More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
May 11 - July 9, 2018
Because preachers are no longer regarded as the intellectual or even the spiritual leaders in their communities, their image has changed.
In addition, preaching takes place in an overcommunicated society. Mass media bombard us with a hundred thousand “messages” a day.
More important, perhaps, is that some ministers in the pulpit feel robbed of an authoritative message. Much modern theology offers them little more than holy hunches,
In a day of activism, it is more relevant to declare instead, “It is not right that we should forsake the service of tables to preach the Word of God.”
Those in the pulpit face the pressing temptation to deliver some message other than that of the Scriptures—a political system (either right-wing or left-wing), a theory of economics, a new religious philosophy, old religious slogans, or a trend in psychology. Ministers can proclaim anything in a stained-glass voice at 11:30 on Sunday morning following the singing of hymns. Yet when they fail to preach the Scriptures, they abandon their authority.
Expository preaching is the communication of a biblical concept, derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, and literary study of a passage in its context, which the Holy Spirit first applies to the personality and experience of the preacher, then through the preacher, applies to the hearers.
“Do you, as a preacher, endeavor to bend your thought to the Scriptures, or do you use the Scriptures to support your thought?”
In their study expositors search for the objective meaning of a passage through their understanding of the language, backgrounds, and setting of the text. Then in the pulpit they present enough of their study to the congregation so that their listeners may check the interpretation for themselves.
As Henry David Thoreau wrote, “It takes two to speak the truth—one to speak, and another to hear.”
Since the souls of listeners depend upon it, we must offer our hearers sufficient information so that they can decide for themselves if what they are hearing is indeed what the Bible says.
Phillips Brooks was on to something when he described preaching as “truth poured through personality.”
that!” A commitment to expository preaching should develop the preacher into a mature Christian. As we study our Bible, the Holy Spirit studies us. As we prepare expository sermons, God prepares us. As P. T. Forsyth said, “The Bible is the supreme preacher to the preacher.”
“True preaching comes when the loving heart and the disciplined mind are laid at the disposal of the Holy Spirit.”6 Ultimately God is more interested in developing messengers than messages, and because the Holy Spirit confronts us primarily through the Bible, we must learn to listen to God before speaking for God.
Expositors think in three areas. First, as exegetes we struggle with the meanings of the biblical writer. Then, as people of God we wrestle with how God wants to change us. Finally, as preachers we ponder what God wants to say to the congregation through us.
On the outside people lose jobs, worry about their children, and find crabgrass invading their lawns. Normal people do not lose sleep over the Jebusites, the Canaanites, or the Perizzites, or even about what Abraham, Moses, or Paul has said or done. They lie awake wondering about grocery prices, crop failures, quarrels with a spouse, diagnosis of a malignancy, a frustrating sex life, or the rat race where only rats seem to win. If the sermon does not make much difference in that world, they wonder if it makes any difference at all.
Expository preaching—the communication of a biblical concept, derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, and literary study of a passage in its context, which the Holy Spirit first applies to the personality and experience of the preacher, then through the preacher, applies to the hearers.
Sermons seldom fail because they have too many ideas; more often they fail because they deal with too many unrelated ideas.
A sermon should be a bullet, not buckshot. Ideally each sermon is the explanation, interpretation, or application of a single dominant idea supported by other ideas, all drawn from one passage or several passages of Scripture.
A classic statement of this concept comes from J. H. Jowett in his Yale lectures on preaching: I have a conviction that no sermon is ready for preaching, not ready for writing out, until we can express its theme in a short, pregnant sentence as clear as a crystal. I find the getting of that sentence is the hardest, the most exacting, and the most fruitful labour in my study. To compel oneself to fashion that sentence, to dismiss every word that is vague, ragged, ambiguous, to think oneself through to a form of words which defines the theme with scrupulous exactness—this is surely one of the
...more
Unless ideas are expressed in words, we cannot understand, evaluate, or communicate them. If we will not—or cannot—think ourselves clear so that we say what we mean, we have no business in the pulpit. We are like a singer who can’t sing, an actor who can’t act, or an accountant who can’t add.
questions: What were we talking about today? What were we saying about what we were talking about? Yet Sunday after Sunday men and women leave church unable to state the preacher’s basic idea because the preacher has not bothered to state it in the sermon. When people leave church in a mental fog, they do so at their spiritual peril.
Effective biblical preaching requires insight, imagination, and spiritual sensitivity—none of which comes from merely following directions.
A conscientious ministry in the Scriptures depends on thoughtful planning for the entire year. Those who use the lectionary have passages chosen for them. The decision they must make is which particular passage from the Old or the New Testament they will focus on. Those who are not in the traditions that use a lectionary can save time by preparing a preaching calendar.
We must tailor our sermons to our time, and the cutting should be done in the study rather than in the pulpit.
To preach effectively, therefore, expositors must be involved in three different worlds: the world of the Bible, the modern world, and the particular world in which we are called to preach.
When we make any declarative statement, we can do only four things with it: we can restate it, explain it, prove it, or apply it. Nothing else. To recognize this simple fact opens the way to understanding the dynamic of thought.
To develop a thought, however, we must do one or more of three things. We must explain it, prove it, or apply it. To do this, we can use three developmental questions.2
Napoleon had three commands for his messengers that apply to any communicator: “Be clear! Be clear! Be clear!” Clarity does not come easily.
If you imagine some courageous soul standing up in the middle of your sermon to shout, “Pastor, what exactly do you mean by that?” you will become aware of matters that must be talked about to make yourself clear as your sermon develops.
Ultimately the man or woman in the pew hopes that you will answer the questions, “So what? What difference does it make?” All Christians have a responsibility to ask these questions because they are called to live under God in the light of biblical revelation.
Our creeds affirm the central doctrines of the faith and remind us what Christians should believe, but they do not tell us how belief in these doctrines should make us behave. That is part of the expositor’s responsibility, and you must give it diligent attention.
How then can we proceed as we answer the third developmental question, “So what? What difference does it make?” Application must come from the theological purpose of the biblical writer.
Remember that you are not lecturing to people about the Bible. You are talking to people about themselves from the Bible. This statement, therefore, should be in fresh, vital, contemporary language.
Here are some general suggestions for framing a homiletical idea: State the idea as simply and as memorably as possible. Make each word count. State it for the ear. Listeners should not have to work to remember it. State the idea in concrete and familiar words. Study ads in magazines for slogans you remember. If you were given one sentence in which to communicate your idea to someone who didn’t know religious jargon and who couldn’t write it down, how would you say it? State the idea so that it focuses on response. How do you want your listeners to respond? Instead of “You can rejoice in
...more
No matter how brilliant or biblical a sermon is, without a definite purpose it is not worth preaching.
How then do you determine the purpose of your sermon? You do so by discovering the purpose behind the passage you are preaching. As
It is difficult to sketch the structure of an inductive sermon using a traditional outline. Because all outlines have to be deductive (a main point stated and then supported), it is easier to map an inductive sermon in a series of movements that leads up to the sermon’s one major idea. Start with an honest human problem and work toward a biblical solution. Your sermon may unfold something like this:
The inductive sermon is closer to a conversation than to a lecture. To make it work, we have to know how people actually think and act. Listeners have to feel “that could be me.” We also have to feel our way back into the Scriptures. The difference between a religious discourse and a sermon throbbing with life is the difference between reading a book on poverty and standing in line with a mother and her three hungry kids waiting to get some food stamps.
Narrative preaching however does not merely repeat a story as one would recount a pointless, worn-out joke. Through the story you communicate ideas. In a narrative sermon, as in any other sermon, a major idea continues to be supported by other ideas, but the content supporting the points is drawn directly from the incidents in the story. In other words, the details of the story are woven together to make a point, and all the points develop the central idea of the sermon.
Your outline, therefore, serves you in at least four ways. First, you view your sermon as a whole, and therefore, you heighten your sense of unity. Second, the outline clarifies in your eye and mind the relationships between the parts of your sermon. Third, your outline also crystallizes the order of ideas so that you will give them to your listeners in the appropriate sequence. Finally, you will recognize the places in your sermon that require additional supporting material that must be used to develop your points.
Restatement differs from repetition. Repetition says the same thing in the same words; restatement says the same thing in different words. Repetition may profitably be used throughout the sermon like a refrain to reinforce a major idea, but the skillful preacher learns to restate a point several times in different ways.
A definition establishes limits. It sets down what must be included and excluded by a term or statement.
Facts consist of observations, examples, statistics, and other data that may be verified apart from the speaker. You
Anchoring a point with some wording that digs into the mind is probably the major reason preachers turn to quotations in sermons. When we give credit for that kind of quote, we do so primarily for ethical reasons.
Narration within a sermon describes the individuals and events embedded in biblical accounts. Every passage has its people—sometimes they stand out in the open laughing, cursing, plotting or praying, and at other times they play hide-and-seek and we must look for them. In every text, though, there is always somebody writing and somebody reading.
Søren Kierkegaard complained that when he asked the philosopher Georg Hegel for directions to a street address in Copenhagen, all he received was the map of Europe.
It takes effort to think of ways a great truth may be applied to life. Sometimes you have an illustration from your life and ministry. At other times you can imagine a situation that someone in your audience might go through where a biblical insight might be used.
Illustrations serve you and your congregation in other ways. They aid memory, stir emotion, create need, hold attention, and establish rapport between speaker and hearer.
Where do you find them? Good illustrations can be found everywhere. Start with your personal experience. Every life is a circus. Some people can find more illustrations in a stroll around the neighborhood than others can find in a trip around the world. The difference lies not in what we experience but in what we see in our experience. You must observe in order to see. The world can be God’s picture book if in ordinary events you see analogies, applications, or spiritual truth.
An effective introduction should also uncover needs. You must turn voluntary attention into involuntary attention. When you start, the people listen because they ought to listen, but before long you must motivate them to listen because they can’t help but listen.
