In this video, Dr. Michael Reeves explains the purpose of preaching.
People sometimes think that preaching is perhaps just one activity that the church does. And when it’s looked at as just one activity that happens as the church gathers, it can feel like preaching is really little more than one man lecturing, giving some ideas to educate us. In reality, preaching is to be understood like this: God is a preacher. He sends forth His Word to drive the darkness out with His light. It’s how life comes into being by God’s Word coming out. And the church, as God’s Word goes out, the church comes into being as the creature of God’s Word. Without the Word preached, there is no church.
So, the church finds its foundation in preaching. No preaching: no church. Because it is the Word of God that gives life to the church. And that’s why you see, for example, at the time of the Reformation when this was recovered, that the Reformers saw the foundation stone of the church is preaching, not the Pope or anything else. It meant that the expository preaching of the Bible, the unfolding, the expounding of Scripture became the heartbeat and engine room of the Reformation.
And that should be encouragement for us today because it means when that Word of God goes out purely as it did in the time of the Reformation, we can see that kind of reformation again because that same Word has lost none of its inexorable life-giving power.