Choosing Bible texts for sermons

Dieter Schneider · #1 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 06:04 PM

How do PB members decide what to preach on?

greenbaggins · #2 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 06:06 PM

It is oh so easy for me. I preach straight through books of the Bible. All I have to do after picking the book I want to preach on next is to decide how far the text goes (how many verses I am going to do). I never have any anxiety that way, and it helps make the context much more important. It shows the people how important the context is.

Contra Marcion · #3 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 06:29 PM

Oh, how I wish more CRC's were like yours, Lane! I'm so tired of "Top 10 ways to have a happier marriage", or "My thoughts on improving self-estem"! I hope your people treasure what they have. Expositional preaching is fading from the CRC at an alarming rate. (Of course, how could you preach verse-by-verse, when 1 Timothy 3 gives your denomination fits?)

Semper Fidelis · #4 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 07:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenbaggins

It is oh so easy for me. I preach straight through books of the Bible. All I have to do after picking the book I want to preach on next is to decide how far the text goes (how many verses I am going to do). I never have any anxiety that way, and it helps make the context much more important. It shows the people how important the context is.

Same for me, but how do you choose the books?

Daniel Ritchie · #5 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenbaggins

It is oh so easy for me. I preach straight through books of the Bible. All I have to do after picking the book I want to preach on next is to decide how far the text goes (how many verses I am going to do). I never have any anxiety that way, and it helps make the context much more important. It shows the people how important the context is.

Plus it means that you preach on passages that you might be inclined to avoid if you had the choice.

If a man cannot preach expository sermons through the books of the Bible, then should he be in the ministry? Surely there are enough good commentaries and books on hermeneutics to equip the industrious man for this task.

greenbaggins · #6 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 07:09 PM

I consider what I think the congregation most needs to hear from the Word. Also factored in is what I have time to study. Romans, for instance, will have to wait until I have time to read all the myriad commentaries available. Job will have to wait until I finish plowing through Joseph Caryl. I also mix up the various portions of Scripture. I don't preach Genesis followed immediately by Exodus. Congregations need a balanced diet. So, I alternate OT and NT, and in the OT I alternate between Pentateuch, History, Wisdom/Psalms, and Prophets. In the NT I alternate among Gospels, Paul, and generals/Revelation. My plan is to preach through the entire Bible over the course of my ministry.

Semper Fidelis · #7 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 07:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel Ritchie

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenbaggins

It is oh so easy for me. I preach straight through books of the Bible. All I have to do after picking the book I want to preach on next is to decide how far the text goes (how many verses I am going to do). I never have any anxiety that way, and it helps make the context much more important. It shows the people how important the context is.

Plus it means that you preach on passages that you might be inclined to avoid if you had the choice.

If a man cannot preach expository sermons through the books of the Bible, then should he be in the ministry? Surely there are enough good commentaries and books on hermeneutics to equip the industrious man for this task.

I agree.

Lane - the context is so huge too. It's one thing for a man to pull a passage out of thin air and start teaching it but when you actually have to show how a writer builds his case for a thing it's pretty hard to do if the reader is paying attention. It's one thing to leap all over the Scriptures to make a point but, when you're sitting in the middle of an argument by Paul, it's pretty hard to be led astray by hunt and peck theology.

Over the last couple of years I've taught chapter by chapter through Romans and Galatians and now Hebrews. It is remarkable how much you learn when you do that.

I also taught a Book of the Bible per week last year for Sunday School at the pastor's behest. That was a TON of work just reading several books at once sometimes and trying to summarize the principles. I got a good overview through it and saw some interconnected themes but it's nothing like going through a book and spending some time to dwell on it.

nleshelman · #8 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 07:34 PM

Daniel

There is no RPW mandate to preach book by book, verse by verse. This will be my practice, but we must allow for the minister to choose according to what the congregation needs.

Spurgeon said to preach the 'great texts'- which helps explain the popularity of his preaching. (This has been my practice too as a student- we are more itinerant).

I think that we can say it is what is best- but each session will have to decide what they want out of their teaching elders.

Brother in Christ.

fredtgreco · #9 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 08:41 PM

Lane is right on here. Let me give a few thoughts, since I think this is an important subject and worthy of thinking about.

First, I think it is important to understand your view toward the purpose of preaching God's Word, because the practical questions (what do I preach? how long do I preach it?

etc) flow from that.

Here is something I put up on our website page relating to theology of ministry:

Quote:

THE WORD OF GOD. The starting point for an ordinary means of grace ministry is the Word of God. The Word gives power and significance to the Sacraments, direction and guidance to prayer, and comfort and exhortation to the believer. The Word is the main means God uses to provide faith to sinners, both to show them their need of Christ (justification) and also to mature and grow His saints (sanctification). It is vital therefore, that the Christian partake of this means by: reading the Word diligently, memorizing the Word and especially attending on the preaching of the Word. In my ministry, it is my first goal to cultivate a love for the Word of God in those to whom I minister. Ideally, attendance on the Word should be a way of life, something that one makes an integral part of every part of his life. The Bible speaks about this in describing the manner in which children are to be instructed: “these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deut. 6:6-9). This attitude of respect and desire for the Word can be encouraged in two ways, among others: (1) through a consistent and evident belief that the Word is sufficient for the believer’s life; and (2) through a respectful and diligent exposition of the Word. To this end, the preaching of the Word is an important focus of ministry. Sermons must be the fruit of careful work, not sloppy or hasty; they must be instructive in what the Bible says so that the people will understand the Bible better; and they must be applicable to the hearer’s life. Preaching should be a practical outworking of what the Shorter Catechism describes as what the Scriptures teach: “what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man” (WSC 3).

I advocate (and practice) systematic consecutive expositional preaching. What does that mean? It means that I preach through books of the Bible, allowing the Biblical text to set my "agenda" - Why did you chose to preach on the Sabbath, pastor? Well, it was the next text, in Exodus 16. It means that I can give my people the context of any passage relatively easily, without lengthy introductions. It means that my congregation can read ahead to the next week's sermon text. It also means that I don't spend time each week wondering what the "next best text" will be.

What does it not mean? It does not mean preaching every week on a word, or a verse, or even a couple of verses. You can do that - if the text warrants it, but it is not required. Different genres are conducive to different lengths. I just finished 1 Peter, where my average sermon text length was 3-8 verses. I am now in 1 Kings, and I am taking a chapter a time (50+ verses!

) Why? I don't want to break up the flow of the narrative, and I want to preach through 1 and 2 Kings in roughly a year. (If you think that is too fast, do a quick search and see just how many preachers have preached through both books. Almost none!) Derek Thomas gave me one of the best pieces of advice I have ever gotten on preaching (to paraphrase) : "We live in a day of Biblical illiteracy. It is your job to get as much of the Bible in front of your people as possible. Most people get nearly all their Bible on Sunday morning. Use that."

I am also an advocate of the good (and hard to implement!) advice from Jay Adams: before you preach through a book, do your sermon work months in advance. The idea is you have sermons prepared for one series, and while you preach through that series, you are doing the bulk of the work for your next series. That way, by the time you are ready to preach a sermon, you have seen and studied the scope of the entire book. That doesn't mean that you don't update, change and revise based on circumstances, God's Providence, etc. But it means that 75%+ of the work is already done.

I also am an advocate of thinking through which books to preach through, based on congregational need, preacher's experience (woe to the man who preaches through Romans or Hebrews in his first few years of ministry!) and ministry needs. If the preacher is honest, and if he plans on staying in one place for a while (or if he doesn't want to be continually "recycling" the same material like some kind of exegetical Tour de France) he will quickly realize that he gets one shot at preaching through a book. The preacher needs to dwell seriously on that - it makes one sober about preparation (how can you avoid preparation, knowing that you will never get another chance at Ecclesiastes 12 or Genesis 12?).

So preparation is key. It takes three steps:

Spend some time (a few days or more), ideally on a study leave week thinking through which books you would preach through. That does not mean you are a slave ton the results, but you can much more effectively makes changes and modifications to a plan you have. Plan, plan, and plan some more!!!
Before you begin a series, plan out how many sermons it will be. Break the text up into "preachable" chunks. Try and come up with "workable titles" for every week. They can be changed; they don't need to be perfect. But it will help. The young preacher often spends valuable time (1 hour?) thinking of "catchy" or good titles that frankly are forgotten by the people within a month (or week!). No one says "Can I get a copy of your sermon 'The Campaign for King'?" NO. They say, "can I have the sermon on 1 Kings 1?"
Work through the text, and organize the text into a discernible outline.

To see an example of how I do step #2, you can go to our website and see the various sermon series. Those lists were done in the first week or two of each series. Sometime next week, the entire series of titles for 1 and 2 Kings will be up (they are written, but I may not have time to update the webpage).

For step #1, I have a plan for morning and evening through 2012. It is very intentional. For example, in the morning, I wanted to start my ministry in Katy with the fundamentals of the Gospel (Galatians), and then wanted to move to missions in a post-modern world (Ecclesiastes) and then to take a more pastoral approach (1 Peter) followed by how God works within Covenant theology (Kings), to be followed how a church is united (we will be in a new facility and hence having new members - Philippians), and then how a Christian is to respond to the world around them as they minister (Daniel).

You may also notice the OT/NT variation, as well as the genre variation (epistle, narrative, prophecy, etc). This is intentional. You can do this by the seat of your pants, but I find it much easier to plan out. You can always modify (I delayed Habakkuk in the evening to allow our Associate Pastor to preach a good evening series through the membership vows).

I hope this helps.

Pergamum · #10 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 08:43 PM

eeny meeny miney moe....

just kidding

I never get past the very basics it seems

KMK · #11 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pergamum

eeny meeny miney moe....

just kidding

I never get past the very basics it seems

Me too.

I remember how awesome it was when I first started attending Calvary Chapel and the pastor taught chapter by chapter through the Bible. (That is one of Calvary's distinctives)

I am just a beginner (I've only preached 140 sermons) and I would like to start at the beginning of a book but the HS keeps bringing things up among the flock. Questions that they have. Issues that directly affect our particular church. Weaknesses that need to be addressed. I find myself being led, like Spurgeon, to the 'great texts'. Right now I am in the middle of a series on 'saving faith' inspired by Sermon 4 in Durham's "Christ Crucified".

I see a great deal of fruit when I do a series based on the catechism. I did that with the 10 Commandments and The Lord's Prayer.

Barnpreacher · #12 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 09:07 PM

Who can argue with Spurgeon's method of topical preaching? Yet the more I preach the more I find myself drawn to expository preaching. I am preaching through the Book of Romans this year. I also enjoy listening to preachers like Joel Beeke preach through the catechism. I think there is a time and a season for all of those types of preaching.

KMK · #13 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 09:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barnpreacher

Who can argue with Spurgeon's method of topical preaching? Yet the more I preach the more I find myself drawn to expository preaching. I am preaching through the Book of Romans this year. I also enjoy listening to preachers like Joel Beeke preach through the catechism. I think there is a time and a season for all of those types of preaching.

I too am preaching through the book of Romans but only about once a month. In two years we have finished the first 10 chapters. We had to take it slow through 8 and 9 as the doctrines of election and predestination were largely unheard of. I want to handle those issues very carefully.

toddpedlar · #14 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenbaggins

I consider what I think the congregation most needs to hear from the Word. Also factored in is what I have time to study. Romans, for instance, will have to wait until I have time to read all the myriad commentaries available. Job will have to wait until I finish plowing through Joseph Caryl.

So you'll be preaching on Job in, er, 2012?

Quote:

I also mix up the various portions of Scripture. I don't preach Genesis followed immediately by Exodus. Congregations need a balanced diet. So, I alternate OT and NT, and in the OT I alternate between Pentateuch, History, Wisdom/Psalms, and Prophets. In the NT I alternate among Gospels, Paul, and generals/Revelation. My plan is to preach through the entire Bible over the course of my ministry.

beej6 · #15 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 11:20 PM

And there is certainly nothing the matter with "interrupting" the consecutive exposition if there is a need perceived by the session and/or the pastor.

fredtgreco · #16 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 11:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toddpedlar

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenbaggins

I consider what I think the congregation most needs to hear from the Word. Also factored in is what I have time to study. Romans, for instance, will have to wait until I have time to read all the myriad commentaries available. Job will have to wait until I finish plowing through Joseph Caryl.

So you'll be preaching on Job in, er, 2012?

Maybe not, but I'll be preaching on JOb in the evening of 2009!

Daniel Ritchie · #17 (**permalink**) 02-16-2008, 04:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nleshelman

Daniel

There is no RPW mandate to preach book by book, verse by verse. This will be my practice, but we must allow for the minister to choose according to what the congregation needs.

Spurgeon said to preach the 'great texts'- which helps explain the popularity of his preaching. (This has been my practice too as a student- we are more itinerant).

I think that we can say it is what is best- but each session will have to decide what they want out of their teaching elders.

Brother in Christ.

That is questionable; Paul told Timothy to "preach the word" - what part of the word of God should not be preached. Surely every congregation needs expository preaching, and were not the epistles written systematically which would imply that they are to be preached through? While there does seem to be some warrant for preaching on individual texts on some occasions, I think we can say that they ordinary preaching should consist of systematic exposition of the Scriptures.

"So they read distinctly from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading." (Neh. 8:8)

Eoghan · #18 (**permalink**) 02-16-2008, 05:31 AM

I honestly believe that systematic preaching has to be the mainstay. As Mark Dever points out in Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, if a preacher focuses on his pet hobby horse what ever that is then he will bring his congregation up to his level. He basically shapes the congregation to his own mould.

If however he preaches systematically (and here I have to insist on attention to the text!) he will discover truths he is unfamiliar with and educate himself AND his congregation. This latter pattern will conform/mould both himself and his gongregation to conform to the mind of God rather than himself.

I was discussing with one of our teenagers the sermon and explained I was distracted by the text. She felt this was secondary to what the sermon was. Last week (Mark 2:1-12) I explained that the reason Christ forgave the paralytic his sins BEFORE healing him was in the context of his preaching. What was He preaching? Well that was covered by a previous text 4:17 when we are told that on hearing of John the Baptist's death Christ began to preach "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand". This was somewhat hidden in our pastors assertion that sometimes you need forgiveness before healing? And there was me thinking "that you may know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins... " was the purpose!

There is definitely a place for thematic preaching (gathering together related biblical texts) but the bread and butter has to be systematic exposition of the text.

Presbyterian Deacon · #19 (**permalink**) 02-16-2008, 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenbaggins

...Job will have to wait until I finish plowing through Joseph Caryl.

I know this is slightly

but this post makes me want to ask the following important question:

Does anyone know if there is an online link to Caryl's complete work on Job? I have been able to find various quotes and excerpts, but not the entire work.

Thank you.