Interview with
Steve Lawson
Director of
One Passion Ministries
Editor of
Expositor Magazine
Many of our readers will be acquainted already with Steven Lawson’s preaching and writing ministry. You may be acquainted with any number of his books:
The Kind of Preaching God Blesses
Also in Kindle
Famine in the Land: A Passionate Call for Expository Preaching
Also in Kindle
Foundations of Grace: A Long Line of Godly Men
Also in Kindle
Pillars of Grace: A Long Line of Godly Men, vol.2
Also in Kindle
The Heroic Boldness of Martin Luther
Also in Kindle
The Expository Genius of John Calvin
Also in Kindle
The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards
Also in Kindle
The Evangelistic Zeal of George Whitefield
Also in Kindle
The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon
Also in Kindle
When All Hell Breaks Loose: Surprising Insights from the Life of Job
The Legacy: Ten Core Values Every Father Must Leave His Child
Formerly pastor at Christ Fellowship Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama, Steve has more recently transitioned to direct One Passion Ministries, located in Dallas, Texas. His gifts and concern for expository preaching have led him to launch Expositor magazine, a resource we are sure will be of great value to many (see our recent blog post here). We are happy to have him with us today to talk about his ministry and about preaching.
Fred Zaspel (Books At a Glance):
Hi, this is Fred Zaspel executive editor here at Books At a Glance. We’re talking today with Steve Lawson. We’re glad to have him with us. Many of you are acquainted with many of his books that he has written. He was formerly pastor at Christ Fellowship Baptist Church in Mobile Alabama. More recently he has been director of One Passion Ministries. His gifts and his concern for expository preaching have led him to launch Expositor magazine as well, a resource we are sure will be of real value to many and we’re glad to have him with us. We’re happy to have you with us today, Steve, thanks for joining us.
Steve Lawson:
Fred, thank you so much for the opportunity I’m looking forward to it.
Zaspel:
Alright let’s start with One Passion Ministries, tell us about that. What is that all about and maybe you can tell us a little something about your background and how that new ministry came to be.
Lawson:
I’ve been a pastor for 34 years and very involved in preaching the Word expositionally while I pastor the church, and God has opened so many doors here recently—opportunities to preach as well as other ministries. I felt that it was God’s timing for me to step out and start this new ministry whose primary purpose is to equip and encourage other pastors in expository preaching. And by that we simply mean biblical preaching: preaching that is rooted and grounded in the Word of God and is given with theological precision as well as practical application and challenge.
We started this ministry and we do several things: we host conferences around the country as well as overseas for pastors and elders and interested laypeople to come. I give a 2 ½ day crash course in expository preaching and really try to help take men to the next level in their focus on biblical preaching.
We also have a magazine called Expositor where we invite what I consider to be the best expositors to contribute articles and Fred we’re very happy to have your articles printed in our magazine. I also have a podcast called Expositor Podcast that comes out once or twice a week where I talk about different insights into expository preaching.
But we also have ministry to laypeople as well and will be starting a new podcast here immediately that will be geared to laypeople called to follow Christ. It really just talks about the Christian life and what all is involved in following Christ on a daily basis. So that’s just a little bit about what one passion ministries is about. The one passion really indicates a singular passion for God and to carry out the work of God. So thank you for the opportunity to just give a word about our ministry.
Zaspel:
Great, I wasn’t aware of the podcasts. Anything else you can tell us about those? You have one directed to pastors and others directed to Christians generally, is that it?
Lawson:
Yes. To begin with the one for pastors, it has all different kinds of insights. They are about 10 minutes, they are short, they have everything from sermon preparation to sermon delivery. I have one called the first 15 minutes after you preach which is just a golden time for a pastor to be connected with the people to whom he has preached….to books to seminaries to study Bibles to the pulpit itself, pulpits that help your preaching, pulpits that hinder your preaching…So those are a vast range of topics that are very practical as it relates to preaching.
Then there’s the one that will start tomorrow on following Christ (which was the most repeated invitation that Christ gave in his day, to “follow me”) and stepping out on faith and following where the Lord leads you and that he goes before us and prepares the way. So it will be somewhat devotional in nature as well as theological. They are free and they’re on our webpage. And I guess that’s another aspect of our ministry – I think we have a very excellent webpage.
Zaspel:
Yes, tell us your web address.
Lawson:
It is onepassionministries.org. A lot of my sermons are on the webpage, maybe a couple of thousand, I don’t know how many are there—blogs, all of my books, my travel schedule, ways people can be involved in our ministry, what ways we can stay in touch with them, the magazine, all different kinds of ministry opportunities. And we have an app as well, One Passion app that they can put on their cell phone and easily access our information.
Zaspel:
Tell us a little bit more about Expositor magazine. It’s a bimonthly magazine. Who are you targeting? Is it specifically for preachers? What are your goals?
Lawson:
The goal really is to rally as many people as we can to the cause of preaching the word of God. Fred you know in church history those high watermark areas were those times when God raised up strong preachers to preach the word of God, whether it was the Reformation or the Puritan era or the great awakening or the Victorian era. So our desire is to raise up a strong generation of preachers in this day whether it be to encourage those who are already preaching or to draw the net and bring in a new cast of men to preach in this day. So the expositor magazine is intended to facilitate that.
There are articles in there by very notable men. John MacArthur has an article in it every issue. The other men would be men like Sinclair Ferguson, R. C. Sproul, John Piper, Joel Beike—of course I mentioned you are in there a couple of times. Many other notable Christian leaders, Derek Thomas, Al Mohler. I think the kind of men that follow your ministry Fred or who are involved in what we are doing right now would have a vital interest in the magazine.
Each issue focuses on a different feature of expository preaching for example, one issue is “the preacher in the study” and “how to prepare an expository sermon.” The present issue that is about to come off the press any moment, in which you have an article, is on the delivery of an expository sermon and being empowered by the Spirit and the marks of an effective pulpit delivery. Our next issue is on the Puritans and their word-centered preaching. We’ve had an issue on preaching the Pastoral epistles, an issue on preaching in the postmodern world, an issue on biblical inerrancy. In the future after this present issue there will be one on Martin Lloyd-Jones and his preaching. So I think it would be of vital interest to people who would listen to a broadcast like this.
Zaspel:
I think it’s a great resource. For people who want it, who aren’t familiar with it yet, they can go to your website, onepassionministries.org and get it. I am just curious, can they by chance purchase the back issues? Do you have an archive of some?
Lawson:
Yes, yes we do. And on our webpage, it’s interesting, we began selling these back issues and there has been quite an interest in the back issues.
Zaspel:
Oh, I’m sure. I think as people learn of it they are going to want to catch up.
Lawson:
And they’re printed on a luxury magazine-quality paper.
Zaspel:
Oh yeah they’re nicely done, very nice.
Lawson:
There are very nicely done and so they become rather collectible. They have a spine and several of them in a row on a shelf would make a nice resource.
Zaspel:
What preachers from the history of the church do you like to recommend as models for preaching? And in a minute I’m going to get to “what is expository preaching?” as well but first some models from church history.
Lawson:
Fred, I think we learned different aspects of preaching from different preachers and certainly no one man is the composite of every strength that someone would need in preaching. We all tend to be strong in certain areas and may be less strong in other areas. I certainly love, as I know you do, Charles Haddon Spurgeon just for the fire of his preaching, the gospel evangelistic Christ-centered aspect of his preaching. He was theologically precise, I love his structure, which is very Puritan in the influence. He said he has only had one mentor in his preaching and that was George Whitfield. There’s a very strong evangelistic edge to Spurgeon’s preaching, so I highly recommend Spurgeon. He’s had such a huge influence on my life and I know on multiple generations of preachers.
I also like Martin Lloyd-Jones because there is a passion about his preaching and he moved consecutively for the most part through a section of Scripture or a book of Scripture and I think he is a good example for us. He has his own unique style. He almost takes the Bible and pours it through that particular verse and brings the whole Scripture to bear upon a text. I really like the brilliance of his intellect and the passion of his soul as he preaches.
James Montgomery Boice, who went to be with the Lord in the year 2000, I think is a very notable example of excellence in expository preaching, taking books of the Bible and preaching consecutively through them. By the way I was with John MacArthur not long ago and he made a very interesting statement, Fred. He said the Bible is not a collection of verses it’s a collection of books that contain verses. God has written the Bible not as a topical index. He has written in the Bible not in an omelette style where everything is just thrown in between the covers but it is actually 66 books in the Bible and each book has its own central theme and was written with a specific literary genre and contains a certain balance to it. So I think preaching through the books of the Bible, though it’s not the only way to do expository preaching, I think is the bread and butter.
There are other approaches that can be doctrinal or biographical, apologetic, polemic, but James Montgomery Boice is certainly a towering example to us. John MacArthur, whom I just mentioned is a huge example and I still love John Calvin’s expository preaching. We normally think of him as a commentator and a theologian, though in my research on Calvin many noted people have said if you took away all of his ministries and he could only have one ministry that Calvin would’ve chosen the pulpit and would have been the expositor. Even his commentaries flowed out of his studies for expositional preaching. But Banner of Truth and P&R have reprinted some of those. They are very readable they are very seamless, smooth easy to read and access.
Zaspel:
I’ll never forget years ago reading through his sermons for the first time I read his sermons from Ephesians. They were just marvelous.
Lawson:
John Knox on his deathbed had his wife read him those sermons from Ephesians. Calvin sermons and literally just Calvin’s preaching silently through his wife reading them just ushering him into glory.
Zaspel:
How about that?
Well that’s a good segue into my next question and I know this is a tough one. I know you can give two or three days lecture on this question, but just in broad strokes, What is expository preaching? And why is it so important?
Lawson:
Well, when we say expository preaching Fred… and just to be very succinct we’re really talking about biblical preaching…the word expository if you take the Oxford English dictionary and look it up it really means a commentary or setting forth of principal themes from a text. And then the word preaching really goes beyond the exposition and really takes the truth of the biblical passage that has been read and explained and properly interpreted and then shows the relevance of that passage to modern-day life and drives it home to the heart with fervor and passion as well as pastoral comfort and encouragement.
So those two words—expository is the adjective and preaching is the noun—expository describes a kind of preaching that is unusually text driven. It starts with the text of Scripture, stays with the text of Scripture, supports it with other texts of Scripture, gives the proper interpretation of this text of Scripture, gives the authorial intent, shows how it fits in the overall message of the Scripture and then shows the relevance of this passage. What it requires of us, how it speaks to the Lord Jesus Christ and then the preaching part, there has to be an element of preaching that I think goes beyond teaching.
A young man once came to Martin Lloyd-Jones and said “what’s the difference between teaching and preaching?” And Lloyd Jones said with that dry humor, “Young man if you have to ask me the difference between teaching and preaching it’s obvious you have never heard preaching because if you’d ever heard preaching you would know the difference between teaching and preaching.” He went on to say a lecture which is teaching oriented can be given any time, today, next week, next month, next semester, but with preaching there’s a sense of urgency about the message. It must be delivered now and it must be received now. And it both builds up and it tears down, both comforts and afflicts, it challenges, it consoles, it confronts, it points the way with urgency.
So just to give you a short answer—obviously you and I both could go a couple of days on the answer but it’s not expository teaching; the word teaching is implied in the word expository. It’s expository preaching. The Puritans used to say there needs to be a fire in the pulpit and the fire gives off light and heat. There’s the light of the exposition and there’s the heat of the preaching. That’s really what expository preaching is there’s both light and heat. The light of instruction and interpretation and even application, but with the heat of preaching that motivates and inspires and challenges and summons and confronts and corrects and encourages and consoles—all of those elements are part of preaching.
Zaspel:
And that heat and that sense of urgency is there I think by the nature of the case. This is after all God’s word that is being proclaimed, and so there is that urgency that’s just built into it.
Lawson:
Yes and God is speaking through his word, not merely past tense once spoke 2000 years ago but he is presently speaking through his word which is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. Because God is speaking through his written word as it’s delivered it necessitates a present response to that word.
Zaspel:
I’ve enjoyed quoting Luther to my students at times. There’s two parts to these two sentences but I’ll give them the first one first and then I pause and see what they do with it. Luther said, “When the preacher speaks God speaks.” And I wait and they all think, wow, who can say that? I said, “Do you think that’s too much?” and then after they’re struggling with it a little, I tell them, “Let me give you the next sentence: The preacher who can’t say that should leave preaching alone.”
Lawson:
Yeah absolutely. And the reason we believe that is what Augustine said, and Calvin often quoted, is because when the Bible speaks God speaks. Our message is rooted and grounded not in us but we’re just a mouthpiece for the text. And what J. I. Packer said is expository preaching is just letting the text talk because God is speaking through the text of Scripture
Zaspel:
Very good. Well let’s take that and, it’s really the same thing, but let’s take that and aim it in another direction. Maybe you can offer some suggestions for Christians in the pew. They are not trained in the craft of sermon preparation and what not but they are looking for something in the pulpit. What should they be looking for? How can you sharpen their eye and their ears? What should they expect from the pulpit? What should they be looking for?
Lawson:
Well first of all they should be looking for preaching that is rooted and grounded in the written word of God and we’ve already talked about that. They need to find a Bible preaching church and they need to be under a Bible preaching pulpit and the Alpha and the Omega of what is coming out of that pulpit is: Thus saith the Lord. So that’s really where it begins and then it needs to be preaching that is God exalting, that presents a towering view of God such that your knowledge of God is just greatly expanded and elevated.
It is Christ-centered, we are not Old Testament rabbis in our preaching. We preach Christ and him crucified. A listener must be under the kind of preaching that is magnifying Christ. Spurgeon said, what the sun is to the day, what the moon is to the night, what the harvest is to the Fall, that’s what Christ is to the sermon. Without Christ in the sermon we have nothing and with Christ in the sermon we have everything.
It needs to be Spirit empowered. It needs to be exegetically sound and theologically sound. There needs to be sound doctrine that the listener is being taught. Remember Lloyd Jones said, “Preaching is theology on fire, and theology coming through a man that is on fire.” So there needs to be an understanding of the great doctrines of the Bible and then there needs to be personal application of these truths to one’s life such that a person sees the practical implications of this for daily life and is challenged by this and is encouraged to live this way and by the end of the sermon is literally thrust out of the service into the world almost catapulted to live for the glory of God.
I like to think of it this way, Fred, with mind, affections, and will. That the listener’s mind has been taught and renewed and it begins with the mind but then it also warms and ignites the affections. Jonathan Edwards said that preaching should raise the affections of the listener in direct proportion to the importance of the truth that is being taught. So when they come to church it should be lighting a fire within them as they sit under the preaching of the word of God. And then finally the will should be challenged. It’s more than just an encyclopedic lecture that they are sitting under, it really should be mobilizing their lives and challenging their lives to live in a particular way and their will is being directed specifically in the sermon.
So there’s more than indicative statements, there’s imperative challenges, there’s interrogative questions that are soul-searching that are being addressed, there is an exclamatory uplifting of the heart. I think all of this should take part under preaching and the Puritans used to say if you have one hour to give would you give it to reading your Bible at home and personal Bible study or would it be an hour at church under the preaching of the word of God. And the Puritans always said you would choose the one hour under the preaching of the word of God where a man has studied and prepared all week and is gifted to preach and to teach and brings the word of God with clarity and precision but also empower. The effect upon the life should be on the whole far stronger and greater. So there is no substitute for it. I think we would call it the primary means of grace.
Zaspel:
Preaching really is a mysterious thing isn’t it?
Lawson:
Yes for the preacher and for the listener.
Zaspel:
That’s right. And again this is a huge question but maybe you could just briefly give some suggestions to preachers that will help us continually develop our gifts, sharpen our abilities, expository preaching, is there a one size fits all kind of counsel you can give that that just puts us on the right path to improvement?
Lawson:
That’s a great question. Well, I asked that question of John MacArthur recently at a conference thinking well there is no answer for this. He gave a very insightful answer and I’ll give credit where credit is due. If you just had to give one simple answer, he said great preachers are continual readers and they are continually deepening their own well. So when you’re preaching week after week after week that you are not repeating yourself, that you’re not saying the same thing the same way and that great teachers and great theologians are shaping your thinking and really sharpening your thinking.
So just to mention one thing Fred, initially, I think we need to be readers of Scripture certainly but also of those to help us understand the Scripture perhaps even from other generations and other ages. As we read I think it’s also improving our vocabulary and our manners of expression and then as we write our sermons I think we are learning how to formulate our thoughts and shape what we’re trying to say. Then obviously listening to great preaching or reading great preaching especially for younger men is an enormous asset and help. So that’s just off the top of my head.
Zaspel:
I think that’s a great answer. That’s great. Thank you, that’s very helpful.
Before I let you go, do you have any new books in the works that we can be looking for?
Lawson:
Yes thank you for asking. I have a series called A Long Line of Godly Men. I’ve written on Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Whitefield, Spurgeon and Tyndale. I’ve turned in Martin Lloyd-Jones and that will be out this coming February. I’m very excited for it. It is specifically focused on the powerful and passionate preaching of Martin Lloyd-Jones. So that will be forthcoming here very soon and I think it will make a contribution to the betterment of our preaching simply because it’s Lloyd-Jones, not because I wrote it. I think he is a man who really in many ways restored expository preaching in the 20th century and we are the children of that influence.
Zaspel:
Absolutely. Very good. Well will be sure to feature that here at Books At a Glance when it comes out. That will be good to have.
Lawson:
Yes, please do.
Zaspel:
Well, we’ve been talking to Steve Lawson at One Passion Ministries, editor of Expositor magazine. I encourage you to go to his website onepassionministries.org and check out the resources there. They are enormously helpful. When we post this on our website we will also list with it a list of his books that he’s written so you can take those as well. Steve it’s been great to have you with us, thanks.
Lawson:
Thank you, Fred, for allowing me this opportunity and thank you for your books as well.
Zaspel:
Thanks, we’ll talk to you again.
Be sure to check out Steve’s books here:
The Kind of Preaching God Blesses
Also in Kindle
Famine in the Land: A Passionate Call for Expository Preaching
Also in Kindle
Foundations of Grace: A Long Line of Godly Men
Also in Kindle
Pillars of Grace: A Long Line of Godly Men, vol.2
Also in Kindle
The Heroic Boldness of Martin Luther
Also in Kindle
The Expository Genius of John Calvin
Also in Kindle
The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards
Also in Kindle
The Evangelistic Zeal of George Whitefield
Also in Kindle
The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon
Also in Kindle
When All Hell Breaks Loose: Surprising Insights from the Life of Job
The Legacy: Ten Core Values Every Father Must Leave His Child