Proclaimer Blog
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers #4
Chapter 4. The form of the sermon
He starts with some thoughts on sermon content. Our primary call is to deliver the whole message of Scripture. We much of course expound the part, but always in a way that shows that it is part of a whole. This is why systematic theology is so vital.
He then moves on to sermon form. The sermon is not an essay or lecture, since both lack ‘the element of attack’. It must always be expository, but not a verse-by-verse running commentary. The preacher should be like the OT prophets, with a ‘burden of the Lord’, that is, a single message to proclaim.
Getting more specific on sermon form, he recommends that it should:
– start with exposition
– ask of the text, ‘what’s the particular doctrine here?’, in order to get to something which is part of the whole gospel
– arrange its heading with logical progression, understood as parts of a whole
– make applications regularly throughout.
Reflections
There is no doubt that his understanding of the role of systematic theology in preaching is open to abuse, if used as an excuse to jump quickly out of the text into the preacher’s favourite doctrines. But MLJ is more careful than that (at least in the theorising of this chapter). If what the preacher ultimately should preach is the gospel, then he has no choice but to engage in systematic theology, whether he likes the idea or not. MLJ’s proposed question is a good one to ask of a text: what’s the particular doctrine here?
His insistence that the sermon should be understood as a single entity, communicating one basic message, is good. I sometimes come across the idea that ‘expository’ preaching means cramming in as much exegesis as possible from as many verses as possible. Instead, preachers should expound the ‘burden’ that the text gives them to expound.