Interview with Dick Lucas: Your Favorite Preacher’s Favorite Preacher

WordPartners’ Global Ministries Director Todd Kelly recently caught up with the Reverend Dick Lucas after the EMA Conference in London. Lucas’ preaching ministry and training of expositors have influenced many top evangelical preachers including Kent Hughes, David Helm, Alistair Begg, William Taylor, and Vaughan Roberts. Tim Keller says that he owes “a debt [he] can never repay” to Dick Lucas.

In our time with Dick, we shared with him how his legacy through Proclamation Trust is reaching into over 40 countries across the world through WordPartners Training program, in many cases taking training to the literal ends of the earth.

We thought it would be valuable to have Dick share his story, the story of Proclamation Trust, and talk about the life-giving power of God’s Word.

Read the transcript of the interview:

1. 00:00—13:30 | Dick Lucas’ Early Years and what C.S. Lewis was like as a professor
2. 13:30—32:05 | Dick’s Beginnings in Ministry & Growing as a Preacher
3. 32:05—37:52 | The History and Development of Proclamation Trust
4. 37:52—56:25 | Dick Lucas on Expository Preaching and Its Impact
5. 56:25—end | Dick Lucas on the Cultural Moment

Great Quotes from the Interview

• “Our theological colleges are necessary, of course, but it’s very hard to learn how to ride a bicycle in a room. You don’t learn to be a preacher in a theological college; that’s why PT really started.”
• “Israel lost its battles not because the Philistines were strong but because they weren’t trusting in God… And even if they were few and trusted in God, they kicked the Philistines out.”
• “I don’t think any explanation can be given for that except that there were many people praying…”
• “We didn’t start with a plan, we didn’t sit around and have a committee, this started naturally…”
• In speaking about preaching today: “I think we need more simplicity in the moment.”
• “Expository preaching is taking the Bible seriously as the Word of God.”
• “It is correct…I’ve got to find out why it says it, in the way it says it, and for the purpose it says it.”
• “Expository preaching is not at the expense of prayer, of witness and study.”
• “The danger [in preaching] is imposition, not exposition. I bring my framework, my ideas, my theology, and I place it on the text.”
• “We are in for some fiery trials, but that is never actually destroys the church. What destroys the church is the false teaching…”