What is Preaching?

Genuine preaching and its importance is linked with the centrality and authority of the Holy Scriptures. Why did Paul exhort his son in the faith, Timothy, to “preach the word"? The reason for preaching the word is clear:

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16)


Why was Timothy to preach the word? His was to preach the word because it is God’s word. All scripture is God-breathed, therefore, preach all scripture. Biblical preaching finds its authority and centrality in the Bible.

Authentic preaching does not find its authority in the preacher, or in the position, but finds its authority from the word of God. Even the Old Testament Prophets did not find their authority in their calling, or their office; instead they found their authority in the word of God they proclaimed. Their authority came when they said, “Thus says the Lord."

Consequently, the Bible is central to true preaching. The preacher has the awesome responsibility of proclaiming the infallible word of God. The only way one can judge whether preaching is speaking the word of the Lord is the Bible.

Genuine preaching is Bible based, or “Bible-centered.” If one is going to preach a Bible based sermon then one must first handle the text in such a way that “the real and essential meaning as it existed in the mind of the particular Biblical writer, and as it exists in scripture” is understood.

Dr. Stephen Olford said that preaching “is the Spirit-empowered explanation and proclamation of the text of God’s word with regard to the historical, contextual, grammatical, and doctrinal significance of a given passage.” This definition indicates that the sermon is already prepared, that is, God prepared it. Biblical preaching studies the text to understand the meaning it had to its original hearers, then bridges the gap to contemporary times so that modern day hearers can hear the transforming word of God.

True preaching first takes the passage of scripture and studies its historical background. This is significant because the culture in which the text is found and the culture in which the preacher’s listeners are found are centuries apart. The religious situation, the geographical situation, the governmental situation is different, and so it is very important to understand the historical setting of a passage, if it can be known.

Next, true preaching studies the passage in its context. Contextual significance is important because if one does not understand the context, then one cannot understand the meaning. One such example can be found in Philippians 4:13, where Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” If we take this verse alone we will think that we can do all things, when, in reality, we cannot do all things. Study of the context shows that Paul is speaking about being content in all situations. The reason he can be content in all situations is because he is given strength to do so by Christ.

Grammatical understanding is very significant. I will hasten to state that much of the preaching heard today lacks grammatical understanding. It is easy to do word studies when preparing a sermon, but one must learn the syntax that is involved with the text of scripture. Each passage of scripture will have a dominating theme, and that theme will have subordinating clauses that modify that theme. So it is important to have a grammatical understanding.

Finally, genuine preaching shows the doctrinal significance of the passage being preached. It answers the question, “In what way does the teaching of this passage fit in with the rest of the Bible?”

What is preaching? It is, first of all, Bible-centered, and the preacher must submit his thoughts and opinions to the God inspired text so that when the preaching takes place the preacher is echoing the word of God and not the word of man.