July 26, 2009
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The exposition and application connection
There are 3 streams a Bible teacher can choose to swim in concerning theology. Two of those streams lead to danger, error and in the worst cases even heresy. It is very easy to recognize error and run from it so fast and hard that we accidentally fall into a ditch on the other side of that path. The answer to error is to run from it, but never to go too far. Its very easy to run from error right into another error.
This same kind of thinking carries over into preaching as well. Some pastors are very concerned with the idea of exposition and explaining the text in the original language that they forget about applying the text. The focus on Sunday is much more like a seminary than it is a sermon. Every Sunday you come back because it is very clear that you are dumb, and that the Pastor knows more than you. You pay your seminary tuition every Sunday and drop it into the offering plate. There is never any application or reason for you to remember what you had just learned. The result is a bunch of overfed Christians who do not live with they learn and never apply the Bible they study. This also results in prideful Christians who know all about the Bible and theology but live in hypocrisy.
The opposite side of the exposition only Pastor is the application only Pastor. This is the kind of preaching that leaves you wondering “What text did he just preach on?”, because the text was so heavy in application and stories that you never heard the text fully explained. You know the principal “love people, be nice” but you have no idea where that principal is taught in the Bible. This results in Biblically ignorant people who know the principals, but don’t know where to find them or how to apply the Bible when they arent in church on Sunday. It also results in a theologically shallow church that is easily shaken by false teaching.
The answer is not to ditch either exposition or application but to tie them together. A sermon is incomplete if only the text is explained but never applied. The same is true with a sermon where the text is never explained or unpacked but only applied in self help style principals. Richard Baxter the Puritan once said “What a tragedy it is to hear a
minister expand doctrines and yet let them die in his people’s hands for the lack of a relevant and living application.”
