Review: "Preach the Word: Essays on expository preaching"

Preach the Word: Essays on expository preaching: In honor of R Kent Hughes

Edited by Leland Ryken and Todd Wilson

Crossway, Wheaton, 2007, 304pp.

I find preaching to be an enormously heartbreaking experience: just when you think you know what a passage means, it is always more complicated than you think. Just when you think you have an important word for the congregation, many of them stay at home. Just when you think you have preached a life-changing message, people discuss football or Tupperware. And when you finally manage to get everything prepared, and you preach well and call on people to repent and believe, they turn their back on Christ. Really, you would not be a preacher if you did it for the spoils. You would only take up such a bizarre and time-consuming task if you really believe that God changes lives through the proclamation of his word. R Kent Hughes’ 27 years of ministry at College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, is not only testimony to the fact that he believes this, but that it is also true. Preach the Word: Essays on expository preaching is a collection of essays written by friends and colleagues of R Kent Hughes to pay tribute to a man who has given his life in service of Christ. The book was put together on the occasion of his 65th birthday and retirement from the position of Senior Pastor of the church. The 16 essays are gathered into four broad sections. In the first (‘Interpretive Principles and Practices’), the authors provide some of the most helpful and challenging material I have read on biblical interpretation and sermon preparation. For those familiar with Hughes’s other work, this section could easily be called ‘Disciplines of a Godly Preacher’. The importance of vigorous preparation, reading the Bible as literature, and understanding the overarching framework of the Bible (biblical theology) are all helpfully emphasized. In the second section (‘Biblical and Historical Paradigms’), the authors put the Apostle Paul, Baxter and Simeon on display as models of preaching and pastoring for us to learn from. While it is the most technical of the four sections, it is also the most pastoral. My heart was stirred as Wallace Benn sounded a clarion call through Baxter that preachers remain pastors to themselves and to their people through their sermons. In the third section (‘Contemporary Challenges and Aims’), the authors stand firm on the authority of the Bible as the Word of God, and call on us to “trust its relevance” (p. 171). Recognizing the shifting and tumultuous nature of our world over the last 100 years and anticipating further change in the next 100 years, they remind us that what our society needs more than anything else is preachers who will “explicate” the Scriptures to the glory of God (p. 160). There are some wonderful insights in this section that any ministry team or group of preachers would do well to ponder over together. One insight that recurred in two of the essays concerned the impact that increasing biblical illiteracy (in both our churches and in the community) has on our preaching. The last section (‘Training and Example’) should be read, studied, analyzed and acted upon by bishops, mod­erators, pastorate selection committees, Bible college principals and manage­ment boards (and preachers). It is a deeply reflective group of essays that call on the church and its colleges and seminaries to ensure that the next generation of preachers are trained in the right way, with the right passion for preaching. Equally, it calls on the preacher to learn from his or her theological education by integrating all their learning and experiences so that their sermons can be deep and textured. The collection of 16 essays concludes with a biographical sketch of Hughes that provides more than dates and places: among other (more insightful) things, it tells us that his first sermon, for which his text was the entire book of Jonah, was titled ‘The Chicken of the Sea, or God has a Whale of a Plan for Your Life!’. At the risk of exposing my own inadequacies and flaws, let me share two specific sections that were of particular challenge to me. The first comes from John MacArthur’s chapter on ‘Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Study Method for Faithful Preaching’. He writes:

True success [in preaching] is faithfulness, not popularity. And faithfulness in the pulpit demands diligence in the study. Those who are lazy in their study, undisciplined in preparation, and careless in proclamation will one day be ashamed. But not faithful workmen. Like Paul, they will one day stand with joyful confidence before their gracious Master. (p. 78)

The book is worth having for this chapter alone as it is a simple yet profound explanation of how to prepare a sermon or Bible study. Were it used instead of some of the preaching training going around, our preachers and congregations would greatly benefit. The second section comes from Jon M Dennis’s chapter on ‘Multiplying Men: Training and Deploying Gospel Ministers’. He writes:

There are so many things that might be multiplied in the modern church today—good things even. We can multiply music, we can multiply churches, we can multiply services; we can multiply people, marriages and ministries. But if we do not multiply [preachers of] the gospel-centred message of the apostles, then we are merely building monuments to ourselves. (p. 225)

This was a great reminder to me that the endgame of preaching and pastoral ministry is not the growth of my patch, but growth of the kingdom of God. Dennis works from 2 Timothy 2:2 (“[A]nd what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also”) to produce a very provocative essay that calls pastors to see the multiplication of gospel preachers as a primary task. As a reader of this book, you must remember that it is not a textbook on how to preach well; it is a series of essays on expository preaching. So there are things missing from this volume that I would like to see taken up. Most significantly, there is only limited response to those who question the value of the monologue as a powerful communication tool (an objection often raised by 21st-century educationalists). In addition, while such books are always produced in a hurry, it is fair to say in this case that a slightly enhanced editorial and production process would have produced a better result all round. The book was put together for R Kent Hughes’ enjoyment, but also as a useful resource for both the preacher and the listener. However, I think this book will be most valuable to anyone willing to allow their own preconceptions about preaching to be challenged and modified. Finally, you may find it surprising, but I was brought to tears by the last page. Hughes’ daughter Heather is quoted from a speech she gave at her father’s farewell celebration service:

And lastly, Daddy, we your children want to thank you publicly for being not just our dad but our pastor as well. We have benefited from a lifetime of learning that has been unhindered because we have never wondered about the motives or the heart of the man behind the message. We know you, and you are worthy of our honor because of and only because of the redemptive work of the Holy Spirit in your own life, so all honor ultimately belongs to the Lord God, and we praise Him for you! (p. 278)

That his children could say this is testimony that the man got his priorities right. May we all learn from his example. I commend this book to you with great affection.