Joe Allotta

Expository preaching is basically preaching through a whole book of the bible at a time. Some pastors just preach on a verse or two at a time (but that takes years), and some take it chapter-by-chapter (which only takes months), but both types take the arduous journey of studying an entire book! The question is, is it really worth it? Here are 10 things I hate about expository preaching. They’re in no particular order. I guess I hate them all pretty equally.

10) The prep-time is way longer

Making sure everything is being taught in context and being aware of what’s coming in future weeks is exhausting when on top of all the other aspects of sermon prep.

9) The congregation loses out on the surprise

If church-goers know what’s coming the following week, they might read ahead for themselves. They should probably hear the pastor’s take on the passage before reading it for themselves.

8) There’s hard stuff to preach on if you don’t skip it

Have fun preaching on how God loved Jacob and hated Esau or how women should wear head-coverings. When you preach through a whole book of the Bible there’s always something complicated you have to talk about.

7) It’s harder to squeeze in my funny illustrations

Sometimes something really funny happens to me, or there’s a hilarious story on kickmysermonupanotch.com and if I don’t get to pick the verses I preach on, then the illustration will be out of place.

6) It’s too repetitive

The Apostle Paul is the worst at this. He repeats himself so much. Yeah “psychology” might call it reinforcement, but I call it boring. At the end of the day, tell me the difference between the movies Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Iron Man 3. I’ll help you, they’re the same plot with different bad guys. No one thinks Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man is still cool, do they?

5) It’s harder for the pastor to prove a point

Sometimes I have an argument with someone at church, and it helps if I can preach against them the following week from the pulpit. I can collect all the verses that prove my point and make sure everyone agrees with me by the end of the next Sunday.

4) There’s too much sin and Hell mentioned

We all know that sin is kind of a big deal, and Hell pretty much just stinks. How much should we really harp on it? The Bible seems to bring it up a lot. Do we have to talk about it as much as Scripture does?

3) Tithing isn’t brought up in the New Testament

Are you kidding me? This subject obviously needs to be brought up more often if God wants us to upgrade the video arts capabilities of the church.

2) It’s just not practical or pragmatic

How can God inspiring writing thousands of years ago be relevant to people living today? Doesn’t it make more sense to use Scripture as a jumping off point for more modern discussions?

1) It pigeonholes me as a pastor

The church hired me, not the Apostle Paul, not Peter, not John… me. Wouldn’t they want to hear my stories rather than theirs? Wouldn’t they want to hear my thoughts on various social issues rather than me speculating on their views based on similar situations they dealt with?

Well, I hope you clearly understood this post and don’t misconstrue my words. It’s so easy to take things out of context when you don’t hear someone’s tone of voice. Fortunately, this is only going out on social media and that forum is generally pretty polite in how it responds to people they disagree with.