Here are three separations often occurring in pulpits that are sad, to say the least: The separation of leadership and preaching – I’ve mentioned this before, probably after reading Michael Quicke’s 360-Degree Leadership. In some churches, especially those that have to, or choose to, rely on visiting speakers, there is an unfortunate separation of preaching [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Christocentric Preaching on August 26, 2010 | 1 Comment »
When you are preaching the Old Testament, there should always be a radar bleeping in your heart regarding where Christ fits into the message. Some will suggest that every message must be entirely and purely about Christ, whatever the text was originally intended to convey. I feel this approach can bring our view of the [...]
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Yesterday I wrote about how narratives do engage us through identification and disassociation. We can’t avoid that reality – it drives the popularity of movies, of bedtime stories, of Sunday School stories, of family fireside reminiscences, etc. But biblical narrative always offers something more. Our challenge as preachers is to be sure to always go [...]
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Studying a passage effectively involves a variety of skills. Yesterday we mentioned matters of contextual awareness, scholarly awareness and original language study. Today I want to share a few more. Not a definitive list or blueprint for the exegetical process, but a series of prompts that may or may not be helpful reminders. Purposeful Study [...]
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When we take a biblical passage and study it in order to understand it, and then to be able to preach it, we need a variety of skills. This post (and tomorrow’s) isn’t an attempt to exhaustively define the exegetical process, but rather a selection of elements that may prompt your self-awareness in this process [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, Preacher's Personal Life, Religion, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, tagged Spirituality, Spiritual Formation, Cor Deo, www.cordeo.org.uk, Moralistic Preaching on July 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
When I post on the Cor Deo blog, I link to it on this site. Today’s post is relevant for us all as believers, and as we consider the effect of our preaching on others. Please take a look, and if you wouldn’t mind, please leave a comment too – that would be really helpful! [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline on June 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
A couple of other ideas that can be added to yesterday’s post: “Sermon Ideation Groups to plan a series through a book.” John suggested this and I heartily concur. Mapping out passages and initial ideas can be a great headstart to the sermon series planning process. Anything that helps to avoid the “from scratch” sensation [...]
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Throughout Scripture God is seen as sovereign and providentially involved in all aspects of life. When there were natural disasters in Israel, the prophets called the people to respond to the God who created everything. When war or famine hit, they interpreted it in light of the covenant they were under, but also always recognizing [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, tagged Expository Preaching, Selecting a Preaching Text on April 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The first logical step in preparing a message (once you’ve been asked to preach, which is presumed), is to select your passage(s) on which to base the message. Sometimes the invitation comes with the passage, sometimes with a theme, sometimes an open invitation. Select then forget. What do I mean? 1. When you’re invited to [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Homiletics, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 7 - Message Outline, tagged Expository Preaching, Unity Order Progress on April 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Can I offer three ways in which we can have unity, order and progress, yet still fall short in each area? Unity – We often fall short when we just tie together the sections of the text by means of a keyword or subject. In many passages it is relatively easy to make the two [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 6 - Message Idea, tagged Between Two Worlds, John Stott, Timothy Ward, Words of Life on March 22, 2010 | 2 Comments »
In Between Two Worlds (I Believe in Preaching), John Stott contrasted the typical weakness in more liberal churches from the weakness in the preaching in more conservative churches. One connected with the audience, but had no rooting in Scripture. The other started with Scripture and built straight up to heaven, without ever touching down. Timothy [...]
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Today’s post isn’t one. It’s a 35-minute interview I did with Mike Reeves over at theologynetwork.org in their Table Talk series. It’s all about preaching and how our view of God influences our view of the Bible and therefore our approach to communicating it. So, here’s the link and I hope this is helpful: theologynetwork.org [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, New Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail on March 8, 2010 | 2 Comments »
In a lot of preaching situations it is easier to simply present the text and press home the imperatives. Whether or not there is technically an imperative in the grammar, we can easily turn a passage into an instruction and press for change through our words. I wonder how often we miss the opportunity to [...]
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The desire to be relevant to our listeners might sometimes undermine our preaching. What I am thinking about is the count the costs, take up your cross, radical discipleship kind of passages. You know, the ones that seem to be so demanding and so absolute. It’s not that we don’t believe them, or don’t want [...]
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As a preacher studying a passage it is tempting to be purposeful, but ignore the purpose of the passage. So you are studying the passage because you are trying to prepare a sermon, or perhaps because you are intrigued by the theological content of the text, or perhaps because you are pondering whether you should [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Delivery, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 8 - Message Detail on December 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Some preachers think that there are two legitimate options in preaching, but to go further would be wrong. Legitimate would be to exhort listeners – that is, to appropriately pressure their will to obey the Lord, respond to the gospel, etc. Legitimate would be to educate the listeners – that is, to feed information to [...]
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Posted in Audience Analysis, Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, New Testament, Preacher's Personal Life, Preaching, Religion, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Expository Preaching, Matthew 1 on December 8, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Yesterday I pondered why a message might be considered a new take or somehow different from what was expected. On this particular occasion I preached Matthew 1. I wonder if there’s another element to add to yesterday’s list of thoughts: 4. Not overemphasizing the theologically rich element in the text. In this passage there is [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Application, Audio Journal, Expository Preaching, Haddon Robinson, Pulpit Talk on November 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’d like to build a little on the post from three days ago. Here is a post I wrote a while back, but am fairly sure I forgot to post on the site. It offers another angle on the challenges of application, again overtly leaning on Haddon Robinson’s work. In simple terms the homiletical process [...]
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Posted in Audience Analysis, Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Expository Preaching, Haddon Robinson, John Stott on November 23, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Preaching an ancient text to a contemporary congregation will usually require some level of abstraction. To preach an ancient instruction simply as it stands is to present a historical lecture, rather than a relevant presentation of inspired truth. Some preachers simply say what is there and effectively offer historical lecture. Other preachers abstract from historical [...]
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Last time I suggested one approach, simply asking what the passage is about. But what if that approach isn’t causing fruit to drop from the branches. Are there other tacks to take that might help a preacher grasp the essential unity of idea in a single passage? Here are some angles of approach that I [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 1 - Passage Selection, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 4 - Passage Idea, tagged Expository Preaching on October 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
When you are confident that you are dealing with a legitimate unit of text, then you can be confident that there is unity to the idea contained in that text. You will often need that confidence. Usually a passage doesn’t offer its unity on the lowest branch. It can take work and real wrestling in [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Homiletics, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged Expository Preaching, Theocentric Preaching on October 16, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I suppose it is obvious, but some preachers have lost sight of the obvious. When we preach, we should preach the Bible (for the alternatives offered by contemporary culture, sophisticated philosophy or personal insights will always fall short). Yet when we preach, our goal is not really to present the Bible itself. The Bible itself [...]
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Posted in Audience Analysis, Christianity, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, tagged Expository Preaching, Gospel Preaching, Heralds of God, James Stewart on September 26, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I’ve really been encouraged by reading James Stewart’s classic book, Heralds of God, again. Here’s a quote that might be relevant before tomorrow’s message: If you are wise, you will not in your preaching mask or minimize the overwhelming, absolute nature of Christ’s demand. Men are ready for a Leader who will unhesitatingly claim the [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, Stage 5 - Message Purpose, Stage 6 - Message Idea, Stage 7 - Message Outline, Stage 8 - Message Detail, tagged bible stories, Biblical preaching, Expository Preaching, Preaching narrative on July 31, 2009 | 3 Comments »
A switch that could make a big difference when preaching narratives. How do you preach a story? Common Default Approach – This is the approach that begins the message with the reading of the text, then moves on to talk about the story, noting elements within the text and giving both explanation and application based [...]
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Posted in Christianity, Genre, Homiletics, How to . . . ?, New Testament, Old Testament, Preaching, Religion, Stage 2 - Passage Study, Stage 3 - Passage Purpose, tagged Biblical Genre, Expository Preaching on July 30, 2009 | 1 Comment »
The traditional approach to preaching a Bible passage is that it is a collection of data, probably in an antiquated form. So for many preachers, coming to the text is coming in search of sermon content – data to be transmitted, information to be mined and presented. In recent years awareness has increased significantly in [...]
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