Topical Vs. Exegetical Preaching
2009
July
01
Kurt and I were recently talking about topical and exegetical preaching. I saw this video and showed it him to, and that framed our conversation (RSS readers you can watch it here):
- Topical preaching:
- Looks at what the whole of the Bible has to say on a specific subject.
- Speaks directly to subjects relating to today’s world.
- Exegetical preaching:
- Looks at the Bible as it was written, piece by piece.
- Focuses on specific books of the Bible, with a few supporting verses from outside the main text.
- What does this specific text have to say about God and us?
(This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive description list of topical and exegetical preaching.)
Couple thoughts:
- I tend to prefer exegetical preaching, though there are few things more inspiring than a great topical preacher.
- There are a lot of pastors who kind of mix topical and exegetical preaching I can’t name very many who are good at it.
- If you are looking for immense Biblical support for one or the other, be prepared to look for a while.
Which one do you think is the most Biblical?
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Tyler Braun.
No preference. We tend to get more topical preaching than exegetical in church, though in our home group we tend to be a bit more exegetical (we’ve all done or are doing bible college at some level).
I can’t imagine there’d be any real Biblical basis for either style over the other, or any other style for that matter.
As long as the pastor backs up what’s preached with Biblical reference, I don’t mind what format it takes. Just as long as there’s some order in how it’s presented…random thought preaching often annoys me, unless I’m forewarned that’s what I’m gonna get. Weird.
I think if the goal is to make disciples, it’s hard to go wrong with exegetical. For Scriptural support, you could go to Ezra’s reading of the Law and explaining it to the people (Nehemiah 8). Tough to zero a NT passage that really even applies (especially given that Paul’s letters were basically topical sermons).
Ideally, the pew-dwellers would already be reading their Bibles all the time. The reality is that they need it from the pulpit. And I don’t think topical really fills this need.
For me, the best sermon I’ve heard in recent years was when Barb basically taught verse-by-verse through John 11 a few weeks ago.
I strongly prefer exegetical preaching. Topical preaching, in my experience, tends to devolve into a scriptural support salad. You justify your position from scripture by pitching out dozens of different unrelated quotes, which are applied with pretty much no attention to their original context.
The two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. If you are going to preach topically, the exegetical component needs to be there as well. Just find one sustained passage that speaks directly to the particular issue, provide textual and contextual understanding of that passage, and use it as the basis for understanding the current issue.
I think both are legitimate forms of preaching. It’s easy to come up with crazy examples of topical gone wrong, where it just turns into a series of Bible Bullets fired off in rapid succession.
I have similar fears with exegetical however. I’ve sat in on sermons where the preacher can spend a majority of the time not dealing with the text, but talking about greek tenses and how that implies this or that. My personal opinion is that that sort of discussion is best left for other settings. The preacher should study this stuff and understand the implications, but that does not necessitate turning the sermon into a greek or hebrew grammar lesson.
In the same way, I’ve had sermons under the guise of exegetical, where we looked no farther than one verse and it might as well have been a topical sermon because the whole focus was on some obscure implication that the passage isn’t really dealing with.
What’s more important than style to me however is whether or not we are landing the idea in people’s lives. It’s easy to keep things up in the clouds and never speak of how this applies in our lives. That sort of preaching is a pastoral failure in my opinion.
One thing I was going to add… In my experience exegetical does a much better job when it camps out on Paul, or the other epistles. I don’t think nearly as many folks understand how to do exegetical with a more narrative book like Matthew, Mark and Luke, or much of the OT.
Great point, Bryan. There’s an art and science to it, and a learning curve with the Gospels especially. I’m very much a student.
I tend to do both, though I think my “better” sermons tend to be topical. Although I generally mix somewhere in the middle.
I like them both, and have heard excellent and terrible examples of either.
Now, when are we going to talk about expository preaching?
Definitely prefer topical (AS YOU KNOW) and thus believe it is more theologically correct to do so
Seriously though I have seen firsthand in my own life and in ministries I have served in that topical tends to connect better with where people are at. My whole ministry philosophy has been to bring God to where people are at…so it would follow that we should do that with the teaching as well.
I guess my problem is that, regardless of its “connect” factor, topical doesn’t seem to be a good way to actually teach the Bible. Sure, it teaches about it, but it doesn’t seem like a good way to get the Word into people’s brains.
I guess it comes down to what we’re aiming at. I’d rather have teaching than preaching.
“regardless of its connect factor?” can you explain a portion of the bible God didn’t intend to connect with people? To me connection is what its all about. Now thats not to say that all of it is supposed to connect “all the time…”as we mature in the faith so should our ability to discern what portion of the bible would speak to our current issue.
Maybe an analogy would help. If your dad was dying of cancer while you were very young and he decided to write you something to help you once you grow into adults…a book that included some heartfelt thoughts, wisdom learned through his life and some direction…wouldnt it be stupid if you were dealing with sexual temptation to steer clear of parts of the book you knew your dad spoke about sexuality? Seems to me the bible needs to be read in its entirety and then returned to study specifically what relates with our lives.
Why do you think God inspired men to write the bible? To me your answer to this question conveys how youre supposed to teach it.
Of course I wouldn’t consider steering clear of any part of “Dad’s” writing. I might even go through it line by line. And of course I’d dwell on passages that spoke to where I was. I’m not actually sure we disagree here. Might be a semantics problem.
I wasn’t suggesting “connection” is a negative. As long as it’s not at the expense of failing to teach the context. And really, a good topical sermon can have one main passage and a couple of supporting passages (Matthew is a good example since it’s grouped topically) and it’s almost indistinguishable from exegetical.
I’m not insisting that verse-by-verse should be the norm for Sunday mornings. It’d be nice if everyone in the church could get that kind of teaching (which they totally can on the Internets).
Oh, and it’s worth mentioning that I’m thinking of a mature, adult audience here. I think there have to be allowances for the age/maturity of the receptor.
Kurt, what does this mean: “My whole ministry philosophy has been to bring God to where people are at…so it would follow that we should do that with the teaching as well.”
God is revealed in the text of Scripture, so it would stand to reason that preaching and teaching the Bible in context, rather than proof-texting through whatever topic, or song, or interview you happen to be thinking about at a given time, would better reveal what God is like, how he interacted with his people, etc.
In your opinion, how does topical preaching “bring God to where people are” better than exegetical preaching?
Mike,
“My whole ministry philosophy has been to bring God to where people are at…so it would follow that we should do that with the teaching as well.” means just what it says. Philosophically I aim to bring God (including His WORD) to where people are at. I dont know how to do this without first knowing WHERE people are at. Not unlike a missionary traveling to a foreign land is foolish without first studying the people he/she will be ministering to, I think it’s equally foolish for pastors to throw out Scripture hoping it will catch someone where they are at (shotgun approach). Now that’s not to say there aren’t SOME things that people need to hear about that they are UNAWARE of.
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15TNIV
Kurt, I would argue that topical/proof-texting preaching is a shotgun approach rather than the opposite…stop by my office for an explanation of how a shotgun shell works.
Expository preaching isn’t done with the hope that it will “catch someone” where they are, and it definitely doesn’t mean that a preacher/teacher is aloof to the needs of his or her congregation…expository preaching still speaks directly into people’s life situation when done correctly. And, just because I love you, I would finally say that expository preaching is a far more “correct” way to handle the word of truth, since it actually teaches it in context and in the way that God communicated it to you and I in the Bible.
oops, I meant expository preaching…which I think is what Ty mean too.
I’ll toss this quote in the mix, to arrive at a presupposition on what makes for Expository Preaching: