Preaching: A Beginners' Guide (3)

4. From sermon to preaching

The sermon is not a work of literature. It is not designed to be read word for word, but to enable you to think through and develop your message. A written sermon will form the basis of preaching, but preaching is more than a sermon spoken out loud. The sermon will provide a basic framework, but the preacher must not be too bound to it. There should be an element of unpredictability in preaching. The preacher will need to learn to improvise within the basic structure and flow of the sermon as he interacts with the congregation.

If using notes, don’t bury your head in them from beginning to end. Maintain eye contact with the people in order to really communicate with them. If not using notes, don’t be tempted to skimp on preparation and leave everything to the spur of the moment. Think yourself clear. Pray yourself hot. Let yourself go!

5. What to avoid

Don’t try and pack too much in. You don’t have to dump all the results of your preparation on the people. Be selective. Stick to the main point.

Don’t preach over the people’s heads. Remember that your job is to make the complicated simple, not the other way round. Explain big words and unfamiliar concepts.

Don’t preach for too long. Enough said. Hopefully.

6. Preparing ourselves to preach

Our task is to enable the people of God to understand and feel the truth of Scripture in order to practice it. To that end the preacher must pray, think and feel his way into the text so that his preaching becomes a living performance of the message. This does not mean that the preacher "play acts" his sermon. But we must reflectively apply the sermon to ourselves before we preach to others, 1 Tim 4:16. Preaching should be a vivid enactment of the drama of redemption, where God's Christ-centred Word is proclaimed to his people in the power of the Spirit.

7. The Holy Spirit and preaching

The Bible emphasises the importance of the work of the Spirit in relation to preaching. Paul testifies: ‘our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance ...’ (1 Thessalonians 1:5, also 1 Corinthians 2:1-5).

Empowered by the Spirit at Pentecost, Peter preached and 3,000 people were converted, baptised and added to the church. Pentecost inaugurated a new era of the Spirit. As such it was an unrepeatable event. But there was still need of further fillings to empower gospel preaching (see Acts 4:8, 31).

The Holy Spirit gives preachers clarity of thought, boldness of speech and heaven-sent authority. The Jerusalem church prayed, ‘Now, Lord ... grant to your servants that with all boldness they may preach your word’ (Acts 4:29). Their prayers were answered — ‘they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness’ (Acts 4:31).

The Spirit’s empowering presence enables preachers to proclaim the Lord Jesus with boldness, liberty and life-transforming effectiveness. His presence makes preaching an event where the God of the gospel is encountered in all the fullness of his grace and power. This is what makes preaching ‘theology on fire’. Both preachers and people must seek God for this and rest content with nothing less.

* From a talk given at a Preachers' Workshop, Zion Baptist Church, Trowbridge. 

Preaching: A Beginners' Guide (2)

3. From text to sermon

1)      Decide on your text

Pray for the Lord’s guidance. Reflect on the basic thrust of your sermon. Will it be evangelistic, aimed at presenting the gospel to the unconverted, or a message that is primarily for the people of God? What does the congregation they need to hear; encouragement, challenge, or warning?

When first setting out stick to passages that you know pretty well rather than try and tackle something from Ezekiel or Revelation. Learn to walk before you run.

2)      Discern the meaning of your text

Ask questions of your text:

1. What is its context in the passage?

2. What is the literary form of the text? Is it poetry, a song, historical prose, a parable, a Gospel or an Epistle?

3. What is the place of the text in the plot line of the Bible?

4. What doctrine is being taught by the text? What does it say about God, salvation, the Christian life or the last things? How does what is being taught in the text relate to the teaching of the Bible as a whole?

5. What is the practical application of your text?

6. As each sermon should have one main point, what is the leading theme of the passage?

3)      Develop a clear sermon structure

This will make your message memorable and easy to follow. The order of sermon points should be logical and progressive, giving the message a sense of momentum. Try and follow the natural divisions of your text. For example, Genesis 22 could be divided up as follows:

I.                   The Lord tests Abraham (22:1-6)

II.                The Lord provides for Abraham (22:7-14)

III.             The Lord promises blessing for Abraham (22:15-24)

Alliteration is nice when it happens naturally, but not absolutely necessary.

4)      Use helpful illustrations

Illustrations help people to understand what is being said. They should illuminate the truth rather than draw attention to themselves. Biblical narratives are virtually self-illustrating. Abraham is the key example of a man whose faith is on trial in Genesis 22. But including other instances of people whose faith has been tried and tested will help to get the point home.

5)      Preach Christ from all the Scriptures

This is especially important when preaching from the Old Testament. See Jesus’ own practice, Luke 24:44-49. Genesis 22 is about Isaac, the promised “seed” sacrificed and risen. (Genesis 3:15, 21:12, Galatians 3:16, Hebrews 11:17-19). Note the way Paul echoes Genesis 22:16 in Romans 8:32, which is about the Lord providing for his people, another theme in Genesis 22.  

6)      Discriminatingly apply your message

The purpose of preaching is to enable the people of God to play their roles in the drama of redemption. Application must be rooted in the gospel and determined by the text on which you are preaching. If the text is a promise, the application is, believe it. If a command, obey it. If a warning, heed it. Apply the message appropriately to different kinds of people. Urge unbelievers to repent and believe the gospel. Comfort and encourage the downcast. Challenge the spiritually lazy. Explain God’s ways to the perplexed. Apply the message all the way through, not just at the end. 

Preaching: A Beginners' Guide (1)

1. What is preaching?

It is perhaps easier to say what preaching is not than what it is. It is not the sharing of some golden thoughts on a biblical text. Preaching is not a Bible Study. It is not a lecture. Preaching is not stand up comedy. What is it then? Very simply, preaching is the proclamation of the word of God by men to other human beings. Preaching then, has four main components: The Man suitably gifted and called. The Message, the word of God. The Medium, spoken proclamation. The Motivation: to benefit other human beings, Colossians 1:28. But perhaps my definition is a little prosaic. According to D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, preaching is “theology on fire”.

2. A preacher’s starter kit

1) Prayer

A man must not presume to speak for God unless he has first spoken to God, Acts 6:4.

2) A good Bible translation

Preaching involves the accurate explanation of Scripture. A paraphrase like the Good News Bible will not do. Use a proper, reliable translation such as; AV, NKJV, ESV, NIV. The ‘Bible Gateway’ website is fully searchable and gives access to a wide range of translations.

3) Bible Commentaries

C. H. Spurgeon on the use of commentaries,

It seems odd, that certain men, who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others…. It has been the fashion of late years to speak against the use of commentaries… A respectable acquaintance with the opinions of the giants of the past might have saved many an erratic thinker from wild interpretations and outrageous inferences.

Old masters such as John Calvin and Matthew Henry are available for free online. Volumes in the Welwyn Bible Commentary series (Evangelical Press) are usually worth consulting.

The ‘Logos Bible Software’ package comes complete with a range of commentaries and has a useful interlinear Bible translation feature. 

4) Biblical theology

Biblical theology is the study of progressive revelation, instilling an awareness of the basic plot line of the Bible from creation to new creation. It also attempts to trace the development major biblical themes, such as the coming of the promised “seed”, covenant, inheritance, the person and work of the Messiah, etc.  This discipline will help the preacher understand where his text stands in the redemptive-historical flow of biblical revelation.

5) Systematic Theology

Systematic theology aims at giving us a grasp of the whole counsel of God. Systematics sets out biblical revelation in a logical arrangement of topics from God to the Last Things. This enables the preacher to understand the interrelationship between the various doctrines of the Bible. It also provides a safeguard against interpreting a text in such a way that what is said is a contradiction of what is written elsewhere in Scripture. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689 is like a mini-systematic theology. Familiarity with the confession will help ensure that your preaching is doctrinally orthodox.

6) Books on preaching

Preaching and Preachers, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Hodder)

Preaching Simply Explained by Stuart Olyott (Evangelical Press).