Am I Teaching or Preaching?

Since 2022, I’ve helped lead a summer preaching cohort at our church. Several capable men within our congregation desire to become better preachers, so we began this cohort. So far, each summer, we take time to do some instruction, and then, typically during July and August, these men will preach on Wednesday nights. After the sermon, the cohort gathers to critique whoever preached that evening. We offer critique for theology, delivery, content, flow, engagement, and anything pertinent to good communication. Every critique is offered with grace and love because you know you’ll be in the hot seat at some point before this is over.

This morning, I was speaking with Jimmy, our youth pastor, about the cohort, and a question came to mind that I can’t recall ever asking about in the cohort.

What is the difference between teaching and preaching?

Honestly, I wrestled with this question for a long time. Over the last twenty-six years, I’ve primarily attended two churches: Emmanuel Baptist Church in Sterling, Colorado, and New Harmony Church in Salem, Missouri. In those churches, I’ve served within the ministries of five lead pastors, each with a distinct preaching style. Some were shouters, some not. Some were more topical, others not so topical. I spent thirteen years at Emmanuel never wondering about this, but when I moved to New Harmony, I heard people say, “He’s more of a preacher than a teacher.”

Immediately, I wondered what they meant. I had never heard or made that comparative statement in my life. I thought back on all the preachers I had known and thought, “Aren’t all of them good teachers?” I never thought that any of them were bad teachers. But as I heard more people say this, I began paying closer attention.

Conclusion? Yes, there is a difference. However, I still struggled to describe it. It was the kind of thing that I knew when I heard it. But as I’ve also refined my preaching skill in my time at New Harmony, I think I’ve arrived at a way to describe it. I’m positive I’m not the only person who ever said this, but this legitimately came to me one day while I was preparing a sermon.

The difference between teaching and preaching is one word: prophetic. I don’t mean prophetic in the sense of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Nor do I mean prophetic in the YouTube way where men and women are offering predictions for the year ahead – of whom I broadly say are falsely prophesying. I mean prophetic in the 1 Corinthians 14 way, which I contend contains the operational definition of New Testament prophetic ministry. Let me highlight two things from that chapter.

3 On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. – 1 Corinthians 14:3 (ESV)

24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. – 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 (ESV)

In Paul’s own words, prophesying does a few things. It upbuilds, encourages, consoles, and calls people to account, disclosing the heart’s secrets. What I intuited from hearing became more concrete when that occurred to me. I began asking myself, “Am I just telling my hearers what the Bible means, or am I also including some time to take aim for their hearts with application?”

Teachers tell you what the Bible is saying. They can exegete a passage, break it down, ask the right questions, and if done well, help their hearers understand what a text means. Every good preacher must also be a good teacher. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that any man who stands in a pulpit to preach must be able to teach well. However, preaching isn’t just about what the text means.

In our cohort, I shared a metaprocess that I use to help guide me in my sermon preparation. I got this process from a book entitled, Expositional Preaching, by David Helm.

Exegete the Passage   ➡  Theological Reflection   ➡  Contextualize

I reworded it with simpler terms.

What does the passage say?   ➡  What does the whole Bible say?   ➡  What can be said to us?

Exegesis and theological reflection are irreducible components of solid teaching. Teachers and preachers alike must be proficient at them, but these alone do not constitute preaching. A man who stands behind the pulpit and does an excellent exegesis and theological reflection upon a text, then sits down, has not preached. He delivered an excellent teaching, but never crossed over into preaching.

Contextualization is where teaching becomes preaching. It is the prophetic aspect of preaching ministry. It has been helpful for me to remember that the word preacher could be said to be prophet + teacher = preacher. That isn’t the actual etymology of the word preacher, but it’s helpful to me for remembering the difference. Go back to the definition of prophesying.

Prophesying upbuilds, encourages, consoles, and calls people to account, disclosing the heart’s secrets.

Prophesying isn’t this mystical practice that many have in mind. In your preparation, you are simply asking the LORD for a specific word for your people. I try to do this every time I prepare. Lord, now that you’ve shown me what this passage means, how do you want me to apply it to the ones listening? And I keep asking myself that question, even as I’m in the act of preaching. I maintain an internal dialogue with the LORD the entire time I preach. Whether it occurs to me in my prep time or it comes to me in the moment of preaching, I weigh it and say it. I weigh it because sometimes it’s not the LORD, but rather it’s me trying to be creative. Knowing the difference takes practice.

When we contextualize, we exegete our people. What are our people saying? How are they living? What are they struggling with? Knowing your audience is crucial. Sometimes preachers will get asked to preach in new places where they don’t know anyone. Exegete the culture. You may not know the people, but you probably know something about the culture. I’ve preached in Cape Town, South Africa several times now, where, initially, I didn’t know the people or the culture well. But I knew that people and cultures may shift, but our struggles are all the same. Exegete the human problem. Then, apply the Scripture you explained to the problems in the listening people. Let the Word upbuild, encourage, console, and disclose the heart’s secrets through skillful application to people’s souls.

Here, I must warn that this can be done entirely in the flesh, especially for men who’ve been preaching for a long time. You already have a repository of Biblical knowledge from years of study and preaching. You can draw from that and then couple it with the knowledge that you have about your people and preach a sermon that steps all over their toes. Those gluttons for punishment who enjoy some toe-stompin’ preaching might even tell you that it was a really good sermon. But as far as your preparation went, it wasn’t a work of the Holy Spirit.

Pastor Noah once told us that he wants his preaching to stomp our hearts, not our toes. The heart is only stomped when the Holy Spirit is involved from beginning to end in a sermon. From the preparation to the last amen, He must be intimately involved. The fruit of a Spirit-led sermon is a heart with its secrets laid bare, not bruised toes.

Am I Teaching or Preaching?

Now, I can’t say more without saying this: Teaching is a spiritual gift of the Holy Spirit. Teaching the Bible is different from teaching anything else. Since the Scriptures can only be interpreted by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, anyone in the church who teaches well does so with the Spirit’s help.

With that said, you only need to ask yourself if you are gifted at explaining a text, but not so much at contextualizing a text. If you find that answer to be, yes, then you are probably gifted as a teacher. And to be clear, I’m not elevating one over the other.

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, – Ephesians 4:11 (ESV)

Teachers are gifts to the church. If all the church needed were pastors (shepherds), then Jesus wouldn’t give us teachers. Fully equipped churches will have gifted teachers and preachers.

Now, the million-dollar question is this. Can a gifted teacher become a gifted preacher? Yes, but that doesn’t mean that teaching is always a stepping stone to preaching. Three verses lead me to this conclusion.

6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; – Romans 12:6 (ESV)

1 Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. – 1 Corinthians 14:1 (ESV)

1 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. – 1 Timothy 3:1 (ESV)

These verses tell me two things. Romans 12:6 says that we should prophesy in proportion to our faith. In other words, we’ve been given measures of grace for using our gifts, so exercise those gifts accordingly. If you know you’ve been gifted to teach, do it well and be satisfied in doing so. Then, if you find within yourself a desire to prophesy as you teach – preach – but you don’t feel equipped, according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:1 and 1 Timothy 3:1, it is acceptable and good to pursue that gift.

How do you do that? The easy answer is prayer, and no answer is complete without it. In addition to prayer, though, I would add a couple of things. First, whenever I desire to improve my skills, I start watching and learning from already skilled people. Yes, read books, but more importantly, watch and learn from people who preach well. Listen to them with a critical ear for honing your own skill. You shouldn’t copycat them, but you can learn and adapt something into your own toolbelt.

Then, I would learn the art of listening in prayer. This is more than just praying that the LORD will give you a gift. Preaching goes beyond explaining the meaning of the text and seeks specific application to the hearts of men and women. How can you expose the secrets of a person’s heart unless the Holy Spirit leads you? Discerning the voice of the LORD from the noise of every other thought, every other voice that can be going on in your head as you prepare and preach, is vital.

If you do those three things – pray, watch and learn, discern the LORD’s voice – then, if the LORD wills, you will grow in the prophetic aspects of preaching. But even then, no preacher prophesies perfectly, so we test everything.

I hope this has been helpful. My hope was to explain the difference between teaching and preaching, not elevate one over the other. Both are Holy Spirit-dependent gifts essential to every local church’s spiritual health. If you have questions, leave them in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer them.