If you’re a bit neurotic like me, you might be thinking: “That sounds like an excuse for shoddy sermons.” But that’s not my reason. Take, for instance, Luke 9:18-20 which contains Jesus’ crucial question, “Who do you say that I am?”, and Peter’s confession, “The Christ of God.” That paragraph begins in verse 18 with: “Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him…” I had to fight the temptation to elaborate on Jesus’ prayer life.

 

I fought that temptation because Luke provided no commentary; just the fact. Although Jesus’ prayer life–like yours and mine–was crucial to His relationship with God, it was incidental in this scene. On that particular Sunday I intended to communicate what God was saying through Luke and Luke wasn’t saying much about prayer. Here’s why often, less is more:

 

1. Less is often more because covering less leaves more time on Luke’s theology and intention for the Church. I’m finding that, as I develop as a preacher, I am consistently cutting out incidental, biblical data from my sermons. The longer I preach, the more I realize the need to spend more time on the parts of a preaching portion that contain theology that functions for the Church.

 

2. Less is often more because covering less also leaves more time for application. I can’t tell you the number of times I look at the clock on Sunday and wish I had an extra five minutes. Those extra minutes could be used to make sure we all know how to implement the theology when we leave church.

 

Obviously, this is not the only way to approach preaching in church. But in your attempts to be biblical, consider the value of accomplishing more by covering less.