As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
In my last two blogposts (which can be found here and here), I walked the reader through the process of becoming familiar with the preaching text to the point where you should have a solid grasp upon what the preaching text says, although you still might not be sure how to preach it or organize the sermon.
In my last post, I walked through my method for becoming more familiar with the biblical text through the process of reading, translating, and diagramming. Although at this point much progress has been made, there is still more work to do before we can confidently say we know the main idea of the text. Up to this point the study has been with the Bible alone—no commentaries should have been used thus far.
Whether you call it the “main idea,” “big idea,” “propositional statement,” or something else, we are going to be looking at how to make sure you preach the main idea of a section of Scripture so that you are not preaching about an ancillary idea or worse, force your own idea upon the passage. In this post I will be walking through a process I have developed for myself. To help myself with this, I have made a worksheet. In a previous post, I shared it on this blog.
“Conceptualize and preach your expositional sermon like it is a screw, not a nail. A screw has a single main point, but it also has an edge all the way around. This ridge, sharp as it is, is not to be avoided in favor of the point; rather, it is the means of getting to the main point.” - 9 Marks
“Sequential sermons walk line by line through the text. This certainly isn’t wrong… But it isn’t necessarily synonymous with expository preaching. It’s possible to walk line by line through a text and never make its meaning clear.” - TGC
“while I argue expository preaching is to be most common, other approaches have their place. I would say expository preaching is primary but preaching that is ultimately biblical can come in other forms as well.” - Ed Stetzer
“So if I’m committed to expositional preaching, how do I address those important but occasional questions that arise? Are expository preachers allowed to preach topical sermons?” - TGC
“The Psalms are unique, for while they are God’s Word to us, they also are man’s words to God. The mindset of the people who wrote them teaches us something about the reality of our world” - 9 Marks
“So what I would do with Matthew 11 is outline the various options, give a few reasons why each are plausible, and then make some application.” - C.Leaders
Pastors should be constantly learning. Thankfully, in this day and age, there are a number of ways to continue learning. From conferences held by larger organizations and seminaries to online tools provided to continue sharpening your abilities, pastors have a wealth of resources available to them.
Discussion