Preaching without authority

Without the authority of the Word, preaching becomes an endless search for topics, therapies, and techniques that will win approval, promote acceptance, advance a cause, or soothe worry. Human reason, social agendas, popular consensus, and personal moral convictions become the resources of preaching that lacks “the historic conviction that what Scripture says, God says.” The opinions and emotions that formulate the content of preaching that lacks biblical authority are the same forces that can deny the validity of those concepts in a changed culture, a subsequent generation, or a rebellious heart. Expository preaching avoids this shifting sand by committing a preacher to the foundation of God’s Word.

—Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon (Third Edition), 9–10