"Doctrinal preaching is again a great need.

The one denomination that has been almost wholly swept into the current of the modern skeptical attitude toward the Scriptures is that denomination that for years has laid no stress on doctrinal preaching. it is not controversial, combative, debative preaching of the fighting order that is needed; nor yet a fragmentary message--"first principles" alone: there is a place for that; but 'doctrinal preaching' after Paul's kind; the verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter, book-by-book unfolding of the whole doctrine. Let us tie the churches fast to the Book!"

--Word and Work, September 1925, 277.

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I suspect that this little unsigned paragraph is from R.H. Boll (WW Editor) or maybe Stanford Chambers, H.L. Olmstead, or E.L. Jorgenson (Co-Editors). Regardless, I like the point: doctrinal preaching is preaching that emcompasses the full Biblical text and arises from the full Biblical text. Good doctrinal preaching does not assault the hearer with the text. It does not use the Bible as a club with which to beat you or a cannon with which to shoot you. Doctrinal preaching unfolds the text's teaching and mediates the text's message to the church. The church sends the preacher to the text and rightly expects the preacher to return with a word from God that will shape the church into God's intent. Woe to that preacher when the message brought back is something less, or more, than good doctrine. Woe to the preacher who brings back a fight, or another serving of milk. And woe to that church whose expectation is so low as to settle for something less than good doctrine.