Furthermore, music is one of God’s most precious gifts to His people, and it is a language by which we may worship God in spirit and in truth. The hymns of the faith convey rich confessional and theological content, and many modern choruses recover a sense of doxology formerly lost in many evangelical churches. However, music is not the central act of Christian worship, neither is evangelism nor the ordinances. The heart of Christian worship is the authentic preaching of the Word of God.
Expository preaching is central, irreducible and nonnegotiable to the Bible’s mission of authentic worship that pleases God. John Stott declared the issue boldly: “Preaching is indispensable to Christianity.” More specifically, preaching is indispensable to Christian worship, and not only indispensable, but central.
The centrality of preaching is the theme of both testaments of Scripture. In Nehemiah 8, we find the people demanding that Ezra the scribe bring the book of the law to the assembly. Ezra and his colleagues then stood on a raised platform and read from the book. When he opened the book to read, the assembly rose to its feet in honor of the Word of God and responded, “Amen, Amen!”
Interestingly, the text explains that Ezra and those assisting him “read from the book, from the law of God, translating to give the sense so they understood the reading” (Neh. 8:8). This remarkable text presents a portrait of expository preaching. Once the text was read, it was carefully explained to the congregation. Ezra did not stage an event or orchestrate a spectacle. He simply and carefully proclaimed the Word of God.
This text is a sobering indictment of much contemporary Christianity. According to the text, a demand for biblical preaching erupted within the hearts of the people. They gathered as a congregation and summoned the preacher. This reflects an intense hunger and thirst for the preaching of the Word of God.
Where is this desire evident among today’s evangelicals? In far too many churches, the Bible is nearly silent. The public reading of Scripture has been dropped from many services, and the sermon has been sidelined, reduced to a brief devotional appended to the music. Many preachers accept this as a necessary concession in the age of entertainment. Some hope to put in a brief message of encouragement or exhortation before the conclusion of the service.
As Michael Green said, “This is the age of the sermonette, and sermonettes make Christianettes.”
The anemia of evangelical worship—all the music and energy aside—is directly attributable to the absence of genuine expository preaching. Such preaching would confront the congregation with nothing less than the living and active Word of God. That confrontation will shape the congregation as the Holy Spirit accompanies the Word, opens eyes and applies that Word to human hearts.
