No matter what the length of the portion explained may be, if it is handled in such a way that its real and essential meaning as it existed in the mind of the biblical writer and as it exists in the light of the overall context of Scripture is made plain and applied to the present-day needs of the hearers, it may be properly said to be expository preaching. It is emphatically not preaching about the Bible, but preaching the Bible. “What saith the Lord” is the alpha and omega of expository preaching. It begins in the Bible and ends in the Bible and all that intervenes springs from the Bible. In other words, expository preaching is Bible-centered preaching.

— Merrill Unger (1909–1980), Bibelgelehrter

Topics: The Bible & the Word of God, Witness & Mission

Occasions: For Reflection

All quotes by Merrill Unger (3)

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A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.

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The Bible is almost bursting with good news for bad people.

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I read the Bible the way I harvest my apple tree: I shake it, and what falls down and is ripe, I take. The rest I leave hanging for now.

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The Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid.

Martin Luther

The law is divine and holy. Let the law have its glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbor; also to live in love, soberness, patience, etc., but it ought not to show me how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell. Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teaches me, not what I ought to do but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me: that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel wills me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.

Martin Luther

Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.

Madeleine L'Engle

All quotes · lumen.bible