Saving Eutychus: How to preach God's word and keep people awake

by Gary Millar

We need to keep a firm grip on the fact that we’re

the Gentiles that Paul keeps talking about—the ones with whom the Old Testament Jews wanted very little to

In short, it’s helpful to remember that we’re late arrivals who are only here because Jesus invited us. As Gentiles, we were never under the law—and

application to ourselves, but our work may not be finished there. If I can put it like this, the answer is not always just Jesus (even if I always want to preach ‘the gospel’ from this text). Is the Old Testament moving towards Jesus? Yes, it is. Do I want people to walk away with a fresh sense of the power and grace that God has given us in Christ every time I open the Old Testament? Yes, I do. Is Jesus visible in every verse of the Old Testament? No, he isn’t. If we pull back the camera far enough, eventually Jesus will come into view as the fulfilment of all that is going on. But sometimes we have to pull back quite a long way to see that. And, in the meantime, we ignore at our peril all the other stuff that is there.

Charles Spurgeon once said to a young preacher: Don’t you know, young man, that from every town and every village and every hamlet in England, wherever it may be, there is a road to London? So from every text of Scripture there is a road to Christ. And my dear brother, your business is, when you get to a text, to say, now, what is the road to Christ? I have never found a text that had not got a road to Christ in it, and if ever I do find one, I will go over hedge and ditch but I would get at my Master, for the sermon cannot do any good unless there is a savour of Christ in it.[4]

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”

What sets these people apart is their agility in moving from one point to another… the snap, the jolt, the agility of delivery that conveys underlying passion and adds that elusive zing. When you try speaking like that, which I urge you to do, you’ll find it takes a huge amount of energy. But it’s exactly that energy that’s transmitted to your listeners. It’s contagious. In short, when it comes to sermon delivery, it’s not just your range of volume, pitch and speed that counts—it’s your agility in moving between modes. The drama in your delivery is all about in-flight dynamics. It’s hard work, and to make progress you’ll need to lose your natural inhibitions and fly a little. But if you keep working at it, you’ll find it eventually becomes more natural.

The more sudden the change, the more it grabs the attention.

go. Here’s the goal: make sure you’re totally sold on the big idea of your sermon. Make sure you’re driven by it. Then you’ll know how to say the things you say, because they will come from a heartfelt passion.

And it might even keep them awake.

sinful. To miss the point of a passage because we have decided that what we want to say is more important than what God has to say is sinful.

Here’s another one of my ‘top ten tips’ in action. Notice, I’ve spent all that time building up towards the words “Philip went down to a city in Samaria” in Acts 8:5. Rather than reading the verse first and then unpacking it, I’m trying to create a sense of anticipation first. I’m working towards the text, rather than away from it. The same applies as I approach verse 14 and then verse 25 in the next section. I’ll make the point, and then I’ll show the verse.