Have you ever seen the healthy eating pyramid on the wall of your local doctor? If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, the healthy eating pyramid is a simple diagram created by nutritionists to help us achieve a balanced diet. The idea is that to maintain a good diet, you need to eat some types of food more than others. The foods to be eaten most (such as vegetables and cereals) are at the bottom of the pyramid, foods to be eaten moderately (such as meat and dairy) are in the middle, while foods to be eaten least (such as fats and sugars) are at the top. See, for example, the pyramid published by Nutrition Australia.
I’m not a nutritionist (or a medical practitioner of any sort!), so I’m not making any recommendations about whether the pyramid represents the most up-to-date thinking about physical diet. However, the healthy eating pyramid has given me an idea for helping Christians to understand and assess their own ‘diet’ of Christian teaching (e.g. sermons, small groups, one-to-one, with your children, etc.). I admit this is a rather corny idea and a blatant rip-off of the healthy eating pyramid, but hopefully that makes it memorable!
Basically, there are three types of Christian teaching. The first is expository. Expository teaching is the kind of teaching that takes you systematically through a particular part of the Bible. For example, you might have a sermon series in the book of Exodus. Each week, the preacher takes a chunk of the book of Exodus (a chapter, half a chapter, whatever). His job is to read it, understand it, learn it, ponder it, discover insights, work out the key concerns of the passage, and then to communicate those key concerns to his listeners in such a way that they are gripped the passage itself—gripped by it as God’s word, and encouraged to apply it. The next week, he takes the next logical chunk and does the same thing, and so on.
I strongly believe that expository teaching is the ‘eat most’ of our Christian lives—the bread, fruit and vegetables, as it were. I don’t have room to defend that view here; I’ll just assume that it’s a logical outflow of, for example, 2 Timothy 3:14-17. You might be interested in hearing a short discussion and defence of expository preaching about two thirds of the way through this interview with Don Carson.
The second type of teaching is doctrinal teaching. This is the sort of teaching where important themes of the Bible are treated in one go. For example, you might have a four-part study series on the atoning work of Christ, prayer, justification by faith alone, or the meaning and significance of church. The Bible is still very important (indeed, the best doctrinal teaching will include a few mini expositions), but in doctrinal teaching, the structure and content is driven by the doctrinal topic rather than by only one particular passage. Doctrinal teaching is like the meat and dairy of the Christian life—very important to get in moderate doses, so that you are able to get a good ‘big picture’ of the Bible’s teaching and understand important topics more comprehensively. However, a problem with doctrinal teaching is that it relies a great deal on the integrative skill of the teacher. The teacher has little time to ‘show their working’ as they range across many different passages. If there is too much doctrinal teaching (as opposed to expository teaching), the body of Christ isn’t built properly; we don’t learn to read the Bible for ourselves, and we become too reliant on the teacher to tell us what’s what.
The third type of teaching—topical teaching—is structured around the concerns of the world and the congregation. The topics addressed may be found in the Bible, but they aren’t necessarily primary biblical concerns. For example, you might have a Bible Study series on depression, stem cell research, disappointment or the sexual revolution. At its best, topical teaching is a chance to capitalize on expository and doctrinal teaching to show clearly the applicability of biblical texts and doctrines to situations encountered in the world. It is also often the place where the ‘rubber hits the road’ in people’s lives and thinking, and where serious changes are made. It is also usually quite interesting and tasty, because it is specifically designed to scratch where people itch (to mix the metaphors). In this way, topical teaching is like the fats, oils and sweets and of the Christian life—interesting, enjoyable and an excellent way to complete a good hearty meal of expository and doctrinal teaching. But too much topical teaching is like an overload of fast food; it produces Christians who haven’t learned to read the Bible for themselves or to think God’s (as opposed to the world’s) thoughts. Ultimately, it is unhealthy.
The three stages of the pyramid aren’t necessarily about the content, but more about the structure and rationale of the teaching. Expository teaching is driven by the concerns of the text before us; doctrinal, by the big themes of the Bible; and topical, by the concerns of the congregation. There is often overlap. Sometimes a big concern of the Bible (e.g. wealth) is also a big concern of the congregation. In this case, topical and doctrinal teaching go hand-in-hand. Furthermore, expository preaching should naturally introduce larger biblical themes (doctrines) and speak powerfully to present-day concerns (topics) as it goes along. In fact, I have often discovered that many of the concerns of our congregation have already been addressed by the expository preaching programme. Often when I hear people say, “Why don’t we teaching on topic x?”, generally we discover that we did spend quite a bit of very helpful time working through topic x back when we covered Bible passage y—because passage y naturally led to topic x. True, we didn’t have a sermon entitled ‘x’. Yet God’s word spoke powerfully to God’s people.
How might you use the healthy teaching pyramid? If you’re a Christian teacher in any context, you could use it to assess your own teaching. Look at the weight of your teaching: are you maintaining a healthy balance between expository, doctrinal and topical teaching? If you’re new (just moved to the suburb or to the church), you might also use it to help to assess a church or other Christian group; look at their teaching programme for the year and see how it fares. Or, looking closer to home, observe your own life and reading/listening patterns. What is your diet? How much Bible do you read? How many doctrinal books do you read? How many topical books? Are you maintaining a healthy diet?
Lionel, thanks for this post – although you won’t be surprised to discover we think alike on this one!
A thought, and then a question…
On doctrinal (or topical) sermons or even series, one of the dangers is trying to say everything the Bible says on the topic. It can become an over-crammed lecture.
So (as you may know Lionel), I like the idea of preaching a doctrinal series out of one book of the Bible, and focusing on mining it for what it says on the doctrine, and limiting (not eliminating) cross-references elsewhere.
So you might expound a particular relevant passage, but through the lens of the particular topic you are addressing, which may produce a different sermon than if you were expounding the same passage in a normal expository series on that book.
Some examples:
• I did a series on unity in the church from 1 Corinthians – you can guess several key passages.
• The person and work of Christ from 1 Peter: addressing his pre-incarnate existence, the atonement, his example of suffering, his resurrection and return.
• A series on money from 1 Timothy 6:17-18 taking one verse at a time and expounding it phrase by phrase.
One of the advantages of this is that it teaches people to read their doctrine in sympathy with the contexts, rather than as a string of isolated proof texts.
I got this idea from a College of Preachers conference on doctrinal preaching which featured Peter Jensen, along with a phrase “contextualised affirmation” – which meant showing how particular texts supported a doctrine in their context – which Graham Cole encouraged us to use in doctrinal essays way back at Moore College.
My question is this: where does evangelistic preaching fit into this pyramid?
This is a great post. Thanks.
Sandy’s comment is helpful as well. It can also be applied to the top of the pyramid, if there is a greater emphasis on application than exposition in a given sermon, throughout an expository series.
One such example is Carson’s book teaching about prayer, using exposition of several of Paul’s prayers in his epistles as the basis.
Or is this what you meant by topical study? Can a topical study ever reliably only be based on one passage (per sermon)?
Thanks Lionel.
I do agree with what you are saying, although I have a few observations.
In conservative evangelical circles (to which I gladly belong), I have only ever heard of topical preaching as “scratching people’s itch”. And therefore bad.
I do agree that expository preaching is crucial and should be dominant, but…
I think the main reason we need more (and better executed) topical preaching is that there are a lot of aspects of godliness in Christian life that are never taught on well enough. These are “topics” people aren’t “itching” for as such. I am thinking of manhood/womanhood issues, marriage, raising children. Issues which are vital in how we live out the gospel, but which we struggle to connect the dots on.
Whenever we do address these topics in the course of an expository sermon they usually remain quite abstract. No one wants to be accused of over-applying the text and we don’t have the time to do it well.
Like you said in your article, we might have addressed a topic when we looked at a particular passage, but no one remembers it. If they don’t realise we have addressed a topic in the course of expository preaching, I doubt they have applied it.
If people aren’t actually changed by what they are being taught, then I think we are having James 1:22 problems.
While I don’t think topical preaching should be dominant, I think it is still essential (in a way that the foods on the top of the food pyramid aren’t!).
Thanks for your post.
Hi Lionel. Thanks for kicking off this very important issue. If you’d allow me to stretch the metaphor a little.
I think that each and every sermon perhaps should maintain this balance. We should be exegetical (yes) but our exegetical sermons should contain some serious doctrinal reflection and content dictated basically by the needs of the congregation. I wonder if the danger for some exegetical preachers is that they don’t ‘go up’ the pyramid enough.
After all vegetable are pretty boring without meat and fat.
I agree with the kind of line AB is taking. For mine the pyramid idea makes too much of a distinction between the levels.
It’s interesting that your criticism of doc and topical preaching is that too much of it makes it hard for congregations to learn to read their bibles. Calvin saw the expresion of systematic theology as means to that exact end, but I must admit that I have always been a little uncomfortable with his elevation of systematics in such a way … a bit too much of the cart before the horse, so to speak.
I also think I fundamentally agree with the thrust of the post.
I wonder though whether the pyramid really does speak to where all of our preachers are at. As it stands the pyramid is a defence of making expository preaching primary, doctrinal secondary, and topical an occasional treat.
The reasoning is that only expository preaching can teach people how to read the Bible.
But in my experience among those who do ‘expository’ preaching are at least two broad schools of thought. One group preaches sermons with a fair chunk of exegesis in the sermon, and see teaching exegesis as a key element of what preaching is supposed to do.
The other broad group goes for what I think of as ‘the big idea’ approach. This preaches the idea that is the main thrust of the passage, occasionally going back to the passage to pick up secondary points, but often developing the idea without too close an engagement with the passage.
This latter group seems fairly widespread, but I struggle to see the difference between it and topical preaching. It seems to me that it offers a series of topics that happen to be whatever is touched on by that set of chapters from whatever book is being preached.
That is, in terms of our practice, I think the argument of ‘teaching congregations to read the Bible’ applies only to a subsection of our expositors.
In light of this, I’ve never really understood why there is such a push to make topical rare. It seems to me that in practice we’re quite happy with topical sermons being the heart of a preaching programme – as long as those topics occur in consecutive order in a group of biblical chapters and arose from careful exegetical work done by the preacher before he got into the pulpit.
I think Mark B. is on to something.
I agree with your rough balance in the pyramid Lionel but it presumes a clear distinction between each type of preaching.
For example, it is quite easy for a series on a book of the Bible to end up being a topic or a doctrine (tangentally referred to in the passage) each week.
Great post, and I agree in principle.
I am convinced of the necessity of expository preaching, especially through books of the Bible or certain portions of books that capture the main themes. I wonder, however, if we sometimes give topical preaching more criticism than it deserves.
Most of the epistles are occasional documents addressing specific lifestyle and doctrinal needs of a particular congregation or congregations. Yes, they were meant to be circulated, but the original genesis for most the epistles was reports about how they were doing and what kinds of errors they were prone to listen to.
The concern I have is that we will be too dogmatic about expositional preaching and fail to see that the epistles addressed ‘topics’ in a way that first laid down doctrine, then applied it to the life of the congregation. This is pastoral wisdom and sensitivity.
Let me take a slight tangent: it seems like you’ve used the word ‘teaching’ here to mean ‘sermons on Sunday’. Please don’t let us forget that Bible teaching is *much* bigger than that! For while exegesis (to varying levels of depth) is an important skill for all Christians to learn, we also want to teach them to read the Bible *to apply it to their lives*.
So a lot of our Bible teaching will involve pointing people to Jesus in the mundane — something which doesn’t require a lot of exposition of a text as such. So if I am anxious about a situation at work, I might need a brother or sister to remind me of God’s complete acceptance of me and provision for me in the gospel. I need to be reminded of God’s greatness. This isn’t going to take detailed and lengthy exegesis, but it *is* Bible teaching that encourages me to grow more like Jesus.
Hi Stuart – thanks. I was trying to indicate that I saw teaching as broader than just Sunday preaching when I spoke in my original post about the ‘diet’ of Christian teaching being
However – I can see your point that the emphasis of my post and the comments that follow is geared towards Sunday preaching.
Thanks everyone for your comments – it seems that the pyramid can provide a helpful way of distinguishing between different emphases in our teaching, but that it’s important not to separate these types of teaching to the extent that they become mutually exclusive.