Derek Prime on Expository Preaching

Colin Adams of the Unashamed Workman blog interviews Derek Prime, former senior pastor of Charlotte Baptist Chapel in Edinburgh from 1969–1986, on matters relating to expository preaching.

He asks him 10 questions. Here are a few selections from that interview:

1. Where do you place the importance of preaching in the grand scheme of church life?
   I would place it unequivocally as number one priority because it is the primary means of bringing people to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and then building them up in Him.
2. What is the most important aspect of a preacher’s style and what should he avoid?
   I think I would say simplicity. . . . The better we understand what we saying the simpler we should be. It is no credit to us if people remark on how clever we are.
3. What notes, if any, do you use?
   I use full notes, although I highlight with a marker the principal phrase or word in each paragraph and that is usually sufficient to quicken my memory and to give me freedom to preach without slavish dependence on them.
4. What are the greatest perils that preacher must avoid?
   Failure to relate every Scripture to the centrality of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Cross in God’s revelation. . . .
5. What books on preaching, or exemplars of it, have you found most influential in your own preaching?
   One of the early books I read on preaching—if not the first—was James Black’s The Mystery of Preaching and it probably made the greatest impression upon me. James Stewart’s two books on the subject were a help also. . . .

Read the whole post at Unashamed Workman.

Colin highly recommends Prime’s On Being a Pastor, which Prime coauthored with Alistair Begg. See our overview and excerpt.

See also:

• Tim Keller on Expository Preaching
• Philip Ryken on Expository Preaching
• Voddie Baucham on Expository Preaching
• Liam Goligher on Expository Preaching
• Vaughan Roberts on Expository Preaching
• Thabiti Anyabwile on Expository Preaching
• Conrad Mbewe on Expository Preaching

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