The Word of God is comprised of nothing less than…well, words.  The words we read on the pages of Scripture provide the eternal truths needed for this life and the one to come.  Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that the expositor correctly and exhaustively deal with the words, as they are, when they are, and where they are in the canon of Scripture. In his book, Understanding and Applying the Bible, Robert McQuilken states, “Words are the basic building blocks for understanding the meaning of any passage. In seeking the author’s intended meaning, we must consider the

Preaching is technical business.  Like an excavator who searches for treasure, the expositor of Scripture must have the right tools, the right knowledge, the right methods, and the right location.  He doesn’t flippantly and superficially wing his message.  He must be a resilient researcher, a wise wordsmith, a theological thinker, a literary laborer.  He must be a sincere scientist knowing it is his responsibility to figure out how things work scripturally.  Technical business is this deal of preaching.

However, if the business of preaching is only “technical” then the preacher is nothing more than a history teacher, a grammatical expert,

Like any laborer who is worthy of his hire, the preacher of God’s Word must endeavor to maximize his gifts and abilities within the vocation of his calling.  One of the ways the expositor of truth can improve his skill set is to digest good reading material about preaching. Granted, reading about preaching can never take the place of preaching itself; if a preacher is going to “get better” he will have to preach, and not just read.  But having good material on the subject will help you:

• Process your studying habits
• Spark ideas and thoughts about sermonic protocols and

A sermon outline is simply the structure of a particular passage of Scripture designed in an organized fashion to help communicate more smoothly the exposition of the text. Plain and simple.  Just because someone has an impressive outline doesn’t mean the outline is expositionally correct, neither does it guarantee quality preaching.  In his book, Power in the Pulpit, Jerry Vines comments, “Structure is not what preaching is all about. It is a vehicle meant to allow the substance – the content – of the sermon to be more effectively communicated. It is a means to an end.” An expositional outline

Expository preaching, in its purest form, simply means to say what God has already said. Arriving to that truth is the process of exegesis, hermeneutics, and homiletics. To the average church attender, those terms mean very little, but to the Bible preacher, those words bring weighty responsibilities…responsibilities that will be examined at the Judgment Seat of Christ. “Preach the word” echoes in the heart of every God-called preacher; to do anything less is not only a mishandling of his own calling but is a disservice to the body of Christ. We are not instructed to give God’s people our opinions,