It’s a fairly simple truth, but an important one. Sometimes, perhaps even often, the passage purpose (stage 3 in our model) and the message purpose (stage 5), will differ. While it may sound very orthodox and biblical to suggest that the purpose for preaching any text is the same as the writer’s purpose in penning the text, this is not always the case.

Take 1Corinthians 15 as an example. Paul is addressing a church caught up in an idea of their time. The idea that the church had swallowed from its culture was that bodies are bad, being spiritual means being non-physical and there was essentially nothing more to come in the future, because they had already “arrived” spiritually. So, for example, when Paul tells them that both the living and the dead believers will have their bodies transformed at the coming of Christ, that would have been felt quite forcefully. Today however, our common thinking in the church is often somewhat different. Perhaps a congregation may generally accept the reality of the coming resurrection and not be caught up in an anti-somatic (“anti bodily existence”) philosophy, or perhaps they give no thought whatsoever to our future resurrection. Obviously it depends on the congregation. Just because the need of the people may differ, this does not mean that the text is needed any the less. We just have to be careful to think through the author’s purpose, and our purpose in preaching that text. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful . . . and part of our responsibility is to know our people enough to know what angle on the passage idea they need to receive!

Be sure to think through the author’s purpose in writing any text, but also think through whether your purpose in preaching it will remain the same (sometimes), or differ (sometimes).