Let the Text Speak: Song Tae-geun's Approach to Expository Preaching

Identified by Method

When Samil Church, one of Seoul’s historic Presbyterian congregations, announced the appointment of its fifth senior pastor in October 2012, the search committee offered a brief explanation: Song Tae-geun was recognized as “one of the representative expository preachers in the Korean church.” That a preaching method would be cited as the primary rationale for a pastoral call is unusual. It signals something about what Song is known for.

Born in 1956, Song Tae-geun earned his undergraduate and M.Div. degrees from Chongshin University before pursuing a D.Min. at Fuller Theological Seminary. He served as senior pastor of Gangnam Church in Noryangjin from 1994 to 2012, growing the congregation from 900 to around 5,000 members. He began his ministry at Samil Church in October 2012 and is scheduled to retire in April 2027.

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A Specific Definition of Expository Preaching

“Expository preaching” is a widely used term in Korean church circles, often applied loosely to any sermon that references Scripture at length. Song’s definition is narrower and more exacting. At a biblical exegesis seminar for pastors, he stated his position plainly:

“Preaching must be expository preaching. Drawing out the true meaning of Scripture based on exegesis is the foundational premise of any sermon.”

For him, exposition is not borrowing a theme from a passage and developing it independently. It is locating the author’s intent within the original text and making that intent audible to a contemporary congregation. He holds two horizons simultaneously: “A faithful interpretation of the text’s horizon must go hand in hand with an interpretation of the real world and the horizon of the congregation living within it.” The text governs; the congregation receives. Neither horizon is allowed to crowd out the other.

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The Preparation Process

What separates Song’s approach from many expository preachers is the rigor of his weekly preparation cycle. He has described the process in interviews, and it is worth following step by step.

Step one: Original-language exegesis. Preparation begins Thursday evening. The starting point is the Greek or Hebrew text—specifically, tracing “the intent behind the vocabulary.” Historical background research, literary genre analysis, and theological synthesis follow. He relies on the Word Biblical Commentary series as a standing reference and reportedly works through around twenty volumes of material per sermon. He visits bookstores in the Gwanghwamun district every Thursday and Friday and spends roughly 400,000 to 500,000 Korean won on books each month.

Step two: Longhand drafting. From this exegetical work, he writes out a full sermon manuscript by hand—typically eight to nine pages.

Step three: Five rounds of rewriting. He then copies that manuscript by hand five times. His explanation is direct: “When you write something out by hand, the content enters your mind completely.” This is not a memory technique in the conventional sense. It is a process of absorption—the text and its interpretation moving from study notes into the preacher’s interior.

Step four: Reduce and discard. Once the five rounds are complete, all the handwritten pages are thrown away. What remains is a single A4 sheet—a compressed outline that functions as “a guideline to keep from straying from the theme,” not a script to be read at the pulpit.

Step five: Preaching without notes. On Sunday, Song preaches from memory, maintaining eye contact with the congregation. This entire process typically concludes around 3:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, leaving two to three hours for sleep before the service.

The discipline this represents is not merely about effort. It reflects a conviction: the preacher cannot credibly invite the congregation to trust the text unless the text has already worked its way into the preacher’s own body and mind.

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Withholding the Conclusion

One feature of Song’s preaching that congregants and observers frequently note is the absence of explicit, prescriptive application. He does not typically end a sermon by telling the congregation what to do. A forty-five-minute expository message may move through the text without ever delivering a “therefore, you should…” instruction.

This has been described informally as “inconvenient exposition”—a style that declines the hospitality of making things easy. The preacher does not close the gap between text and listener by providing a pre-packaged takeaway. Instead, the congregation is expected to follow the exposition through and arrive at its own conclusions.

This is a deliberate method, not an oversight. Song’s operating assumption is that the text itself carries communicative intent. The preacher’s task is to make that intent visible and then step aside. Illustrations, when they appear at all, are drawn from “natural everyday material” chosen when they fit the flow of the sermon—not collected in advance as a rhetorical resource. Sermon titles are typically drawn directly from the text itself. Every element of the sermon is oriented toward the passage rather than toward a separate persuasive goal.

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The First Series at Samil Church

Song’s approach at Samil Church is illustrated by his opening choice of text. He arrived at one of Seoul’s historically significant congregations during a period of transition and preached consecutive sermons through the book of Philippians for twenty-four straight weeks, beginning with his first Sunday at the pulpit. Those sermons were later collected and published under the title The Call of God.

The decision to open with a sustained book-by-book study—rather than a topical welcome series or a vision statement—reflects his understanding of what the church needs from the pulpit: sustained encounter with a biblical text from beginning to end.

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Published Work

Song has published extensively. His most recognizable series carries the title Kwaedonanma (快刀亂麻, meaning “cutting through complexity with a sharp blade”)—expository sermon collections covering Acts, Revelation, Samuel, James, and Daniel, all published by Jibee-ui-saem. The series title captures something of his preaching posture: a refusal to simplify for its own sake, paired with a willingness to cut through difficult material precisely.

Other titles include God Does It All, Faith Is Like That, Everything That Ends Is a Beginning, Therefore Pray, and Wisdom Across the Ages. He has also taught at Chongshin University, extending his methodology into formal theological education.

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The Pastoral Frame

Preaching method does not exist in isolation from pastoral conviction. In a major interview with the Weekly Christian Newspaper, Song addressed what he sees as a chronic problem in Korean church culture: “The Korean church needs to ask whether it has become intoxicated by its own vision and drifted from God’s will and perspective.” The goal of pastoral ministry, in his framing, is for the congregation to see Christ alone. Sermon method follows from that goal. If the preacher’s rhetorical presence or persuasive skill becomes the dominant force in the pulpit, something has gone wrong. The text must be allowed to carry its own weight.

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Practical Takeaways for Preachers

For those interested in Song Tae-geun’s method as a model for their own preaching practice, several elements are worth examining:

• Exegetical anchor: Begin with the original-language text. Trace vocabulary intent before reaching for systematic or topical categories.
• Preparation rhythm: A multi-day cycle that moves from exegesis to longhand draft to repeated rewriting before compressing everything into a single-page guide.
• Application restraint: Resist the habit of closing every sermon with a prescriptive list. Trust the congregation to make connections when the exposition is sufficiently clear and faithful.
• Text entry points: The Kwaedonanma series through Acts provides one of the most accessible examples of his method applied over an extended consecutive series.

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Expository preaching has a long history, but what it looks like in practice varies enormously. Song Tae-geun’s version—rooted in original-language exegesis, disciplined through repeated handwriting, and committed to letting the text reach the congregation directly—represents one carefully worked-out form of that tradition. Tracing the logic behind the method reveals something about what expository preaching is actually trying to do: not deliver information about a text, but allow the text itself to speak to the people gathered to hear it.

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