“A bishop must have a good reputation. He must have only one wife, be sober, use good judgment, be respectable, be hospitable, and be able to teach” (1 Timothy 3:2 GW).
The ability to teach God’s Word is a fundamental requirement for a bishop, pastor, or overseer. This is a recurring theme within the Pastoral Epistles of 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus…
“If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed” (1 Timothy 4:6).
“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).
“But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1).
In light of this, we can say that expository Biblical teaching is something that should characterize most pastoral sermons. For instance, a minister who customarily preaches topical messages that are comprised of various subjects he wishes to discuss may find it difficult to consistently teach “…the message of God’s truth” (GNT). The same may also be true of those who regularly emphasize a few preferred themes or favored doctrines from the pulpit.
One source makes a hard-hitting and thought-provoking observation in regard to this subject: “…There are various ways to use the word of God deceitfully, or to tamper with it. Using a Bible text to preach a ‘sermon’ that has little or nothing to do with the Bible is one of the common ways of doing it.” (1) Therefore, a sermon that features little or no Biblical content is not likely to communicate “…the things which are proper for sound doctrine.”
Another pastoral commentator explains the value of expository teaching from the pulpit in a very transparent manner…
“There are certain subjects in the Bible that I find more fascinating than others. There are some things that I love to preach on; there are other things I don’t like preaching about. Those things that I don’t like to preach about, I find ways of not preaching about them; sort of bypassing them.
When you’re going straight through a book of the Bible from beginning to end, you can’t bypass them, and you’re speaking on issues that people need to hear addressed, but rarely hear addressed in the church because they are not popular subjects. Yet God would not have put them in the Word unless they were important subjects. If you go straight through a book in teaching, you will be declaring the whole counsel of God. If you go straight through the Bible, you will be declaring the whole counsel of God, and your emphasis will become a biblical emphasis.” (2)
(1) Paul T. Butler. The Bible Study Textbook Series, Studies In Second Corinthians (College Press) [p. 93] Copyright © 1988 College Press Publishing Company https://archive.org/stream/BibleStudyTextbookSeriesSecondCorinthians/132Corinthians-Butler_djvu.txt
(2) Chuck Smith, “The Philosophy of Ministry of Calvary Chapel”