Macarthur Preaching

[Patricia]

Ohabsolutely. Even as I think of myself as a pastor, I think of myself as a preacher. All that I really have to offer as a pastor is my preaching. Anybody else can offer anything else. Anybody else can come alongside, sympathize, care for, come up with good ideas, and offer some leadership. Lay people can do that. In fact, hopefully we are training people to do that so that we can multiply ministry.

It is not that I am driven by the crowd to do that. It is not external. I am driven internally to do that. This is a calling upon my life. It is almost an inexplicable drive within me. It is work to preach, as you well know. It is work to prepare, but I do it, and I do it with a certain joy. Sometimes I stand up, even now, after all these years, and I walk around because I am overwhelmed by what I have just discovered or seen. It is an internal drive that is the heart of a calling. It is not because I can do it. It is not because I can communicate, have skill at communication, or because people like to listen to me. It is internal.

So, instead of saying we have to bring the Bible into modern times, that is exactly the opposite of what we need to do. We need to take the modern hearer into Bible times. I think the adventure for us at Grace Church is that we have lived in the Bible. Our people have dirt on their feet from walking the dusty roads with Jesus. They live in the New Testament world. They know the Pharisees. They feel the ethos of Jesus in a crowd in a village because they have lived that, because we have painted that picture for them. They know what Isaiah was going through. They understand what it meant for Jeremiah to be thrown into a pit.

The great excitement of biblical exposition is taking people on a historical journey. I know people today want to go forward into fantasy land, which is counterproductive. What we do is take them back into real biblical history and let the Bible come alive. That is the heart of biblical exposition. You cannot know what it meant unless you recreate the setting: geographically, socially, historically, linguistically, and all of those things.

I have to say that because there are people who read a verse and bounce off of it, and read another verse and bounce off of it, and read another verse and bounce off of it. That is not Bible exposition. You may take a simple truth from Scripture and expound on it or talk about it for a little bit, but exposition works in a unique way.

Sometimes that conviction may not be as strong. If I am preaching on the death of Christ as the sufficient sacrifice to God, I can preach that with every ounce of conviction. If I have a certain view of the baptism for the dead in I Corinthians 14, which could have 25 interpretations, the level of my conviction might vary.

When it comes to the decision I make, that this is what I think is the best interpretation, then I preach it and let it go. I can do that, and I think I can do it safely because whatever that conclusion is, even on a difficult passage, it is within the framework of acceptable biblical interpretation and theology. So I do not go out of bounds.

Not only that, but it is the borders; it is the fences you do not go beyond. You are not going to have a student say something completely out of bounds because they are contained by that sound, historic theology that has been passed down and tested, tried, and proven.

Take us into the study for a moment, preparing a sermon. Give us an overview of how you did it 40 years ago and how you do it today. I know there are great similarities. Just take us into the study. How do you get from the shop preparing it to the showroom presenting it?

First is isolation. I have a place at home, a little desk against the window where I can look out and see the trees and the green grass. I have a chair that goes forward and back; it goes forward so I can read and it goes back so I can think. I get an 8 x 14 legal pad, and I start by reading the passage.

Then, I start lining up commentaries. There is a great quote from Spurgeon in which he says he wants those people who think the Holy Spirit is speaking to them to remember that the Holy Spirit has illuminated many, many in the past. I know that I am dependent upon the illumination of faithful men of the past. That is why I read commentaries and I am looking for every possible insight and understanding, every possible expansion of the implication of a concept or a doctrine or whatever, and I just take all kinds of notes on that.

So, I am going back over those same sheets from commentaries. I pick up a theological theme, find books on theology, fill that up. I am never thinking outside of the Bible. I am never thinking about illustrations or anything like that at that point. I am just piling on the things that help me to fully understand the text. I do not think about a sermon. I am not trying to make a sermon. I am just trying to master the text and what it means.

When I am done with that, I know the point and I know the sub points. I put an outline on top of it, and then I write an introduction and conclusion. Now I have a rough draft. I meditate on that and think on that. I write some more notes, do some crafting of how that might work, and I write it by hand in a final form of, say, eight half-sheets. Now it is in me, and it is on the page. That is what I would take into the pulpit.

Talk about faithfulness to expository preaching through the text, and how you marry that to a specific passage of Scripture. So, you think about a Martyn Lloyd Jones, who was so given to exhausting a verse of its meaning, and you contrast that with a guy like Mark Dever, who is faithful to Scripture, but typically mows through it at a broader length. How do you balance that?

Now, I think you can go into all of the world and preach everything off of a text if you are not careful, but I think it is so profound and so rich that people need more than an overview. It is not the concepts that are inspired. It is the words that are inspired. You are making that decision every week. How far do I go? How much do I say? Maybe one of the hardest things about preaching is deciding what to leave out.

Dr. MacArthur, this has been very insightful, and I trust very helpful. You have the three different components of a truly historic preacher: A) The ability to do it. You do it. B) The ability to teach it and transfer it, but then C) a lifetime, a faithfulness, that buttresses it. Thank you for all three of those things.

Alistair Begg is the senior pastor of Parkside Church in Cleveland Ohio. He's also the featured teacher on the Truth for Life radio program. Drawing from decades of preaching experience, Pastor Begg answers some personal and practical questions about the art of preaching. If you're a pastor, or preparing to be one, this video has invaluable advice.

It's arguably the preacher's most challenging task . . . to accurately and compassionately explain what the Bible says about the problem of evil. Drawing from a lifetime of studying and preaching the book of Job, Derek Thomas's practical wisdom can help any pastor effectively exposit this Old Testament book and address the problem of evil.

It just so happened that my wife and I were visiting some dear friends in California at the same time MacArthur was completing the New Testament. Our friends, Dave and JoAnn Radar, attend Grace Community Church where MacArthur has pastored for the past 42 years, and so we were able attend both the morning and evening services with them. After the evening service, I had the opportunity to thank John MacArthur in person for his ministry and faithfulness to the gospel.

While preaching has always been the focal point of his ministry, it has never been the only facet of his ministry. MacArthur is a prolific writer, with dozens of titles to his credit along with his New Testament commentary series, which is also nearing completion. He is also the president of the Masters College and Seminary, which continue to produce Christian leaders year after year. MacArthur also keeps a busy speaking schedule, which takes him all over the world. And perhaps he is best known for his excellent radio ministry, Grace to You.

Safe to say, God has graced and gifted this man in incredible ways. He could not have accomplished all this were it not for the grace of God. God raised up John MacArthur for such a time as this, and Christians the world over have been the beneficiaries.

Believe it or not, to that dozen men, I managed to give those 61 reasons. In fact, I think that in that day-long session, I actually threw in a couple of extras. The bottom line for that is not to frighten you (as if you would be able to endure 61 reasons why I preach the way I preach) but simply to let you know that there is almost no end to the compelling reasons why we teach the Word of God the way we teach it.

Christian ministry has one clear duty and that is to bring to people the truth of God revealed in the Scripture by explaining its meaning. The meaning of the Scripture is the revelation from God. I have no other responsibility in my duty to represent the Lord Jesus Christ than to explain to you the meaning of His revelation. God has revealed Himself in one book. We are ministers of this one book. In a sense, we are brokers of this one book. We disseminate its truths to people, both to the people who do not know the Lord and to the people who do.

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