lso important here is the central place that he gave to the Bible in his preaching. This was a natural result of his view of the Bible. He held to an "authoritarian philosophy of plenary verbal inspiration" (Wagner, p. 36) and to the inerrancy of the autographs: "It is my conviction that the Scriptures, as originally committed to writing, were safeguarded in every word by the Holy Spirit" (J. Morgan, This Was His Faith, p. 18). These convictions reveal why he seldom deviated from what many refer to as his "expository method". "Preach the Word" was the motif of Morgan's life. He once said: "I have listened to the voices of the ages but I have not sought my messages from them. On the contrary, I have sought to find the bearing on these voices from the Word of God …. I have never found an hour in my ministry in which the Bible has had no message" (Harries, p. 242). Ralph Turnbull has observed: "Everything Morgan did was submerged in his belief that truth was mediated in and through the Bible …. Morgan preached as a teacher, explaining and illustrating the text or the book" (p. 434-35).
hile Morgan is most often referred to as an "expository" preacher, he might more accurately be described as a "textual" preacher according to the traditional distinction between topical, textual and expository sermons. Of the two hundred and sixty sermons in the Westminster Pulpit, two hundred and twenty eight of them are based on a single text. Only thirty-two of the two hundred and sixty are topical sermons (that is, they are based on two or more separate texts or on no text at all--only eleven sermons have no text). This reflects Morgan's commitment to exposition. Of these two hundred and twenty-eight sermons, only fifteen are actually "expository" in the sense that they are based on passages longer than three verses. On the other hand, two hundred and thirteen are based on passages of three verses or less; of these one hundred and seventy-seven are from one verse and twenty-nine are from two verses. Of the forty-nine different texts used as a basis of his topical sermons, forty-three are only one verse long and only one is longer than three verses (it is four verses long). In this selection of sermons, Morgan consistently confined himself to small portions of Scripture in his preaching.
hen one examines the texts on which Morgan preached, he is struck with the frequency of sermons from what Morgan called the "New Testament Pentateuch" (the gospels and Acts). The Westminster Pulpit includes eighty nine sermons from one of these five books; he preached from them more often than he did from the entire rest of the New Testament or from the entire Old Testament. Of these books, Matthew was his favorite (he preached from it twenty-nine times, more than any other book in the Bible. A close second was John (twenty-two sermons) though he only preached three times from John's epistles. This pattern is a result of his commitment to Christological themes in preaching. Other favorite New Testament books are Acts (seventeen sermons), Hebrews (seventeen sermons), Luke (twelve sermons) and Romans (eleven sermons). Morgan preached from the New Testament most frequently (at almost a three to one ratio): sixty-four of the two hundred and twenty-eight sermons are from Old Testament texts. The Pentateuch was his favorite source of Old Testament preaching (20 sermons). Favorite books include Psalms (ten), Isaiah (eight), Genesis (seven), Deuteronomy (seven), and Proverbs (seven). Only four times does he formally pair Old Testament and New Testament texts in the same sermon.
lso important here is the central place that he gave to the Bible in his preaching. This was a natural result of his view of the Bible. He held to an "authoritarian philosophy of plenary verbal inspiration" (Wagner, p. 36) and to the inerrancy of the autographs: "It is my conviction that the Scriptures, as originally committed to writing, were safeguarded in every word by the Holy Spirit" (J. Morgan, This Was His Faith, p. 18). These convictions reveal why he seldom deviated from what many refer to as his "expository method". "Preach the Word" was the motif of Morgan's life. He once said: "I have listened to the voices of the ages but I have not sought my messages from them. On the contrary, I have sought to find the bearing on these voices from the Word of God …. I have never found an hour in my ministry in which the Bible has had no message" (Harries, p. 242). Ralph Turnbull has observed: "Everything Morgan did was submerged in his belief that truth was mediated in and through the Bible …. Morgan preached as a teacher, explaining and illustrating the text or the book" (p. 434-35).
hile Morgan is most often referred to as an "expository" preacher, he might more accurately be described as a "textual" preacher according to the traditional distinction between topical, textual and expository sermons. Of the two hundred and sixty sermons in the Westminster Pulpit, two hundred and twenty eight of them are based on a single text. Only thirty-two of the two hundred and sixty are topical sermons (that is, they are based on two or more separate texts or on no text at all--only eleven sermons have no text). This reflects Morgan's commitment to exposition. Of these two hundred and twenty-eight sermons, only fifteen are actually "expository" in the sense that they are based on passages longer than three verses. On the other hand, two hundred and thirteen are based on passages of three verses or less; of these one hundred and seventy-seven are from one verse and twenty-nine are from two verses. Of the forty-nine different texts used as a basis of his topical sermons, forty-three are only one verse long and only one is longer than three verses (it is four verses long). In this selection of sermons, Morgan consistently confined himself to small portions of Scripture in his preaching.