learning opportunities, and sometimes both pastors and congregations learn from them.
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