Tim asked the following question:

Do you think it is ok to preach inductively when the passage is clearly worked out in a deductive way? For example, (sweeping statement coming up!!!) a lot of Paul’s epistles seem to be fairly deductive in the way he makes points and then goes on to prove or explain them. Does this tie you into preaching deductively every week as you go through Paul’s epistles?

Another way of saying this question is ‘do you have to stick to the order that the Biblical writer sticks to?’ If Paul makes his big point in verse one, and then proves or explains it subsequently, do you also have to move in this same order?

Peter responds:

1. The passage outline is the place to start – I think the Biblical order is a great place to start, and often it makes sense to preach a passage according to its order.  If it is a deductive passage, probably preach it deductively.  If it is a narrative passage, usually preach it narratively.  And so on.  The stages of sermon preparation require the study of the passage before the preparation of the sermon, so the shape of the text should be clear before designing the sermon.  Often there is no reason to do something different than preach the text in its order.

2. There are good reasons to shape your sermon on the text – If you were to use no notes and just be looking at the text, it is easier to preach the text as it stands.  Even if you have notes, the text is all the listener has.  Generally it is better to give people the impression that they can also follow through a text as it was written and learn its lesson.

3. There may be good reason to change the shape – As a preacher you have a foot in both worlds: the Bible and the listeners’ world.  So the purpose you have for the sermon may differ from the purpose of the writer, which then implies an alternative strategy or outline may be worth considering.  For example, Peter preached to an antagonistic crowd in Acts 2 and so preached a very inductive sermon.  Likewise, you may be preaching a passage in the epistles that is up front with its main idea, but you know your listeners are more antagonistic than the original readers were, so perhaps it would be worth changing the sermon shape accordingly.  Our goal is to present and explain the passage and communicate the main idea in order to achieve the intended purpose in our situation.  Strategize accordingly.

4. A sentence and a sermon are different – Don Sunukjian teaches a helpful point.  He argues that a sentence has an immediacy to it that allows a certain order, but in preaching that order may need to be changed to reflect the order of thought.  For example, he uses a sentence like, “I am going to town, to buy some food, because my dog is hungry.”  Now, if that sentence were to be preached, it would be better to reverse the three elements.  “Going to town” and “buy some food” are dependent on the final element “my dog is hungry” for their meaning.  In preaching we may take an element of a thought and expand it.  What expanded exposition of “Going to town” might result without the underlying issue of the hungry dog?  Consequently, in order to help people know where they are in the thought of a sermon, the order of thought is an important issue to bear in mind.