Topical Preaching in a Complex World

How to Proclaim Truth and Relevance at the Same Time

Sam Chan, Malcolm Gill

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9780310108887
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Be Equipped to Prepare and Deliver Engaging, Biblical, and Effective Topical Sermons

Sooner or later, every preacher will come upon a situation where they need to preach a topical sermon. Yet few are taught to preach topically. Even preachers who are gifted in expositing the Scriptures may struggle to deliver a topical sermon that is engaging, culturally relevant, and true to the biblical text. Worse, many pastors worry these messages undermine confidence in the Bible or its authority, leading to a human-centered rather than a God-focused sermon. But that doesn't have to be the case.

In Topical Preaching in a Complex World, Sam Chan and Malcolm Gill answer these objections and chart a path for how preachers can deliver faithful and effective topical messages. First, they address the biblical, theological, and cultural reasons pastors should add topical sermons to their preaching repertoire. Then, they introduce a straightforward, four-fold approach for preaching a topical message and answer important questions like these:

• How do you approach a topic with the proper interpretative lens?
• How can you speak to two or more audiences with the same sermon?
• What should you consider theologically, culturally, and pastorally in your preparation?
• How do you trace the topic back to Christ?
• How can you better connect with your audience?

Best of all, they help readers craft a message that says something people truly need (and want) to hear! Filled with wit, humor, and wisdom from decades of preaching, this book will equip preachers, pastors, ministry leaders, and students to preach relevant, biblical, and engaging topical sermons.

Author Sam Chan says, "Just over a decade ago, I was asked by an organization to speak at their end-of-year dinner. They wanted me to address the topic of being a Christian single, but I had no idea how to prepare and deliver a topical talk. When the night arrived, I preached an old three-point expository sermon and merely changed the ending to include some application on singleness. At best, I got some polite comments afterwards. At worst, people's looks indicated that my biblical talk had little relevance for them. They could not have been less fooled by my disingenuous workaround.

I went home vowing never to repeat that poor performance. I felt like the unfaithful servant who had not adequately used what talents had been given to him. As a result, I have dedicated the last decade of my preaching ministry to overcoming and mastering the art of topical preaching. This book is a product of that journey.

CHAPTER 1
EMBRACING THE
TOPICAL SERMON
Am I Even Allowed to Preach This Way?

MALCOLM GILL

Several years ago my wife and I attended a wedding reception for a lovely young couple. There was a bounty of delicious food, raucous laughter, impromptu dancing, and of course a love-smitten couple. It was a beautiful occasion. As the festivities drew to a close, it came time for the wedding speeches. As a minister who has officiated several weddings, I’ve heard a variety of interesting, moving, and emotional speeches, but the wedding speech on this day took me by surprise.

One of the groom’s parents began their wedding speech with the following statement: “I thank God that my child was raised in a church committed to expository preaching.” Not, “I thank God for bringing this couple together” or, “I thank God for this wonderful celebration” or even, “I thank God for answering our prayers and giving our son a wife.” No, the first reason for thanksgiving on this day was expository preaching. That certainly did not come from the wedding speech playbook.

While I applaud the parent’s gratefulness—after all, what preacher doesn’t want to hear accolades to sermons—the emphasis on a specific style of preaching seemed a little over the top. In fairness, I think this exuberant parent was trying to communicate their thankfulness to God that their child had been shaped by the Scriptures in his upbringing. But what most people at the reception probably heard was this common sentiment in evangelicalism: expository preaching is what real Christians are all about.

Expository preaching has always been part of my spiritual growth. Like the young man at the wedding, I too grew up in a church committed to expository preaching. Also, like the groom’s parent, I am grateful to God that for most of my life I’ve sat under the faithful week-by-week exposition of God’s Word. Both my coauthor and I attended seminaries committed to training men and women to preach expository sermons.

For the past decade, I’ve taught the method of expository preaching to hundreds of men and women, many of whom are in preaching-related ministries. I regularly am invited to critique expository sermons and regularly consult those practicing expository preaching. It has been the bread and butter of my pulpit ministry. Let it be clear to the reader: I deeply value expository preaching.

I bet you’re waiting for the but, and here it comes. I deeply value expository preaching, but it is not the only form of preaching that God uses and blesses. And in some circumstances and contexts, expository preaching may not be the best form of preaching to employ.

There, I’ve said it. While I believe in the value of the expository preaching style, I don’t believe it is the only way to preach. Now, I imagine some of you, in sympathy with the parent at the wedding, may be tempted to close the book at this point. Some of you are likely shocked by the thought that expository preaching is not the only faithful approach to communicating God’s Word. Some may be nervous, and rightly so, with the suggestion that there are alternate ways of preaching. And perhaps some of you are checking your receipt to see if you can return the book to the store for a refund. Please, hold on for just a minute and let me explain!

IS EXPOSITORY PREACHING THE ONLY FAITHFUL STYLE?

It may surprise you, but for many Christians the assertion that expository preaching is the only option is foreign. For many, particularly in the majority world, the practice of verse-by-verse, unit-by-unit, book-by-book preaching is quite unfamiliar. Often in these places, textual, topical, biographical, and evangelistic sermons are more common than what we might classify as expository.

Visit Peru, for example, and you will hear many sermons delivered in the form of a story. Such preaching explores biblical truth, but it does so in a form where truth is embedded within a narrative. In contrast, in India it is not uncommon to hear the truths of Scripture delivered through a parable, a wise allegory that invites the listener to reflect on scriptural ideas. In Iran, the sermon often involves ancient poetic overtones that resonate with the listener and at the same time convey biblical truth.

Within such cultures, proposition-based expository preaching is either foreign or deemed to be less useful in cultural engagement. It may be viewed positively, but it is certainly not viewed as an either-or issue. Expository preaching is one of several good ways of proclaiming biblical truth to God’s people.

For many in Western evangelicalism, however, expository preaching is not simply one method of communication; it is the right and only approach one should take. While there is something of a sliding scale regarding the forcefulness with which people hold this conviction, for many expository preaching is a nonnegotiable issue. Such people, of which you may be one, suggest for a variety of good reasons that expository preaching is helpful and should be given pride of place in the pulpit. On this I am sympathetic. Again, I believe that the consistent preaching of passages and books within Scripture in an orderly manner has great merit.¹

In this book, we are not demeaning traditional expository preaching, nor do we believe it is irrelevant to contemporary practice. Rather we are arguing that preachers should not muddy the water by failing to differentiate between what is Christian dogma and what is merely best cultural practice. Let us not confuse what is mandated in Scripture with what is simply Christian wisdom.

To avoid such confusion, we must, even in considering our methods of preaching, carefully distinguish between substance and style, content and form, issues of orthodoxy and issues of orthopraxy. I suspect that some within evangelical circles have come to understand the method of preaching as a gauge of spiritual convention. For many it is the benchmark of whether one values Scripture, believes the gospel, and is spiritually mature. However, such conclusions go well beyond the evidence of Scripture and certainly against the flow of much of church history.

What Is a Sermon?

What is a sermon? And what is a sermon’s purpose? The word sermon comes from the Latin sermo, which means “continuous speech or discourse.” The term is not mentioned in the Scriptures, though there are several examples of extended speeches that we would consider to be sermonic. Jesus, for example, delivers an extended discourse recorded in Matthew 5–7 which we commonly refer to as the Sermon on the Mount. In Acts, we find similar lengthy speeches by people like Peter, Stephen, and Paul. A basic understanding of a sermon is that it is an extended speech.

What distinguishes a sermon from any other monologue, however, is the sermon’s purpose. What the sermon aims to do is expressed in part in the New Testament. What we call a sermon, the New Testament refers to as a “word of exhortation” (Acts 13:15; Heb. 13:22). The sermon is an exhortation—a message spoken to urge and encourage someone to some type of response.

SIBLINGS, NOT COMPETITORS

Choosing between expository and topical preaching has often been presented as an either-or decision. Who hasn’t heard the quip “I once preached a topical sermon, and then I promptly repented of it”? Such statements, often accompanied with the muffled laughter usually reserved for a bad dad joke, insinuate that any preaching style outside of expository should be avoided. Normally, in such thinking, expository preaching is portrayed as representing faithfulness and truth, while topical preaching is caricatured as human-centered and biblically suspect. Expository preaching is presented as valuing Scripture, whereas topical preaching is depicted as driven by human interest.

Such portrayals are unhelpful. Rather than viewing the styles of preaching as competitors, it would be more helpful to consider them as siblings in the same family.

As all parents know, it is not advisable to show favoritism to your children. I have three children. To avoid the charge of favoritism, I often address my eldest child, Annabel, as “my favorite firstborn,” my middle child, Adam, as “my favorite son,” and my youngest, Zara, as “my favorite baby girl.” They all want to be favorite, so I rely on categories unique to each of them. If I compare one child with another, it will end in disappointment, anger, and tears—and that just from their mother!

The reason parents are advised not to compare children is because children by nature are unique. My children have their own personalities, their own music preferences, their own hobbies, and their own friends. They are all children, but they are different. And different does not mean wrong; it simply means different. I don’t expect or even want them to be the same, because they’re not. Each one enriches my life through his or her different yet equally valuable presence.

In considering preaching, we need to think of our methods as siblings rather than combatants. We should not ask whether we should preach either expository or topical sermons. Rather we should ask, “Does this context or event most call for an expository or topical approach?

What Can We Learn about Preaching
from Church History?

If you and I were to look back over history, we would discover that most Christians in the past preached quite differently than we do today. Take Jonathan Edwards’s famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” delivered in 1741.

The sermon was based on a phrase found in Deuteronomy 32:35: “In due time their foot will slip.” Edwards took this phrase and connected it with a similar saying in Psalm 73:18–19 before launching into a ten-point theological treatise on God’s judgment. Scattered throughout his sermon were at least sixteen sections of Scripture, among which were references to Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Luke, John, and Revelation.

Jonathan Edwards’s famous sermon broke most of the rules taught in modern-day expository preaching classes. Edwards read a single text and then bounced all over the place. Though his thoughts were thoroughly orthodox and his theology sound, he made almost no reference to the historical context or cultural milieu of the original audience, nor did he mention the original languages. Edwards didn’t even specify what verses he referenced! As far as sermon evaluations go, Mr. Edwards would fare quite poorly in most of today’s homiletics courses.

The reality is, of course, that God famously used that sermon to bring many people to himself. He used Edwards in his time, through Edwards’s style of preaching. The same reflection could be made of sermons delivered by John Wesley, George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, and even Billy Graham. Regarding Billy Graham, it has been observed, “Graham was not a great preacher, if by great we mean eloquent. He knew it, and almost everyone else did, too, including his wife. ‘Homiletically,’ said W. E. Sangster, a leading cleric in England, ‘his sermons leave almost everything to be desired.’ Graham admitted that he was a champion rambler, with as many as seventeen points in a single sermon. He told one biographer that the subject and the words of his first sermon were ‘mercifully lost to memory.’ ”² Few would question the impact of Billy Graham’s gospel preaching, yet the manner of his approach, like that of Jonathan Edwards, would no doubt cause many contemporary homileticians to balk. Neither Graham nor Edwards fits neatly into modern mainstream approaches to preaching.

A survey of preaching throughout history reveals that God has used many styles of preaching and preachers to communicate his truth. God, it seems, has not felt obligated to speak only through our expository method of preaching. If we were to compare the preaching of Edwards or Graham with that of other figures in church history, such as Irenaeus, Basil the Great, or John Knox, we would find that each preaching style is markedly different from the others. Culture, historical context, and pastoral purpose all played a part in how and what they preached. The same is true for us today. We are all shaped, even in our preaching style, by the era in which we live.

If church history teaches us anything, it reminds us that there has never been one uniform way to preach. It should caution us about being too rigid or dogmatic regarding our methodology of preaching, whatever that may be.

Would this audience or situation benefit most from a textual, evangelistic, or biographical sermon?”

Which form of communication to employ, as almost all cross-cultural missionaries can testify, is most often an issue of wisdom rather than a moral decision of right or wrong. Pitting approaches of communication against each other can be couched in terms of suitability, cultural appropriateness, and even effectiveness, but we should be wary about declaring with certainty the moral or theological superiority of one method over another. A method of communication is not something to repent over, but perhaps an overzealous commitment to only one style, whatever that is, may call for a dose of caution. So let’s reflect on why we should consider adding topical sermons to our toolbox.

WHY SHOULD WE PREACH TOPICAL SERMONS?

Shortly after my wife and I married, we read the popular book The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.³ The premise of the book is that we each best respond to one of five different expressions of love: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. What was insightful for me as I read the book is that each of us tends to express love the way that we best receive it.

For me, love is best expressed through words of affirmation. Like many others, I feel valued when a kind is word is directed my way. The problem is that I projected what I valued most onto my wife. I complimented her for almost everything. “These mashed potatos you prepared are fantastic!” “You are the best driver in your family!” “I don’t know how you do it, but you are such a good salsa dancer.”

While these accolades were all genuine, especially about the dancing, and Tamara politely thanked me, my words never seemed to hit the mark. That was, I discovered, because her love languages are acts of service and receiving gifts. Better ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Problem Every Preacher Will Face
• 1. Embracing the Topical Sermon: Am I Even Allowed to Preach This Way?
• 2. How to Approach a Topic: What Is My Interpretive Lens?
• 3. How to Preach to Two Audiences: Is It Possible to Engage Believers and Nonbelievers?
• 4. How to Address A Topic Theologically: What Does God Want to Say About This Topic?
• 5. How to Address A Topic Culturally: Why Do We Need to Preach With High Cultural Intelligence?
• 6. How to Interpret Culture: What Does It Look Like to Preach With High Cultural Intelligence?
• 7. How to Address A Topic Pastorally: What Ministry Wisdom Do I Need?
• 8. How to Trace The Topic to Christ: Can Topical Preaching Point to Jesus?
• 9. How to Connect With Your Audience: Know Yourself and Your People
• 10. How to Deliver A Message Worth Hearing: Know Your Craft, Not Just Your Content
• Conclusion: What’s the Recipe for Your Favorite Go-To Sermon?
• Appendix 1: Topical Preaching and the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Appendix 2: The Benefits and Limitations of Expository: Preaching
• Notes