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Clear articulation of an FCF drives a message’s application and ensures the Christ-centeredness of a sermon.
Early statements of an FCF in a sermon may open the door to application in a number of ways. A preacher may open a spiritual or an emotional wound in order to provide biblical healing, identify a grief in order to offer God’s comfort, demonstrate a danger in order to warrant a scriptural command, or condemn a sin in order to offer cleansing.
However well selected the meat of a sermon is, the message remains uncooked without thoughtful, true-to-the-text application.
A message remains a pre-sermon until a preacher organizes its ideas and the text’s features to apply to a single, major FCF.
Information without application yields frustration.
Preachers who cannot answer “So what?” will preach to a “Who cares?”
We are not simply ministers of information; we are ministers of transformation.
Essential for the moment is the conclusion that unity, purpose, and application will help keep preachers faithful to their divine calling and to the Word’s design.
In the pulpit, we are expositors, not authors.
Distilling the essence of a long passage or exploding the implications of a single phrase are both legitimate preaching practices.
An expository unit is a large or a small portion of Scripture from which a preacher can demonstrate a single spiritual truth with adequate supporting facts or concepts arising within the scope of the text.
Sermon length is not an automatic measure of orthodoxy, yet sermons long enough to explain what a passage means and short enough to keep people listening indicate much about the vitality of a congregation and the wisdom of the pastor.
John R. W. Stott neatly sidestepped the issue of how long a sermon should be by saying, “Every sermon should ‘seem like twenty minutes,’ even if it is much longer.”
The occasion, the makeup of the congregation, a church’s ministry and mission goals, worship service parameters, and changes the church experiences in age, educational levels, and spiritual maturity can greatly affect appropriate passage and message length. Pastors should consider each of these factors when determining how long to preach and should press expectations only with care and patience.
There is always another verse that can be covered and another word that can be said, but ministers are best advised to select passages that allow them to quit before the congregation does.
We simply will say more that is heard if we preach less than all we know.
Perhaps the length of a passage and the corresponding length of the message are best determined when preachers remember the ultimate object of each sermon: enabling people to honor Christ.
Preaching on passages that are of particular meaning or interest to you is a great way to learn to expound texts.
First, make sure you do not impose your concern on the text.
First of two cautions for preachers who choose texts to address their personal concerns.
Second, be aware that a ministry that too frequently addresses the preacher’s personal concerns can become too narrow in focus for the broader needs of a congregation.
Second of two cautions for preachers who choose texts to address their personal concerns.
Congregational concerns should also influence what pastors choose to preach.
Experienced preachers typically set aside a portion of each year to look backward and forward—backward at what the preaching has covered and the congregation has encountered, and forward to what the preaching should cover in light of what the congregation needs to know or will likely experience.
Series greatly aid a pastor’s preparation and subject scope. Still, series generally work best when their duration is reasonable, their sermons are not too dependent on one another, and their subjects or approaches differ from those of recent series.
Yet whether we reflect on how a text speaks to our context or go searching for a text to address a particular concern, we rightly bring our situations into the consideration of what our sermons should address.
Do not avoid familiar texts.
Do not search for texts obscure in meaning.
Do not purposely avoid any text.
Do not use spurious texts.
Study Bibles.
Lexicons, grammatical aids, and analytical aids.
Concordances.
Topical Bibles.
Bible translations.
Bible dictionaries, encyclopedias, and handbooks.
Commentaries.
Commentaries are better used as a check than as a guide.
Expository preaching solemnly binds a preacher to the task of representing the precise meaning of a text as intended by the original author or as illumined by another inspired source within the Bible.
Preachers’ interpretations remain consistent with Scripture when they follow long-honored and proven interpretive procedures that expose the Bible’s original intent.
Context is part of the text, as it relates to our exposition.
The reason that “every heretic has his verse” is that he takes it out of context.
Literal interpretation occurs when we explain what a biblical writer meant within the literary and cultural context of the original words and do not try to impose meanings drawn from outside that context.
Original intent is sometimes called the “discourse meaning” of a text.
Using grammar and history to discern a text’s original meaning is called the “grammatical-historical method.”
if anything in Scripture can mean whatever our imaginations suggest rather than what Scripture affirms, then our opinions become as authoritative as the statements of God and we can make the Bible say anything we want.
If Scripture does not determine meaning, ultimately Scripture has no meaning.
We should never bind scriptural obligations to personal speculations.
The Protestant Reformers used the principle of the analogy of faith (sometimes identified as “the analogy of Scripture”) to guide their interpretations, and it should guide ours as well.
Expository preachers determine the biblical truths intended for the people addressed by a text and then identify similarities in our present condition that require the application of the same truths.
Preachers should examine what chapters and verses surrounding a passage say in order to determine what a biblical writer intended to communicate through particular words.
Study of a passage’s context also requires preachers to identify the genre, or type of literature, in which a biblical statement occurs. Many an error has been made by interpreting proverbs as promises, prophecy as history, parables as facts, and poetry as science.
