The following was quoted during a sermon from one of my own pastors titled “The Effects of Exposition“.

closing our ears to biblically faithful preaching is to cut ourselves off from the means of grace through which we are more conformed to the image of Christ . . . – this is how the Christian is sanctified. It is through the preached Word and it’s exposition.

Pastor Desmond Gilmore

He then goes on to quote James Renihan. In his book “Edification and Beauty” says . . .

In a primitivist religious environment, Scripture must be at the very center of the life of the participants. This is especially true with regard to preaching. It was the great means by which Christ himself ‘may be said to preach . . . when his ministers do it in His name, His stead, or by His authority’. Nehemiah Coxe considered the work of preaching to be the eminent ‘Work and Business of the Pastor’ because “he is to be the mouth of God to the people, to deliver his message from God, and speak to them in his Name’.

James Renihan