Who We Serve
We support pastors who want to make progress in their preaching, feel overwhelmed, stressed, or burnt out; who lack confidence in preaching; or who experience anxiety when stepping into the pulpit. Through focused training in preaching, you will develop new levels of competency and confidence as you prepare and deliver your messages.
We serve a wide range of people: veteran preaching pastors, pastoral interns and residents, directors of women’s ministry, teaching elders, Sunday school teachers, and anyone eager to deepen their skill in reading and communicating God’s Word.
At the Charles Simeon Trust, we work with people from across the spectrum of Evangelicalism. Our community includes Baptists, Presbyterians (our founder, David Helm, is an ordained PCA pastor), Anglicans, Pentecostals, members of the Free Church, and non-denominational believers (see our doctrinal statement for more). Simply put, if you have a Bible and want to grow in studying it and in preaching and teaching it more effectively, we’re here to help.
What is Expository Preaching?
Here are some of our favorite definitions:
“Expositional preaching is empowered preaching that rightfully submits the shape and emphasis of the sermon to the shape and emphasis of a biblical text.”
— David R. Helm, Expositional Preaching
“Expository exultation is what I call preaching. Preaching is not conversation. Preaching is not simply teaching. Preaching is expository exultation. That is, it is exultation over the truth of God revealed in the Bible. So exposition plus exultation is what I think preaching is.”
— John Piper, Expository Exultation: Christian Preaching as Worship
“Expositional preaching is preaching in which the main point of the biblical text being considered becomes the main point of the sermon being preached.”
— Mark Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church
“Expository preaching is simply preaching that seeks to set forth the meaning and the message of the passage of Scripture in such a way that the text itself governs what is said. The preacher’s task is to let the text speak, so that God’s voice is heard.”
— Dick Lucas, Teaching Ephesians
“Expository preaching is preaching that takes the main point of a passage of Scripture, makes it the main point of the message, and applies it to the lives of the hearers today.”
— Alistair Begg, Truth for Life
“Expository preaching grounds the message in a passage of Scripture, explains it through careful exegesis, and then bridges the world of the text to the world of the listener, showing how Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of the text.”
—Tim Keller, Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism
“The message finds its sole source in Scripture. The message is extracted from Scripture through careful exegesis. The message is expository in its form and presentation. The message is delivered for the purpose of explaining what the Bible means by what it says.”
— John MacArthur, Rediscovering Expository Preaching
“Expository preaching is the preaching of the man who knows Holy Scripture to be the living word of the living God, and who desires that it should be heard and obeyed. It is the sermon in which the shape and emphasis of the message are governed by the shape and emphasis of the biblical text. It seeks to present the text’s meaning plainly, to apply it directly, and to let God’s voice be heard through it.”
— J. I. Packer, Expository Preaching: Its Definition and Characteristics
“Expository preaching is that form of proclamation which explains a passage of Scripture in such a way that the meaning of the text is presented entirely and exactly as it was intended by the original author. The preacher’s task is to expose the text so that God’s Word speaks with clarity, relevance, and power to today’s hearers.”
— E.K. Bailey, Preaching in Black and White: What We Can Learn from Each Other
“Expository preaching is the communication of a biblical concept, derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, and literary study of a passage in its context, which the Holy Spirit first applies to the life of the preacher and then through the preacher to the listeners.”
— Haddon Robinson, Biblical Preaching
“Preaching is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ from the Scriptures with clarity, urgency, and power, aiming to save sinners and edify saints, always exalting Christ.”
— Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students
Allowing the text to set the agenda for the message. I know I’m privileging the text when I’m pointing people to the historical, grammatical and cultural context. The text is setting the agenda for the message when rich theological themes, and words are being examined and excavated.”
— Brian Loritts, My Checklist to Preaching
“Biblical preaching is the communication of a biblical concept, derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, and literary study of a passage in its context, which the Holy Spirit first applies to the life of the preacher and then through the preacher to the congregation.”
— Don Sunukjian, Invitation to Biblical Preaching
“Expository preaching is preaching in which the Word of God is exposited in such a way that the meaning of the text is brought out and applied to the people of God. It is letting the text speak for itself. The preacher’s task is to explain the Word of God so that the voice of God is heard.”
— R.C. Sproul, Feed My Sheep: A Passionate Plea for Preaching
“Exposition refers to the content of the sermon (biblical truth) rather than its style (a running commentary). To expound Scripture is to bring out of the text what is there and expose it to view. The expositor prays over the text, studies it, and seeks to discover its plain meaning, as originally intended. He then bridges the gulf between the ancient world and the modern world so that it speaks with power to the contemporary listener.”
— John Stott, Between Two Worlds