Abstract: Zane Pratt explains that preaching and teaching on the mission field should follow the teaching and example of Scripture, which is what’s expected of every faithful church around the world and throughout history. While there is a place for individual and group Bible study, these forms of instruction should not replace the weekly preaching of God’s Word by a qualified elder to the gathered church. Far from being a Western imposition on the church, the need to rightly interpret and preach the Word derives from the teaching and nature of Scripture itself.
Editor’s Note: This article is taken from Church Matters, the 9Marks journal for pastors, in the forthcoming issue titled Growing as a Preacher.
What should preaching look like on the mission field? More specifically, what should preaching and teaching look like in the churches that are the fruit of missionary service? To answer this, it will be helpful to briefly describe the missionary’s task.
Missionaries are disciples of Jesus who go where Jesus is not yet known to proclaim the gospel, make disciples, plant churches, and train leaders. The goal of missionaries is to work themselves out of a job by establishing strong indigenous churches that can both thrive internally and carry out the missionary task themselves after the missionary who first preached to them is gone. The churches they plant are made up of new believers who may not have much background in biblical teaching. In a context like that, what should the preaching and teaching ministry of these new churches look like?
The Apostolic Pattern
In the early days, the missionary will obviously play a crucial role in teaching the church. This was the practice of the apostle Paul, who described his church-planting efforts in Ephesus as follows: “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house” (Acts 20:20). Nevertheless, Paul did not stay in Ephesus, nor in any other city where he planted churches. The apostolic pattern of missionary work was to share the gospel, plant churches, raise up leaders, and move on to other places where Jesus was not yet known. At the conclusion of their first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in every church they had established (Acts 14:23). These elders were expected to be able to teach (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:9).11 . The words “elder” and “overseer” are used interchangeably in the New Testament. So what did that teaching look like?
A Popular Proposal
A popular proposal in some missionary circles has been to say that this kind of teaching ministry simply involves leading an inductive Bible study discussion. Give a new church the Bible, teach them an inductive Bible study method, and trust the Holy Spirit to lead them into the truth. This method has certain advantages. It can be reproduced quickly; it teaches new believers to find the answers to their questions in Scripture and not in human teachers; and it pushes the entire church (usually a house church small enough for everyone to participate) to take responsibility for understanding and applying the Word of God.
However, there’s no example of this more recent method anywhere in Scripture, so it is highly doubtful that this was the apostolic practice of teaching in a local church. It also fails to take into account the fact that God gave pastors and teachers to the church (Eph. 4:11). Since not everyone is gifted to teach, these pastor/teachers have a unique role to play in building up God’s people. One qualification of such a leader is that he “hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9). Qualified leaders, then, must have a thorough knowledge of doctrine and Scripture, which requires more than simply learning a Bible study method.
Anyone who has participated in an inductive Bible study discussion can testify that a lot of inappropriate interpretations and applications can be offered, particularly by believers who have limited knowledge of Scripture. The entire canon of Scripture is the necessary context for interpreting any part of Scripture, so those who teach must know the entire Bible. This is not to say that young believers cannot profit from their own study of the Bible. It is to say, however, that God gave his people both the interpretive community of the church and the gifts of teachers to keep them on track in their understanding of Scripture. Inductive Bible study is not adequate by itself for the health of a church, and it does not fulfill Scripture’s teaching mandate.
A Biblical Perspective
What, then, should preaching and teaching look like in new churches made up of young Christians on the mission field? It should look like the preaching and teaching that take place anywhere in a faithful, gospel-believing church, at least in substance if not also in style. Recognized elders, or overseers, should open the Bible, read a passage, and then preach the text faithfully based on basic elements of Bible study: observation, interpretation, and application. They should prepare by studying the text in its context and then seek to explain and apply the text to people in their congregation.
Of course, this kind of teaching and preaching does not have to emulate John MacArthur or John Piper. Expository preaching simply means exposing and applying the text of Scripture. Preaching style is often a matter of personality and culture. These will inevitably vary from person to person and culture to culture. The content of our preaching and teaching, on the other hand, needs to be controlled by the text of Scripture, and application needs to arise naturally from the text.
The Early Church’s Pattern
This was the pattern of the early church. Justin Martyr, writing in the second century, described the weekly worship of the church as including readings from the apostles and the prophets, followed by instruction and application from the text by the president of the assembly.22 . Justin Martyr, First Apology, par. 67. This tells us that, as far back as documented church history will take us, the habit of monological teaching (one person speaking) from the Scriptures was established in church life.
The Question of Training
Does this mean that every church needs a seminary-trained preacher and that the missionary must stay with the church until such a leader is found? Not at all. If Paul and Barnabas appointed elders (who had to be able to teach) at the conclusion of their first missionary journey (Acts 14:23), then a seminary degree was obviously not required.
For most of church history, biblical training has happened in the context of the local church. It’s true that the early church found it useful to establish training schools in biblical interpretation. The famous schools in Alexandria, Antioch, and Edessa bear witness to that. However, in most cases and for most churches, no such schools were available. Rather, just as Paul and Barnabas taught church leaders who taught other church leaders, so leadership development (an essential component of the missionary task) can be done without institutional involvement or any form of academic credentialing. Seminaries are good. Seminary training is good. However, churches on the mission field do not need to wait for the establishment of such institutions to have trained leaders who can teach the Bible faithfully.
The Style and Mode of Teaching
The style of teaching in the church’s earliest years was authoritative (based on the authority of Scripture) and monological. We have countless examples of this kind of teaching in the New Testament. We also have the description of a worship service from Justin Martyr. This does not mean that dialogical teaching is ruled out. Jesus had private conversations with his disciples after preaching and teaching in public (Mark 4:34). However, even when he did so, he still employed didactic teaching in those conversations to convey his message.
Some question whether monological, expository preaching is a Western cultural imposition on churches in non-Western settings. But monological teaching is a global phenomenon. And since it is the form of teaching used by Jesus and his apostles, it is also a biblical form. Furthermore, the mandate for expositional preaching and teaching comes from the nature of Scripture itself. The Bible was given by inspiration from God in such a way that every word in the original text was the word God intended (see 2 Tim. 3:16). Words have meaning; they matter. As a result of Scripture’s inspiration, we can trust it to be completely true, utterly authoritative, and sufficiently clear when it comes to communicating everything we need to know for doctrine, life, and ministry.
The Need for Proper Interpretation
Given the nature of Scripture, it must be interpreted according to what it says and not according to our own ideas. That means historical-grammatical exegesis is not a Western imposition on the text; rather, it flows from the nature of Scripture itself. The church has nothing to say other than what the Bible says. Application of the text may change as culture and conditions change, but the meaning of the text does not. Therefore, it is the obligation of every preacher and teacher, regardless of location, to study what the text meant in its literary, historical, and canonical contexts and then to explain and apply that meaning to the people of God.
Conclusion
Preaching and teaching the text of Scripture is essential to the life and health of every local church around the world. Therefore, those who preach must know the Bible well, which means understanding both the sweep of the grand narrative of Scripture (biblical theology) and Scripture’s major doctrines and themes (systematic theology). And since all this requires training, missionaries must help churches not only raise up biblically trained leaders but also continue to train men who can interpret, apply, and proclaim the Word.
