“First, pastors and teachers are reminded of their responsibility to preach and expound God’s Word in this fourfold way (2 Timothy 3:16-4:5), because through such preaching, God works individually, privately, and profoundly— on those who hear.
Thus every exposition of Scripture is an extended personal counseling session in which the Holy Spirit shows us the wonder and power of the gospel and also exposes the secrets of our hearts.
Preaching is not merely information being communicated by word of mouth. The exposition of a passage of Scripture is not intended to be a popular-level commentary in spoken form but an encounter with the God who speaks.
For that reason, the preacher must be the hearer of his sermons even while he is preaching them. For, in the last analysis, it is Christ Himself who preaches His own word through preachers.
No surprise, then, that “a man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul… If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.” (John Owen, Works, 16:76)
Second, this explains why it is so important for us to place our lives under the influence of a living ministry of the word of God. We cannot produce by ourselves what God has planned to produce in us through the impact of the preaching of His word.
If we try to, we are likely to become so used to being poorly nourished that we no longer notice it. That will certainly be true if the preaching we hear is less than biblical.
We think we are doing fine- until in God’s providence we encounter biblical preaching. Then we can taste the difference- so long as we have not fallen foul of the warning in Hebrews and have lost our sense of taste?
When we hear the Word of God expounded in the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, we are listening to the voice of the Good Shepherd Himself calling His sheep. He has promised to illumine and renew our thinking, to expose our sin so that we may see, feel, and confess it, and experience its forgiveness.
It is through preaching that Christ will heal our hurts and strengthen us to live for the glory of God. In a nutshell, His word itself will help us to live lives that are ‘worthy of the gospel’ and create in us a reflection of Christ.
For preaching is God’s instrument by which ‘we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit’ (2 Cor. 3:18).
And the Spirit loves to do this through the exposition of Scripture. I doubt if anyone can understand this who has not experienced it. But when it is experienced, transformation takes place.”
–Sinclair B. Ferguson, Worthy: Living in Light of the Gospel (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 59-61.
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