Book Review: Preparing Sermons from the Page to the Pulpit by Walter Baxter

Law and Gospel preachers are often accused of giving the same sermon every week. Every sermon, the opponents cry, force-fits the assigned text to this format:

1. God wants you to be good.
2. You cannot be good because of sin.
3. But do not worry, God loves you anyway!

Certainly, this lampoons Law/Gospel preaching, but I hear the accusation thrown around enough to fear the parody is too close to reality. The text is not really given the opportunity to speak for itself. The Law and the Gospel are not drawn from the scripture, but imposed on it in such a way that what the text itself says does not matter. All that counts is if you get from the bad news to the good news.

Now, I am not one to disparage Law/Gospel preaching. In fact, I believe the Law and the Gospel are the two languages God speaks. His language is to saturate our preaching. But such formulaic preaching, as parodied above, does not allow God to speak for Himself. However unintentional one may be, it can get in the way of the text. As a wise preacher said to me when critiquing poor preaching, “Too many pastors have a sermon in search of a text.” The sermon becomes an event that uses the text but does not submit to the text.

What our congregations need, and what pastors are called to preach (on divine orders, by the way), is the Word of God from the scriptures themselves. To this end, Walter Baxter has done us a wonderful service in writing Preparing Sermons from the Page to the Pulpit: Exegesis to Exposition in Seven Steps. Baxter is concerned that much of the Church’s preaching has become either too moralistic (centered on man’s action rather than God’s work in Christ) or too spiritualized (narrative accounts get used to illustrate some “greater” point divorced from the redemptive-historical context). Baxter’s answer to this problem? Expository preaching.

He says, “The huge deficiencies inherent in moralistic and spiritualized sermons, all of which contribute to the lifelessness of the Church, find their resolution in expository preaching” (9). Expository preaching is, “A message that emerges directly and demonstrably from and is thereby constrained by the passage of Scripture being preached. Thus, the point of the text is the point of an expository sermon; no more, no less” (9 n.8).

Thus, the point of the text is the point of an expository sermon; no more, no less.-Walter Baxter

To help us avoid the moralizing/spiritualizing tendencies of topical sermons/series, Baxter walks us through the ways good exegesis produces more faithful and dynamic sermons. For Baxter, exegesis is for preaching. He shows us how, following his seven steps, our work in the text informs our proclamation. First, he guides the exegete/preacher in how to discover the boundary markers in a given text, so the preacher is sure to stick to the main point of that portion of scripture. He then helpfully explains the importance of reading the context of each passage, how to outline the text, how to outline a summary of the passage, and how to both understand and use the syntactical and grammatical nuances in each text. Before getting to how we apply all this exegetical work to the sermon, he offers a very insightful chapter on reading a text in “conversation” with the rest of the Bible. Finally, he offers guidance on applying the text to our hearers.

Throughout the book, instead of merely describing what the preacher should do in his exegesis, Baxter offers illustrations from specific passages in scripture. In fact, the closing chapter is an example of how Baxter would prepare a sermon on Matthew 3:13-17 following these seven steps.

For any pastor who takes the task of preaching from the scriptures seriously, Baxter’s work will prove to be a vital resource in the homiletical library. For preachers who are diligent in their weekly exegesis, this book will offer some guidance in making their work more intentionally homiletical. That is to say, they will be enabled to better exegete for preaching. For the preacher whose work in the languages has slipped since seminary (as this reviewer’s certainly has), this work will reinvigorate the desire to dig into the text itself find sermons. Anecdotally, the chapter outlining the text has helped me slow down and pay closer attention to my work through the passages. I was delighted to find how quickly an idea came for a sermon on a text I have preached numerous times.

For preachers who work from the lectionary, you will find that the work of finding boundaries within the text has already been done for you. Nonetheless, this chapter is helpful in preparing for a Bible study or even putting the assigned pericope’s boundaries to the test.

As a critique, I would have liked to see a more Christological focus in the application section. In the concluding chapter where Baxter demonstrates each step in preparing a sermon on Matthew 3:13-17, he arrives at the application where the account of Jesus’ baptism is made out not to be done for the reader, but the sermon is now about the reader. The questions surrounding the Lord’s baptism focus on the hearer’s response and thoughts, as opposed to Christ’s work for the hearer. Of course, there are times when the application of the text will require action. However, in many cases the application of a given text is simply to announce what Christ has done for us and for our sake. Application devoid of the promises of the Gospel can bring us dangerously close to moralizing or spiritualizing the text. This is where the categories of Law and Gospel do serve their purpose in sermon preparation.

The Apostle Paul exhorts young pastor named Timothy to preach the Word in and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2). Baxter’s book takes this exhortation seriously. This book will help you in both your interpretive and homiletical work. More importantly, it will help you see how these two things depend on each other. This book will make you a better preacher of the Bible.