Chase Bender

Preparation of Preaching

Christ-Centered Preaching Essay

Bryan Chapell’s book Christ-Centered Preaching is phenomenal. This book goes into

great detail about every aspect that a person could think of for how to prepare an expository

sermon. This book is broken up into three distinct parts, 1) Principles for expository preaching,

2) Preparation of expository preaching and 3) Christ-Centered messages. Each section was filled

with gold mines of information for young pastors to clean to become better writers of sermons

and better preachers. Specifically in the first section Chapell talks about the word of God.

Chapell gives a definition of expository preaching where he makes the point that expository

preaching isn't merely saying a lot of true biblical facts but rather expository preaching is getting

to the heart of the text and communicating Christ from the passages that you are in. Chapell’s

point in that part of the book is that pastors who want to preach faithfully need to be looking for

the intended meaning of the author as he wrote the scriptures being led by the Spirit.

The word of God is the power of the gospel, people need to hear the gospel, they need to

value the scriptures more and we as pastors need to help our people out with things like that

because most people don’t have a really high view of scripture. If we are going to preach

expository then we need to ask questions like “why is this on here?” “Why did Paul write this to

these people?” For me personally this was tremendously helpful to think that in order to preach

correctly I need to preach what the author is saying rather than what I think it is saying or rather

than preaching the theology behind what the author is saying. Chapell made a great point when

he mentioned that the pastor has components to presenting the gospel message. Chapell called it

the Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.

 Chapell describes these three things as the doors to the listeners and we must do out best

to not do anything to have those doors shut while we are preaching. The Ethos is how we live, if

we want people to believe our message we need to live rightly. Secondly is the Pathos, if we

want people to hear the word of God and to believe it then we need to preach it with deep

conviction that we actually believe what we are saying. Lastly, with words, if we want broken

sinners to know Christ then we must use the word of God. This was helpful because although the

Spirit of God is the one responsible for people hearing it is smart to know that we must not

provide any hurdles for the listeners or the Spirit to jump through.

I personally found the Fallen Condition Focus (FCF) to be quite insightful. Chapell’s goal

in talking about this condition is to get pastors to understand that the author of a particular book

is writing for a particular reason and it is primarily to help his audience work through their sin, or

to help them be healed of something by trusting in Jesus Christ. The part that I really clinged to

is when Chapell said that we need to find that sin, or that fallen condition that the author is

writing about and then preach that to our people. Rather than making up what the text says

actually preach why Paul was writing to his people and bless your people by building them up in

the same way. This part was coupled with his idea of application. Chapell says that any sermon

without application isn't an expository sermon. Our people need to know how and why what I am

teaching applies to them. As pastors we need to preach the so what and the now what. Why am I

telling people what I am teaching and what do they do with it now that they have heard it. The

really helpful part is that Chapell spends chapters upon chapters making it clear that our

preaching needs to be redemptive hopeful, and grace driven, and Gospel motivated. This is a

really good tip for a young pastor especially because we are so prone to preach the imperatives
without the indicatives. I really like the point he made when he said that even Moses reminded

the Israelites of their deliverance before he gave them the law.

Apart from all the content that we should be preaching, Chapell helps young pastors

understand the need for a good intro and outline. I personally never thought that I needed an

outline but after reading it I can see how a clear well thought out outline can help with presenting

the information clearly to the conjugation. If the pastor knows where he is going because of his

outline he is more likely going to point all of his main points and propositions back to the

particulars of his outline. Not only does an outline give us a road map of where we are going but

it keeps us focused and centered on the main point of the text rather than veering off and talking

about something that we think is in the text when indeed it actually is not.

I was encouraged and I really grew in my understanding of how important introductions

are. It really made me have an appreciation for all of Paul’s introduction because I now see that

our intros should be a little miny blurb about what we are going to talk about, we would do well

to help or listeners know what they are going to be learning if we talk about it briefly and prepare

their hearts in the first 2 minutes rather than waiting to give them the main point of the text at the

end. All in all this book is phenomenal, detailed, well thought out, encouraging, and definitely a

resource to be read over and over and over again for pastors new and old.