Ep 19: Four Approaches to Preaching

Most preachers develop one approach to sermon preparation and use it for everything.

The way they were trained. The style they've always used. The method they admire in someone they respect. And they preach that way every week — regardless of what the passage is, regardless of what the congregation needs, regardless of whether it fits.

That's not versatility. That's a habit.

In this episode, Jonathan McClintock walks through four approaches every preacher should know — textual, expository, topical, and narrative — and makes the case that a skilled preacher doesn't pick one and stay there. They develop all four, and they know when to reach for each one.

The four approaches:

Textual Preaching — Takes a short text, often a single verse or small cluster, and lets that text control the sermon. The strength is focus. The danger is decontextualization — a verse ripped from its context can be made to say things the passage never says.

Expository Preaching — Lets the sermon unfold the flow and argument of a longer passage. The sermon's structure follows the text's structure. The strength is faithfulness. The danger is running commentary — explaining what every verse means without ever landing on what the passage requires of the congregation. Teaching with a Bible open is not preaching.

Topical Preaching — Starts with a topic and gathers multiple passages that address it. The strength is directness — it goes straight at the need and brings the full weight of Scripture to bear on what the congregation is actually facing right now. The danger is opinion dressed up as preaching. Topical preaching without exegetical discipline is not preaching. It is opinion with citations. A note for Apostolic preachers: the strength of our topical tradition depends entirely on textual discipline underneath it.

Narrative Preaching — Lets the story shape of a passage carry the sermon. The strength is engagement — stories hold attention, drive imagination, and reach people in ways propositional preaching cannot. The danger is storytelling without theology. The congregation should walk out changed, not just entertained. The story is never the point. What the story reveals is the point.

These are not competing philosophies. They are different tools. The question before every sermon is not What is my approach? — as if you've already decided. The question is What does this text ask of me? What does this congregation need? What approach serves both?

Transcript

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What approach do you use when you prepare a sermon? Most preachers, if they're honest, will name one thing, one style, one method. It's the way they were trained, or maybe the way they've always done it, or the approach they admire in a preacher that they respect. And they preach that way every single week. Regardless of what the passage is, regardless of what the congregation needs, and regardless of whether it fits, it's simply a habit. Welcome to the Clear Preaching Podcast. My name is Jonathan McClintock, and today we're going to look at four different types of preaching and when to use each one. But before we do, I want to invite you to check out ClearPreaching.com. If you are a preacher who wants to continually work on their craft, their calling, and become a better communicator and preacher of God's Word, the Clear Preaching Academy just might be the place for you. And yeah, there's a growing number of library courses to watch and learn at your own pace, but what makes it a community is the cohorts and the forums and the weekly interactions with other preachers who are pursuing the same thing as you are. So check out ClearPreaching.com. What approach do you use when you prepare a sermon? Do you do it the same way every single Sunday? Consider this for a moment. The preacher who only knows how to preach expository sermons will struggle when the congregation they're struggling with anxiety or grief or whatever the need might be. The preacher who only preaches topically will struggle when a narrative passage needs to be honored on its own terms and in its own merit. So today we're going to walk through four approaches that every preacher should know textual, expository, topical, and narrative. And these four are important for us to look at. I'll name the strength of each one. I'll even point out the danger each one has, and then kind of give you some ideas when to reach for which one of these styles. So before I do, I want to say something up front that matters for everything else that follows here. Homilitics textbooks disagree on some of these labels. Maybe you've heard some of these labels, and you might think of them in one way. I might think of them in a completely different way, and the textbooks might even define them different than that. Different traditions use different terminology. So I want to tell you how I see it, how I use these terms and why, and then where the literature lines up and then and where it doesn't. Because knowing why the terminology is fuzzy will better help us understand what's actually at stake in each one of these. Now here's the thing to hold through all four of these different styles or techniques of preaching. These are not competing philosophies. Well, there's some that would argue and they'll get in some heated arguments about it, but they're not really competing philosophies. They're just different tools. And a skilled preacher uses all four of these over the course of a preaching ministry, choosing the right one for the right passage at the right moment. So, approach number one, let's look at textual preaching. Textual preaching takes a short text, maybe sometimes even a single verse or a small cluster of verses, and then we'll let that short text control the entire sermon. The strength of textual preaching is focus. Because when you're preaching a single verse or a tight cluster of verses, you can go deep on that passage. You can dwell on the language and the words, and you can unpack every word. You can build a whole sermon around one clear idea drawn from that small little portion of scripture. Now, some texts are practically written for textual preaching. You got proverbs or verses in the Psalms, key doctrinal statements. However, you could use this message really anywhere in Scripture, but some lend itself maybe more to textual style preaching, a single verse from Philippians 4 or a line from the Sermon on the Mount, a tight cluster in Romans chapter 8, whatever it might be. These can hold the full weight of a sermon because the text itself is just dense and chocked full of meaning. However, the danger of textual preaching can be decontextualization. When you preach a short text, you're always tempted to preach it as if it exists on its own. This is a similar, a similar worry of topical preaching, which we'll get to in a minute. But it in textual preaching, if you take this one verse or a short little cluster of verses, you can you can treat it sometimes that it's all by itself. It exists on its own as if the verses before and after don't matter. You don't contextualize, and that's dangerous. A verse ripped from its context can be made to say things that the passage actually never says. So this is where proof texting starts. The practice of extracting isolated Bible verses from their context to validate a split specific theological argument or personal belief, proof texting. And this is where preachers end up preaching their own ideas with a verse attached rather than preaching what the text actually says. Like I said, similar dangers to topical preaching. But what about when to use textual preaching? When is it good? Well, when a single verse contains a complete self-contained thought that the surrounding context supports rather than complicates, as in Proverbs, where you might have a couplet of verses that focus on a specific idea, and good textual preaching can draw all that out. Whether there's a key phrase and making sure the context supports it, textual preaching will honor the text by giving it the full attention that it deserves. So doing it right is important, making sure that you can textualize that verse or those couplet of verses there as textual preaching. Secondly, the second approach is expository preaching. Now, this is probably one of those that's had so many different definitions of it that when sometimes we can be talking past each other when they're talking expository preaching, but expository preaching lets the sermon unfold the flow and argument of a longer passage. In fact, the sermon structure follows the text structure. The sermon's argument follows the text argument. The strength of expository preaching is faithfulness. You're faithful to the message of that passage. And when done well, expository preaching disciplines the preacher, in fact, to say what the passage says. And most often in the order the passage presents it, with the emphasis the passage gives. The best, the most simple definition is expository preaching is the main idea of the passage, becomes the main idea of the sermon. Now, with expository preaching, you cannot easily impose your own agenda on a passage because when you are following the passage's own flow, you have to stick with that and say what the passage is saying. Which is really one of the expository preaching's greatest gifts, because it protects the congregation from the hobby horse messages of the preacher, the candy stick messages of the preacher, where the preacher just goes back to that same well, that same idea, same topic all the time. When you preach expositorily and line up with what the text is saying, it keeps you accountable to the text. Now, the danger of expository preaching is it can become running commentary. When done poorly, expository preaching turns into a verse by verse by verse lecture. And the preacher walks through the passage explaining what each line means without really ever landing on what the passage is actually asking the congregation to do. That's not really preaching, that's simply teaching to inform. And a congregation needs more than information or explanation. They need proclamation. They need to leave the room knowing not just what the text says, but what the text requires. Now, there's an article someone wrote on expository preaching, and they they kind of put it this way: they say, our people don't need running commentary. They need to be exhorted and moved in the same way the text is exhorting and moving them. So if your expository sermon doesn't compel anyone to do anything, you haven't finished the job. We ought to bring out what the text is requiring of us. There's also a practical distinction worth naming here between verse by verse preaching and unit or pericopey by pericopey preaching. Now, verse by verse goes through every verse in sequence, thorough and detailed and methodical. But unit by unit or section by section, you'll even see in your Bible, most of the translations are there's you can see paragraph units. Those are pericopies or preaching units. And unit by unit will work through the natural thought in the text. It preaches the preach the passage's argument rather than commenting on every line. You can take what's the main idea in that section. But here's the irony. Verse by verse preaching, which looks most faithful on the surface, can actually lose the author's broader argument because you get so focused on the words in each of the verses and how the verses are broken up, which the translators of the text are what put it into verses. Unit by unit, or pricopy by pricky, or paragraph by paragraph preaching often will help you honor the text more faithfully because it follows what the text is actually trying to do. When do we use expository preaching? Now, some would argue, here's the thing, some would argue that's the only way to preach. You'll find some segments of Christianity who will say it's the most faithful way to preach, so it's the only way to preach. Now, I do agree it is one of the better methods, but I don't think it's the only tool that the preacher ought to have in their arsenal. I think it is a tool and perhaps maybe ought to be, I feel ought to be used more than the other methods. But that's really up to you. I feel like it ought to be used more than the others, but it's not meant to be the only way. I would argue with those that say it's the only way. I don't think it's the only way to preach. But it is a good way to help the passage argument, what the author's saying, to help it land. It helps you with these long passages and see their clear logical development, like in the epistles or in extended narratives. These are natural fits for expository preaching. Now, when the flow of the passage is doing the theological work, then follow it. So I think that's it's a great way to really get across the idea that the author is trying to get across in his writing. The third approach, topical preaching. Now, topical preaching often starts with a topic and then will gather multiple passages that address that topic. In this type of preaching, the topic controls the structure, and the passage serves the topic. The strength of topical preaching is directness. It can be targeted and speaks straight to a specific need or question the congregation may need at a particular moment in time. Maybe your congregation is facing a specific issue. You want to address anxiety or marriage or finances or grief or spiritual warfare. You want to address a topic. Topical preaching lets you gather what the whole council of scripture says about that issue and bring it to bear. Now, it does bring a, when you look at the whole council scripture says about it, there are some topics that have just such a broad base of a broad collection of what it says about a specific topic. So it makes it harder than to pare it down because really your sermon needs to be about one thing. And so it makes it harder to really rein all that in and preach one idea. But it does allow you to see what scripture says about anxiety, what scripture says about marriage, and bring that issue to bear. There are also pastoral moments when your people need you to tell them what the word says about what they're facing right now. Perhaps society is facing a particular crisis, and you want to address it. What does scripture say about this? Or the church is up against something and you want to address that particular idea, that particular topic. However, the danger of topical preaching is opinion. When done poorly, topical preaching becomes the preacher's opinion decorated with verses. One writer, I love this, describes topical preaching done wrong, describes it this way. The preacher uses the text like a drunk uses a lamppost, more for support than illumination. Topic gets set by the preacher's interests or comfort zone, and it's not really necessarily to illuminate what scripture is saying, but it's using scripture to support what the preacher wanted to say. That's the danger of topical preaching done wrong. The verses get selected to support the position that the preacher already holds, and the congregation gets the preacher's view with a biblical veneer on top. That's not biblical preaching. It's opinion with scripture citations. However, topic of preaching is a is a valid way and a good way to preach. When the pastoral moment calls for gathering multiple texts around one urgent questioner, when you've done the exegetical work to make sure each passage is being used in accordance with its context. And that really that last part right there, that's non-negotiable. Because topical preaching without exegetical discipline, without drawing out the meaning of the text, is not preaching, not biblical preaching. Every text you use must be allowed to say what it actually says in its own context. Bad topical preaching doesn't allow for that. So we've got to be very careful with that. Now, a word specifically, especially for those of us who have grown up in Pentecostal apostolic tradition, that the preaching we have heard most of our life has had a strong topical strand. And that's not weakness. Some of the greatest preachers I have heard, some of the greatest preachers in the apostolic tradition have been topical preachers. But the strength of that strand entirely depends on the textual discipline underneath it. So use the tradition well by doing the exegetical work every time. Don't rush through the textual work. Don't rush through digesting and meditating on what the text says and allow the text to speak for itself. Don't just grab a phrase and not give the text its due. I hear too many topical preachings. Somebody will read a text at the beginning of the sermon and they never come back to it. They read a text and they're off to the races. They never come back. Every once in a while they'll hear the sermon and come back and give it a token nod at the very end when they close. That's not good topical preaching. Topical preaching uses the text for what it says and gives it its due. We're preachers of the word, and we need to preach the word. Now, the fourth method is narrative preaching. Now, this is more than just preaching from a story. Narrative preaching lets the story of the passage carry the sermon. The shape of a passage carry the sermon. The sermon may follow the narrative's plot, or it may retell the story with fresh detail. It may use the story's tension and resolution to drive the sermon's movement. Now, the strength of narrative preaching is engagement because stories hold attention. Stories are how we remember. Stories work on the imagination in ways that propositional preaching can't reach. Because when a congregation hears a well-preached narrative sermon, they're not just receiving information, they're experiencing the text. Think about how much scripture is actually narrative. The gospels are narrative, Acts is narrative, Genesis is narrative, Ruth is narrative, Jonah's narrative, Esther's narrative. If you never develop narrative preaching as a skill, you're not fully equipped to preach large portions of the Bible. The danger of narrative preaching is just storytelling without theology. Because narrative preaching can drift into just being about the story's characters instead of what the story reveals about God, what is theologically being taught in that narrative. Because you can preach an entire sermon on David and Goliath and never say anything theological. You can make it about confidence, you can make it about courage, you can make it about taking risks, and then entirely miss what the passage is saying about God's faithfulness to his covenant people through an unlikely instrument. The congregation should walk out changed, not just entertained. The story is never the point. What the story reveals is the point. So narratives are told a certain way for a reason. So preaching them narratively often honors that reason. When you find yourself trying to force a narrative into a three-point outline, stop. That's not how a narrative should be preached. Ask whether the story is actually asking for something else in those three points. So there's textual preaching, expository preaching, topical preaching, narrative preaching, four. There's other approaches, but these are probably the four most seen approaches. But these approaches are not rungs on the ladder. One's not lower value than the other. I think they're all great weapons in the arsenal of the preacher. None of them is more spiritual or more faithful than the others when done right. Each of them has their own strengths, each of them has dangers. Each has a moment when it's exactly the right tool. So the question to ask before you begin sermon preparation is not what's my approach, as if you've already decided. But the question should be, what does the text ask of me? What's the best way to present this text? And what does the congregation need? And what approach will serve both? And that's the work. That's the work of the preacher. That's what separates a preacher who grows over the course of a ministry from a preacher who is still doing the same thing 30 years later. So develop all four and know their strength. Pick up books about how to preach each. There are books out there on expository preaching. So many. There's books on textual preaching, there's books on topical preaching, narrative preaching. Read about how to do each. Know their strengths and know their dangers and know when to reach for each one. And then trust God that he can work through all of them. Because he has throughout the history of the church. And he will continue to through yours. I'll see you next week.