Expository preaching?

R.L. Dabney. “. . . the expository method (understood as that which explains extended passages of Scripture in course) [must] be restored to that equal place which it held in the primitive and Reformed Churches; for, first, this is obviously the only natural and efficient way to do that which is the sole legitimate end of preaching, convey the whole message of God to the people.”

R. B. Kuiper. “In short, expository preaching demands that, by careful analysis of each text within its immediate context and the setting of the book to which it belongs, the full power of modern exegetical and theological scholarship be brought to bear upon our treatment of the Bible. The objective is not that the preacher may parade all this scholarship in the pulpit. Rather, it is that the preacher may speak faithfully out of solid knowledge of his text, and mount the pulpit steps as, at least, “a workman who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”

Ligon Duncan. “Expository preaching is the faithful explanation and application of the Bible in which the text of Scripture supplies the matter of the preacher’s exhortations rather than the preacher using the text as an occasion for his own expostulations, however helpful they may be.”

What is “justification?”

I. Those whom God effectually calleth he also freely justifieth;a not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous: not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them,b they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.c

a. Rom 3:248:30. bJer 23:6Rom 3:2224-2527-284:5-85:17-191 Cor 1:30-312 Cor 5:1921Eph 1:7Titus 3:57. c. Acts 10:4413:38-39Gal 2:16Eph 2:7-8Phil 3:9.

-Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), 11.1