CharlieJ
Puritan Board Junior
Okay, then I'm confused as to what other preaching there is. Expository and Topical are the two I'm familiar with.
Let's put it this way. Expository preaching is all about developing a passage in its context. RH is a type of expository preaching that is particularly sensitive of a passage's broader context, that of it being a part of God's big story. Thus, in RH methodology, the preacher has the responsibility (at some point in the message) of zooming out of that particular text to relate it to Christ and the gospel.
So, instead of the story of David and Bathsheba being about guarding your heart from lust and the consequences of adultery, it becomes a story about David as a type of Christ. He is king, yet he cannot be the hope of Israel because he sins. Christ the true king is always faithful to His bride and we can put our hope in Him because He perfectly fulfilled all righteousness for our salvation. Additionally, we can obey Him as our perfect authority knowing His faithful love for us.
You can see that the tricky part is balancing the immediate and broader contexts. Too much immediacy tends to lead to moralism or commentary preaching; too much broad context makes every text essentially the same message or results in forcing Christ into a text in an inappropriate way. It's tough!
My favorite book so far on the issue is Dennis Johnson's Him We Proclaim. I like it because he's thought long and hard about the possible weaknesses of the method and has worked to avoid them.