4 Essential Ingredients of Reformed Preaching from Crossway on Vimeo.
Letting God Speak
The vision for reformed preaching is to bring a comprehensive worldview of what Scripture is presenting in terms of truth. What reformed preaching does is it aims to take all of the Bible into account and it aims to apply that in several different ways. Reformed preaching ministers to the whole man. It’s comprehensive, biblical, doctrinal, experiential, and practical.
First of all, it’s thoroughly biblical. It’s not what man says that counts; it’s what God says
that counts. So, in reformed preaching you’re repeating and expounding on what God says in his word.
Secondly, it’s doctrinal. Good reformed preaching always teaches doctrine. It’s always instructing the mind.
Getting Practical
Thirdly, good reformed preaching is always experiential. As it reaches the heart, it ministers not only to the mind but the heart, the hands, and the feet—which is the fourth aspect of reformed preaching: that it’s practical.
So you walk away from a sermon saying This is what I have to do, this is how my life has to
change, or this is the resolution. Reformed preaching ministers to the whole man. It’s comprehensive, biblical, doctrinal, experiential, and practical.
This is a guest article by Joel Beeke, author of Reformed Preaching: Proclaiming God’s Word from the Heart of the Preacher to the Heart of His People. This post originally appeared on crossway.org; used with permission.
Joel R. Beeke (PhD, Westminster Theological Seminary) has written over one hundred books. He is president and professor of systematic theology and homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, a pastor of the Heritage Reformed Congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as well as the editor of Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth, the editorial director of Reformation Heritage Books, the president of Inheritance Publishers, and vice president of the Dutch Reformed Translation Society.
