“The Anatomy of Exposition: Logos, Ethos, and
Pathos” by Kent Hughes, Senior
Pastor of The College Church, Wheaton, Illinois. He is the author of numerous
volumes, including Disciplines of a Godly Man, Disciplines of Grace, and the
extremely popular Preaching the Word series. From: The Southern Baptist Journal
of Theology. Volume 3, Summer, 1999. Available at http://www.sbts.edu/media/publications/sbjt/sbjt_1999summer5.pdf
Accessed 08/04/2012
Hughes begins his article with a treatise
on what he refers to as “dis-exposition,” a pejorative term meaning a bevy of
things other than exposition. As an example, he mentions the de-contexted
sermon, the moralized sermon, the lensed sermon, the doctrinalized sermon and
the silenced sermon. All of these are sermons where the preacher focuses on his
own pet peeves or sugar stick topics instead of finding the exegesis and
preaching that. He might, as Hughes mentions, preach a Christmas sermon from
Revelation 11:10: ““And those who dwell on the earth will
rejoice over them
and celebrate; and they will send gifts to one another.” “Surely not?” the
serious expositor may ask. But it did happen.
The idea behind Hughes’ article is that
preachers must turn from the pop psychology of “felt needs” and return to biblical
based preaching that focuses on an exegetical, expositional approach. He quotes
William Willimon, Dean of the Chapel at Duke University as saying,
Do
you know how disillusioning it has been for me to realize that many of these
self-proclaimed biblical preachers now sound more like liberal mainliners than
liberal mainliners? At the very time those of us in the mainline, old-line,
sidelined were repenting of our pop psychological pap and rediscovering the joy
of disciplined biblical preaching, these “biblical preachers” were becoming
“user-friendly” and “inclusive,” taking their Homiletical cues from the “felt
needs” of us “boomers” and “busters” rather than the excruciating demands of the
Bible. I know why they do this. After all, we mainline-liberal-experiential- expressionists
played this game before the conservative evangelical reformed got there…
The psychology of the gospel—reducing
salvation to self esteem, sin to maladjustment, church to group therapy, and
Jesus to Dear Abby— is our chief means of perverting the biblical text.”
Hughes
then explains that the answer to resolving this plight among evangelicals is
reverting back to the basic Homiletical underpinning of logos, ethos, and
pathos.
In Logos, Hughes sees the crux of exposition
as bound up in Biblical authority. Do we cherish the authority and potency of
the Bible? Without the proper correlation between the Bible authority and its impact
on a believers life, preaching loses its most vital role; transformation.
Through a proper understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit as Scriptures
author, we understand that preaching that word then activates the power of the
Spirit for transformation in the life of the believer and for salvation for the
unbeliever.
In ethos, Hughes writes that, “Biblical
exposition is enhanced when the preacher invites the Holy Spirit to apply the
text to his own soul and ethical conduct.” In other words, he is saying that
truth in and through preaching start in a then comes through the man. Who we
are as men will dictate how successful we are as expositors. Preaching is more
about what comes through us as opposed to what passes through our lips.
Lastly, he focuses on pathos, the preacher’s
passion. This is to be Spirit directed passion, not trumped up feelings for the
audience’s sake. Martin Llyod-Jones calls that “method acting for preachers.”
Instead, the preacher should be alive with the text, what it means for him and
his people. When the text is properly exposited, he will have passion galore to
share that good word and the good news of his Savior.
Hughes’
article is funny, well researched, and thoughtful. He balances the subjects of
expository preaching, homiletics, and human nature in a light hearted but
profound way. I would highly recommend the article to a preacher just beginning
his Homiletical studies, or to an old timer that needs a refreshing on the
subject.
