Definition:

Preaching Portion: The amount of Scripture you choose to interpret and apply for a given sermon.

The past couple of weeks I’ve been conscious of how much easier post-Isaiah preaching is. In a prayer I worded for our congregation one recent Sunday morning I said to God that we needed His help even though the preaching portion wasn’t as difficult as Isaiah. I was feeling a bit of relief now that we had completed our study of Isaiah. But I was also feeling the need for Divine assistance because the act of preaching in general and, specifically, preaching any given preaching portion is beyond me and my abilities.

Would you be willing to share briefly with me why a particular preaching portion was difficult to preach and why? I want to begin to catalogue these issues for my learning, but also for future interaction with students and colleagues. How about your preaching portion for last Sunday? What made that Text difficult to preach? Thank you for sharing your insights with me. Here’s mine from Sunday…

1 Thessalonians 5:14 contains four Christian responses to four kinds of Christians. The instructions weren’t hard to preach. What made this sermon difficult was explaining why these instructions were vital for faith and the faith-family. As I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs, it’s easy at the end of an epistle to forget the Gospel foundation that appears at the beginning (in this case, places like 1 Thessalonians 1:3 and 1 Thessalonians 1:5).