By Sam Chan, TGC.
There’s a popular contemporary Christian worship song called “My Lighthouse” by Rend Collective. While it features a catchy chorus, the song has divided some churches over a fundamental question: Is it acceptable to call Jesus a “lighthouse” if the Bible never explicitly uses that term?
Usually, this question is framed within the debate about what’s “allowed” or “forbidden” in worship (regulative principle versus normative principle). Worship wars aside, if we look at this question through the lens of communication––specifically speech act theory (SAT), as I’ll discuss below––the question becomes whether the image of a lighthouse accurately captures the action God is performing in Scripture.
Enter the preaching wars. In many corners of the Christian tradition, expository preaching––as opposed to topical or narrative styles––is often viewed as the gold standard. According to this approach, expounding a text requires a double task: exposition (explaining what the text means) and exhortation (applying the significance of that text to the audience).
The challenge is moving from one to the other. Historical-grammatical tools help us understand what the text said, but how do we know what it is saying to a contemporary audience?
When preachers are afraid to move beyond the literal words of the text, they can fall into what Kevin Vanhoozer has called the “heresy of propositional paraphrase”—simply repeating what a commentary says without ever moving the heart. It’s exposition without exhortation.
Relying solely on propositional information is often “left-brained” (as Iain McGilchrist might say) and can be elitist, mirroring university-style lectures that many in a post-Christendom context find difficult to engage. Today’s audiences (as in many other times and places) are shaped by stories, music, drama, and emotion—not just facts and data.
If one goal of preaching is to challenge and change the audience’s character and behavior, then we must reach the heart. As someone once summarized Thomas Cranmer’s famous words: “What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.” To reach the heart, we need imagination, anecdotes, and stories.
But where’s our warrant to do this? This is where SAT can be a useful tool for preachers. SAT provides a pathway through the preaching wars by showing that the distinction between meaning (exposition) and significance (exhortation) is a false dichotomy.