Ryan Denton recently (and correctly, in my view) critiqued modern preaching’s “90% exegesis, 10% application” model, contrasting it with the “urgent, warm, and searching” sermons of Spurgeon and the Puritans, who prioritized application. He advocates John Calvin’s balance of “rigorous exegesis with warm, earnest application.” Denton, whose X handle is @TexasPreacher, elaborated: “The reason that preaching in the streets, jails, and homeless shelters is so useful for preachers…is that it requires you to interact with the unwashed, unclean, non-church people—and to learn how to do so in a way that they understand. You learn very quickly that they don’t care about Calvin, theological nit picking, seminary jargon, and ethereal platitudes. It’ll teach you…to keep to the point—Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” This exposes a critical failure: modern pulpits, insulated by academicism, neglect heart-transforming application, leaving believers unequipped for life’s challenges. Pastors must apply Scripture robustly to all spheres, ensuring the church fulfills its role as the “pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).
Scripture is “living and active” (Hebrews 4:12), demanding application to every vocation—parents nurturing children, laborers upholding integrity, citizens pursuing justice. Colonial preachers like Gad Hitchcock (1774) exhorted diverse roles, ensuring biblical truth shaped daily living. Charles Spurgeon emphasized: “The sermon is not finished till it is applied, till it is brought home to the hearts and consciences of our hearers.” Yet modern sermons, laden with exegesis, often prioritize doctrinal precision over heart engagement, delivering theological treatises that fail to stir obedience. Calvin warned that without application, “men will never move one foot.” Application is both exhilarating and arduous, requiring pastors to bridge eternal truths to human experience—marriage, work, community—making Scripture relevant to life’s complexities.
Pastors shaped by real-world engagement excel in this task. Spurgeon’s open-air preaching honed his ability to connect Scripture to human need, as Denton notes: street preaching “trains you to keep to the point.” Such experience teaches preachers to avoid “seminary jargon” and proclaim Christ with clarity, addressing listeners’ practical struggles (2 Timothy 4:2). Without robust application, sermons become academic exercises, leaving congregations unprepared for crises. During COVID-19, many churchgoers, starved of applied preaching, floundered—unsure how to navigate mandates, economic hardship, or societal division—because pulpits failed to equip them with Scripture’s guidance for such trials.
The consequences of neglecting application are profound. “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint” (Proverbs 29:18). Pulpits prioritizing data over exhortation produce passive believers, ill-equipped to apply God’s Word to family, work, or society. Sermons should balance exegesis with application—generally half each—as a principle to equip for “every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16). Puritans modeled this, applying Scripture to daily life, from parenting to civic duties, fostering resilient faith. The 2020 pandemic revealed the cost of weak preaching: congregations, unmoored by unapplied doctrine, lacked the biblical framework to face challenges.
The pulpit leads the world, as Herman Melville noted. Pastors must preach with urgency, applying God’s Word to all of life.
Chris Hume is the host of The Lancaster Patriot Podcast and the author of several books, including Seven Statist Sins. He can be reached at info@thelancasterpatriot.com.
