Preaching

A pastor can make wise use of commentaries and other scholarly helps in sermon preparation by using such tools as conversation partners, not as masters.

How? By spending your earliest and best time with the text itself. Meditate on the text. Pray through the text. Exegete the text thoroughly. Outline the text. Ask questions of the text and answer them all yourself before you consult any commentaries.

A pastor can make unwise use of commentaries and other resources in sermon preparation if he allows them—rather than the text itself—to set his sermon’s agenda.

For a preacher, knowing the original languages can be likened to what Paul said to slaves about freedom: “If you can gain your freedom, do so. If not, be content with what you have” (1 Cor. 7:21, paraphrase). In other words, if you are able to learn the original languages, do so. They are a valuable tool. But such knowledge is not absolutely necessary for a preacher, for a number of reasons.

Expositional sermons take time to prepare, so you need to make time. You need to meditate on and exegete the text, understand the text’s main point and turn it into a sermon outline, carefully consider how to apply the text to your hearers’ lives, and then write a sermon. So the first thing to do is block out time in your schedule. As much as you can manage, make yourself unavailable for anything else.

Preach the gospel. All people of all ages need to hear and believe and be reminded of God’s saving work in Christ. Preach about the sovereignty of God. All people of all ages need to be reminded that God alone rules over every circumstance of our lives.

Teach your people why you preach expositionally. Consider preaching a sermon in which you explain the necessity and benefits of expositional preaching as well as how to listen to an … keep reading…

Don’t spend too much time trying to be funny. It’s tempting to rely on humor to make an emotional connection with your congregation, but you should resist the urge. When humor “happens,” fine. But be careful: if you train your people to expect humor, that’s what they’ll desire instead of God’s Word.