The subject of preaching is not a small one. Preaching itself is what takes up shelves of a minister’s li­brary, years of study in a theological college, and a lot of discussion in members’ homes after church ser­vices!

So it is that this talk can only be at best a brief introduction to this sub­ject. But my prayer is that through this introduction you will be given a framework of what to do and where to go in considering what has to the be one of the most vitally important parts of the public worship of Christ’s church.

Present Day Background⤒🔗

Preaching is where a church makes it or breaks it. The preaching in a church can be where it’s clear who God is and what He has done, how we have sinned, and so what God has done in His Son; or it can be the most insipid ‘pop psychology’ pressing the appropriate motivation buttons and being little more than a public informa­tion message.

You only need to visit a few different churches in your immediate neighbourhood to see the vast differ­ence in perspective on preaching within Christendom today. Whereas fifty years ago most protestant churches would have had a common agreement on the place of God’s Word through the importance of preaching in the worship service, that is now far from the case. The change has come about through theological liberalism, which has impacted a whole range of churches right through from Uniting to Pentecostal.

The once distinct calling of the minis­try of the Word is now all about the whole range of shared ministries ― the band, the drama, the visiting speaker. And who could forget the all-powerful worship committee? This committee has subtly slipped in during the recent phase of technological change, as the ubiquitous digital data projector has dumbed down so many aspects of public worship. Much of the service now comes down to the ‘media-bite’ ― that very limited time consumerism given to make a ‘sale’.

You only need to see the response of those who come into our worship ser­vices after coming off the street from different church backgrounds than ours. Like possums caught in your headlights, they often seem stunned. We are so much at odds with what­ever else is happening out there that we are the ones regarded with much approbation! And yet the way public worship was generally conducted one hundred years ago ― even fifty years ago ― would not have placed us so far outside the accepted pattern.

The simple concept of preaching on a text is not the given for Christian wor­ship that it once was. Hasn’t that been shown in the general igno­rance amongst Christians of God’s Word today? Even when reference is made to Scripture, it is usually drawn in as a passing nod to en­dorse the ‘vision’ they have rather than doing any justice to the context in which it is found.

Brethren, when we properly deal with God’s Word we not only do the text justice but also provide a model for the congregation we have the blessing of declaring that Word to. This was shared with me by a new­comer to our congregation. She said to me that she has been in many different churches before ― from AOG to Presbyterian. But no­where else has she really heard the Word brought out quite like she has heard it amongst us. And it is such a precious Word to her that she now comes twice each Lord’s Day, whereas before it was only ever once. And she goes to Bible Study. And every day she pours over the Word, applying it to her heart and life.

We turn now to focus on the details themselves. Through a series of questions, let’s consider the pas­sage you are considering for your sermon or the sermon you are lis­tening to in the public worship ser­vice.

What is the Theme?←⤒🔗

This is our first question. It is a ques­tion which is equally valid for a one off free text sermon or in considering the next text in an expository series through a Bible book. The text must be a definable unit. It must have the one main thrust as its theme. Here you must be asking yourself: What was the author saying in this text? In other words, in one clear sentence the thrust of the passage is clearly out­lined. There is a saying which proves very true in connection with this. It goes: ‘If you aim at nothing ― you’re bound to get it!’

The Rev. Peter Marshall was the Chaplain to the US Senate in the im­mediate post World War 2 period. Whenever he arrived at the car park before giving his sermon, the atten­dant would ask him what he was go­ing to preach about that morning. He was always able to answer him with a clear and crisp sentence summing up his message.

Now, coming to that text in order to establish the proposition, you will need to do some general digging. You want to get an overall impression of the passage. First, read the whole book in which the text is found. Then read the passage aloud to yourself. Have a guess at what you think it is about. If it’s the next in a series you may have a bit of an idea, but it does­n’t matter if you don’t know. This is where a general commentary helps you. Commentaries like the New Bi­ble Commentary. Match up your theme with what the commentary says.

If you are about to listen to a sermon, read the text beforehand. Prayerfully reflect over it. Then postulate how the minister might approach it.

The preacher must be careful not to bite off more Scripture than he can chew – or his congregation can di­gest! A well-known trap for the theo­logical student is to try and preach the whole gospel in every sermon. And they can be very long sermons! But if the work has been done in establish­ing the unity in a text, and thus its theme, this should not happen. Once you have a theme, it is helpful to outline how that theme works out through the passage. This is where you may have three points, as seems to be the usual pattern ― or you could have two or four, or even more. Tie in these points with the flow of the pas­sage. They are the coat-hangers on which the congregation can connect with the various aspects of the text. Make it so that those listening will have to have their Bibles open before them.

What does the Text say?←⤒🔗

Now you start to dig deeper. This is where you use your other resources. It is good to look at the Hebrew or Greek, seeing how the language in that text supports or challenges the theme you have. Have a questioning mind. Don’t be scared to note what the original is saying in your sermon. But don’t do this so that it distracts from the flow of the sermon. If you haven’t studied the original Greek or Hebrew, use an Interlinear Bible to correlate the right word(s) and then go to the lexicon. Otherwise, a good commentary will alert you to the key words/phrases in the text and explain how they give us the sense of what is going on there.

Make sure that your original theme and points are in pencil, because if you’re like me you may have to change them often!

Consider the background of the cho­sen passage. Find out what came before the text. What effect does that have on the text, and how does the text affect what follows after? What did the text mean for its original hear­ers? Take for example Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 as they speak of ‘psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.’ A cursory reading may seem to endorse the way many use this phrase to support singing not only psalms but also hymns (old church music) and songs (modern church music). Looking further, though, we learn that this phrase is actually a ref­erence to the three-fold division of the book of psalms in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures in the 1st century (the Septuagint). Liter­ally it should be translated, ‘psalms, psalms, and psalms’! This is why when the Lord and the disciples in Matthew 26:30 are said to have sung a hymn when they had the last supper together it is actually a psalm from the particular section in the psalms entitled, ‘hymns’.

What you are drawing out here should be adding to your points. Lexicons and commentaries help you in this. A word of advice: You should not need more than two or three good commentaries. Anymore and you can become clut­tered, almost having an academic-style approach. Commentaries should be like scholars who you are debating the meaning of the text with. Use them against each other in this way.

Consider next what the key words are in the text. What tense do they convey? How is the author bringing home his point through them? Are there clear doctrines that can be taught here?

Where is Christ Found?←⤒🔗

At one time in evangelical churches, you could tell when the minister was coming to the end of his sermon because that was when he would bring in the Lord Jesus Christ. Even if the text had no connection with who Jesus was and what He had done, He would be brought in. This was the gospel challenge, the call to repent and come to faith in Jesus Christ as your own Lord and Sav­iour ― but it often had little to do with the Christ-centeredness of the text. To be faithful to the passage’s Christ-centeredness, however, you need to understand where that pas­sage stands on the redemptive-historical time-line. This means that there will be a difference in those passages written before Christ’s first coming and those after His first coming. There are also differences between pre-Resurrection and post-Resurrection writings, and differ­ences between early Old Testament passages and later prophetic writ­ings. What needs to be borne in mind is how far along the line to Christ the passage containing the text is found. In Luke 24, we see this outlined for us from the Lord Himself as He explains to the two men on the road to Emmaus all that the Hebrew Scriptures prophesied concerned Himself.

You need to make sure that this placement comes under the outline you already have. This has to be in­terwoven with the text itself and not as an added extra.

What Place do Illustrations have?←⤒🔗

In my first pastorate, a wise elder raised a very pertinent point regarding the use of illustrations within a ser­mon. He did this through tackling the generally accepted practice at that time of beginning a sermon with an illustration. That was something we had been encouraged to do at theo­logical college as a way of connecting with the congregation and so having a good start to the sermon. His concern was this: You have just read the scrip­ture passage with the text in it. Why then would you want to distract the congregation away from that reading with an illustration from else­where? Rather, you should draw your introduction out of the text and so keep the con­gregation focussed on the scripture open before them. It is a good point and it should be noted with any illustration used in a sermon. Does it help to keep us glued to the text? Is it further clari­fying and reinforcing the meaning of the aspect in the text you are dealing with? Illustrations can easily become a cop-out for the hard work that you should be doing on a particular text. This is not to say there is no place at all for an illustration at the beginning of the sermon. The same rule must apply for it, though, as for any illustra­tion used elsewhere in the sermon ― that is, it must help explain an aspect of the sermon. So if an illustration does not enlighten it distracts, and irrelevant illustrations only cause con­fusion.

How do Cross references fit in?←⤒🔗

On the other side of those sermons replete with illustrations are the ser­mons that are stacked full of cross references. It can seem that the preacher goes out of his way to draw in every other possible text impacting on the passage. I’m sure you’ve met the type: He’s the one busy going through his Bible as he’s preaching the sermon. While it is good to com­pare scripture with scripture, in preaching this needs to be kept in balance. One or two supporting texts are helpful, especially where they draw us to the Lord Jesus. And don’t be distracted from your direct contact with the congregation by flicking through your Bible. Either have those few passages marked out for easy access or, better still, have them writ­ten out already in your sermon notes. What quoting other Scripture also does is to encourage the congrega­tion themselves to be ‘people of the book.’ Here, we only need think of the example of the Bereans in Acts 17 and how they compared the preach­ings of Paul against the Hebrew Scriptures.

What about for us Today?←⤒🔗

Any application to Jesus Christ is not an added extra. It should not be something that forms the last point, but ought to be drawn out right throughout the sermon. Having seen what it meant for the original hearers, what does it now mean for us today? What underlying principle is there for our lives now? Sometimes this may mean we don’t seem much in the way of application, and other times we see a lot. This is one reason why the size of the text will vary (e.g. a letter of Paul would be broken up into many more preaching units than, say, the Song of Solomon would be).

This is a point at which the Lord Jesus can be held up as the One who per­fectly showed us how to live out the principle held forth by the text. One example here is the account in Mark 9:2-8 where the Lord, despite being glorified by the Father, yet chooses to continue the hard road to Calvary. This ties in with Philippians 2:8 about the Lord being found in ap­pearance as a man, humbling Him­self and becoming obedient to death ― even death on a cross! Our atti­tude should be the same as His, as Philippians 2:5 exhorts us to do. The danger here is the idea that there must be something the people can take home with them. It’s a pressure that can turn a sermon into nothing more than a moralistic mes­sage.

Which way do you End?←⤒🔗

Then you come to the end of the sermon. The various parts that make up the whole have been eluci­dated and the proposition clearly stated. This is not the time for any­thing new. Rather, the conclusion must simply be the restating of the proposition in a way that makes the passage’s teaching very clear.

If you find you cannot do this, your sermon probably lacks unity. If all you have done is string together a series of inter­esting anecdotes and other similar ‘exciting’ stories, you will have trouble here. Or maybe not! Another even more exciting illustration might just fit the bill! But it will be clear to anyone seriously lis­tening that the conclusion has little to do with the text itself.

There are some preachers who sim­ply don’t know how to stop. One minister I heard was described by the title, ‘The Never-End Rever­end!’ This was precisely because he didn’t have a clear theme and points in his preaching. He just me­andered along like a vessel floating down a canal. Meanwhile the con­gregation jumped ship a long time ago ― at least attention-wise, if not geographically-wise!

You are much better off leaving folk surprised you’ve come to the end than the other way round. For that means they have been closely fol­lowing you all the way.