DTMW4I: Alistair Begg

From Preaching for God's Glory, Alistair Begg offers these six benefits to Sequential Exposition: (with a few thoughts added to explain each of his points)

1. It gives God glory alone. The focus is not on the wisdom or genius of the speaker, it is on the glory of God and His grace for revealing Himself to us.

2. It makes the preacher study God's Word. As a child, I remember our church hiring a pastor who seemed brilliant in the candidating process. However, it quickly became obvious that he had about five good sermons in his pocket to use at any time. A church that loves expository preaching places accountability before the pastor that he better be in the Word, because it is the Word they want to hear.

3. It helps the congregation. It is a deep prayer of mine that no one will sit in a sermon and feel the study and application is beyond their abilities. As we preach expository messages, we send a picture to the whole Body of how to study God's Word systematically.

4. It demands treatment of the entire Bible. It's much harder to preach "soapbox topics" or favorite doctrines. Know a pastor who only preaches about prophecy or continually preaches against Hollywood every week? Odds are that expository preaching is not happening.

5. It provides a balanced diet. Closely related, a church does not become fat on certain topics while starving in other areas. We grow in the whole council of Scripture.

6. It eliminates Saturday night fever. Begg is not claiming that expository preaching brought down disco (though if our churches had been more expository at the time, it may never have arrived!!!). Begg offers that expository preaching allows the pastor to be released from worrying about what he should preach on next. He no longer wrestles Saturday afternoon, wondering whether this is really what the people need. God's Word does the directing.

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Alistair Begg has been in pastoral ministry for 32 years. Following graduation from The London School of Theology he served eight years in Scotland at both Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh and Hamilton Baptist Church. Since 1983, he has been the senior pastor at Parkside Church near Cleveland, Ohio. He has written several books and is heard daily and weekly on the radio program, Truth For Life. The teaching on Truth For Life stems from the week by week Bible teaching at Parkside Church. He and his wife, Susan, have been married 32 years and they have three grown children.