The last issue introduced us to the Tapestry of Preaching, a way of thinking about four essential ingredients in a sermon. Author David Schmitt likens a sermon to a tapestry, in which four “threads of discourse” are woven together. A recap of these four threads:

1. Textual Exposition. A preacher expounds, unpacks, and illustrates the meaning of a section of the Bible in its original historical context.
2. Theological Confession. The preacher also speaks about other parts of Scripture, confessing theological truths referred to by his text but also beyond it.
3. Evangelical Proclamation. A preacher exposes sin with the law and proclaims the good news about Jesus for his listeners’ forgiveness, life, and salvation.
4. Hearer Interpretation. The sermon helps listeners see how their new lives in Christ look when lived out in their unique circumstances.

In this and in each of the next several articles, we will examine one of the threads in the Tapestry. The full “Tapestry of Preaching” essay may be found here; all quotations come from this essay. Consider this article a digest of some of the essay’s key points.

We could begin with any of the four threads, but we will begin where author David Schmitt does, with textual exposition.

Textual exposition assumes that a sermon is based on a biblical text or texts. While that may seem obvious, it’s not something we can take for granted. Something I observed in my early years as a preacher (and occasionally in my later years, too!) and in beginning preachers’ first sermons is this: using a biblical text as merely an idea generator. In other words, there’s a temptation for preachers to view a text only as something to spark ideas in the preacher’s mind—ideas that will form the basis of his sermon: “Ah, this part of the Bible reminds me of something I really want to talk about.” At times that can be appropriate, as a pastor-preacher responds to needs in his flock with a word selected and crafted just for them. But preachers can easily become enamored with their own interests and opinions, leaving God’s words to play only a supporting role or, worse, upstaging Scripture altogether. A commitment to textual exposition aims to place Scripture at the center of the sermon.

A second benefit of including textual exposition in a sermon is that the preacher is indirectly teaching his listeners how to interpret Scripture. When a pastor reads part of the Bible and then explains it, listeners (maybe unconsciously) begin drawing conclusions about how to interpret the Bible. How a preacher gets from Point A (a biblical text) to Point B (his explanation of that text) can be instructive for his hearers. David Schmitt notes, “You model for your hearers how to read and interpret Scripture by how you handle these texts in preaching. Lutheran principles of interpretation, such as Christocentricity and Scripture interprets Scripture, are modeled every time we preach.” Not only do people see how to interpret your text for the day, but they are learning how to interpret other texts they will encounter in other places like their own devotional reading.

A third function of featuring textual exposition is that it reminds us that the living God is active in real ways in the real history of the world. The Bible is not a smorgasbord of metaphorical ideas or abstract principles, which people can cobble together into a personalized spirituality. “That is what textual exposition communicates to the hearers: God is alive and active, at work in the world he created. Scripture is not simply a body of teachings, dislocated from history, and it is not simply a collection of stories, metaphorical worlds we choose to live in, but it is the historic revelation of a very real God who has intervened in human history.”

Flowing out of the third function is a fourth. Not only do listeners learn how to interpret Scripture when they hear their pastor expounding it, but they also are formed as witnesses of God’s work. As the preacher opens the Scriptures to them, they see God at work in real ways among real people. This enables them then to testify to God’s work in the midst of real life now. “God comes claiming, redeeming, forgiving, strengthening his people, and through textual exposition his people see that work and are sent out of worship as witnesses of God. This, then, is the last function of such discourse. It forms hearers who believe in the work of God in history.”

David Schmitt also helpfully offers guidance for preachers as they include textual exposition in their sermons.

Preachers utilize their exegetical skills when expounding a sermon text, but a sermon is not an exegetical essay. Not every exegetical point uncovered in the text study will end up in the sermon. Rather, the preacher will determine a focus for his whole message. This focus will be drawn from the text. Then the preacher will include exegetical points in the sermon that help listeners concentrate on that main idea. An excess of details in a sermon, even though each detail is important in its own right, can leave listeners feeling overloaded with data and confused about what the sermon’s main takeaway is supposed to be. Therefore, when a preacher is expounding a text, he foregrounds details that narrow the focus of the sermon, even if that means leaving some exegetical nuggets unpreached.

Yet while textual exposition narrows the sermon in some ways, it expands it in others. What David Schmitt means by this is that preachers can expound a text in many different ways. “Textual exposition does not need to be deductive and didactic, turning every text, whether parable or proverb, paraenesis or prayer, into a lecture that teaches its meaning. Rather, it is responsible yet creative: responsible in that it recognizes the poetics of the text; creative in that it uses the poetics of contemporary hearers to communicate.” The term “poetics” here refers to a purposeful and artful use of language. The preacher determines how the Holy Spirit is artfully using language to communicate in the sermon text, and then the preacher artfully uses language to relay those truths to his hearers. Both of those skills are vital. “The preacher needs to be a master of two poetics: the poetics of the text and the poetics of the contemporary hearers.” Mastering the poetics of the text is what we learned to do in our theological training, as we learn to discern what is the Holy Spirit communicating through his inspired use of language. Mastering “the poetics of the contemporary hearers” is perhaps harder. We do work on this as we learn to write well. But maybe this ability is more caught than taught. We know what type of communication captures our minds and hearts, even if we don’t know why it does, and we develop a sense for how to get our point across clearly and winsomely. David Schmitt remarks that if we master the poetics of the text but not of our hearers, we end up with a doctrinally accurate but badly written sermon. If we master communicating with our hearers but fail to grasp what the Scriptures are saying, we end up with sermons that are fun to listen to but that don’t teach what the Scriptures teach.

Take a look at a recent sermon. Evaluate how you expounded the text for your hearers. What might you do differently in your next sermon?

Next time we’ll look at the second thread in the Tapestry of Preaching, theological confession.

This article in Devote Yourself was contributed by the team that previously created and distributed Preach the Word. View past preaching-related articles at worship.welsrc.net/downloads-worship/preach-the-word.