Category Archives: big idea

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How to Avoid “Coruscating” Communication

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Somewhere in my readings last year, I learned a new word. “Coruscating” means the fragmentation of light. It means to give forth flashes of light (as opposed to one beam).

Take another look at the image above. What happens to your eyes when you look at it? I found my eyes quickly moving to each individual light. I wasn’t focusing on any one light.

Think about this in  light of our sermons and what our sermons do to our listeners. If our sermons engage in coruscating communication, our listeners’ attention will be easily diverted to all those individual flashes of concepts or ideas. Throughout the sermon we shine a bright light on various exegetical fragments and draw listener attention there for a few minutes before moving on to the next one. We are not communicating the cohesiveness that’s built into the structure of the preaching portion.

I am entering my second week of teaching Advanced Homiletics for Lancaster Bible College’s Graduate School. Soon I will be listening to student sermons. If history repeats itself, one comment I will make repeatedly in my evaluations is:

“The sermon contained too many unconnected ideas.”

Before Sunday, check to see if you are doing the following to help your parishioners focus on God’s Word:

1. Use your outline to display conceptual unity. Check your major points to see if they communicate the unity of the passage.

2. Use the intention of the passage to display unity. Throughout the sermon, keep everyone focused on how your preaching portion functions for the Church (what listeners are to do as a result of hearing God’s Word).

3. Finally, keep everything connected to the big idea of the preaching portion so that all those individual beams of light point back to their source.

All three demand the use of clear, logical transitions, every step of the way. I suggest that you write your sermon manuscript with these transitions in mind so that your listeners always see how the ideas in the passage combine to create meaning and intention.

And all for the sake of God’s reputation in the Church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

P.S. Preach a good sermon, will ya!?!

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Surprising Help from a Critical and Historical Commentary!

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Hermeneia

It is not often that a critical and historical commentary delivers consistent help to preachers beyond technical, exegetical fragments. That’s why I was surprised to see the Daniel commentary in the Hermeneia Series contain a segment called, Structure and Unity.

As Collins goes through each large segment in Daniel’s gospel, along with the brilliant technical stuff, he includes a brief treatment of the segment’s structure and unity:

Major points are listed (I, II, III, etc.)

Verse parameters (I. 3:1-7, for instance)

Summary statement (I. 3:1-7. Introduction)

Summary of the section (two or three sentences describing the content of the section)

For the past few years, I’ve been assigning a similar assignment to my students. I call it, Major Thought Blocks. I believe it to be the most important aspect of developing genuine expository sermons. It’s the first phase of my own study every Monday morning. Here’s why…

Theology is conveyed through the structure of your preaching portion. Unity of thought is also conveyed through the structure. Disregard or break from the structure and, chances are good (within the realm of the sovereignty of God, of course!), that you will stray from the theology and unity of the preaching portion.

So, I add only one more thing to the list above. Along with major points, verse parameters, summary statement, and summary of the section’s content, add logical transitions between the major points. That allows you to track the Author’s/author’s flow of thought. It’s that flow that communicates the theology (whether narrative or epistle).

Before Sunday, see if you have identified these components in your preaching portion. See if your sermon idea matches what is being communicated. If your sermon’s structure and unity is different from the preaching portion’s, check to see how different your message is from the message of the Text.

Preach well for God’s reputation in the Church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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Remembering the “Narrative” in the Birth Narratives of the Gospels

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I have to force myself to enjoy preaching at Christmas time. One of the many difficulties of preaching the birth narratives of the Synoptic Gospels is remembering that they are narratives. That means the subject of the sermon will come from the rising action (initial plot development) of, let’s say, Luke’s Gospel.

So, the description of the birth of Jesus functions within the larger storyline Luke is developing. Luke only gives us this much: “And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:6-7). That’s it.

But Luke has already told us his big idea: “it seemed good to me also…to write an orderly account for you…that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:3-4). This means that the event of the birth of Jesus and all surrounding events (births of John and Jesus foretold, Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, Mary’s Song, the birth of John, Zechariah’s prophecy, Caesar’s decree, the shepherd’s vision, etc.) contribute to Luke’s idea.

It’s easy to focus only on the little narrative–the birth narrative–and miss Luke’s larger narrative. But Luke’s larger narrative contains the purpose for which all smaller narratives in his Gospel exist. That purpose is most important for our congregants. If you’re interested in learning how to allow genres, such as narrative, to signal dominant meaning, take a look at chapter 4 in my new book, Preaching With Accuracy (Kregel, 2014).

Preaching with Accuracy: Finding Christ-Centered Big Ideas for Biblical Preaching

So, if you’re like me and you’re finished with the birth narratives for this year, Lord willing, remember the narrative part of the birth narratives for next year. If you are planning to preach from one of the early narratives in the Gospels this coming Sunday, before Sunday, check to see how the ideas in your mini-narrative fit into the larger idea of the Gospel writer. Allow that larger idea and purpose to drive your sermon.

Preach well for His glory in the church and in Christ Jesus.

Randal

P.S. Enjoy a blessed Christmas!

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My Book, Preaching With Accuracy, Has Arrived!

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This is a post of shameless, self-promotion that may be of interest to you if you preach or teach Scripture. A few days ago a box of author’s copies of my book, Preaching With Accuracy (Kregel), arrived! I think it officially goes on sale this weekend.

The book contains my method of finding Christ-centered big ideas for biblical preaching. The method is the result of struggling to identify the big idea or main theme of a preaching portion, especially in Old and New Testament narratives. So, I observed how the major genres or types of literature in the Bible conveyed their meaning, created a working list of genre clues, and showed how to work from those clues to big ideas.

If you put into practice some form of Christ-centered preaching, you’ll benefit from the discussion in chapter 6. In that chapter I present a way to preach Christ while maintaining the integrity of the Text being preached (often the knock against Christ-centered preaching is that it eclipses the meaning of the Text being preached). My approach adds a new dimension to Canonical interpretation (how any preaching portion in Scripture means something in light of the rest of the Story).

Anyway, I wanted to let you know about the book. God has been gracious in allowing my studies and thinking to fill a gap in preaching theory and practice.

To Him be all the glory in the Church.

Randal

P.S. Special thanks to all my students in the past who have helped refine my thinking and presentation of the method.

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What do you do in the first hour of sermon preparation?

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One of the many pluses of attending the annual meetings of the Evangelical Homiletics Society meetings is the opportunity in between meetings to sit with excellent pastor/homileticians. One of them is Lee Eclov, author of Pastoral Graces. We were talking about the importance of answering this question: What do you do in the first hour of sermon preparation? We both felt that question revealed much about a pastor’s method.

I’ve provided a screenshot of what I do every Monday morning. I begin by getting the big picture of the preaching portion’s logic (how the author has chosen to communicate theology). In the example above, I’ve identified 10 thought-blocks that will be explored in the sermon, plus the final “gospel” section with which I close out every sermon (how Christ-crucified creates the desire and capacity for the Believer to do what God is commanding).

I believe this may be one of the most important actions of an expositor. I call it pre-exegesis, but that might not be accurate. Before doing any real study of the passage, I want to capture the logic or structure of the theology. It helps me see early on how sermon time on Sunday might be divided (will I divide the time evenly among the ten or eleven thought-blocks or give more time to some?).

While conducting a preaching workshop a few weeks ago, I realized again how often pastors begin their sermon preparation by straying from the logic of the Text. When that occurs, it’s difficult to relay God’s message from the passage. It’s not that you won’t be biblical, but, rather, you won’t be biblical enough.

I realize you’re busy, but I wouldn’t mind reading a brief summary of what you do in your first hour of study (I’m assuming that you are praying some kind of, “Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law” type prayer).

Preach well for the sake of God’s reputation in the Church/world.

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How To Identify Your Big Idea: An Example from the Transfiguration of Christ in Luke 9:28-36

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Lord willing, Michele and I will be traveling to Talbot Seminary later this week to participate in the annual meeting of the Evangelical Homiletics Society. In preparing for those meetings, I recently read Daniel Green’s paper, Robert Alter and the Apostle Luke: Finding the Big Idea of Lucan Narratives by Examining Direct Discourse. Some of you know that for the past 15 or 20 years, I’ve been extremely interested in finding ways to help pastors find the big idea of preaching portions. My forthcoming book, Preaching With Greater Accuracy (Kregel), presents a method that allows genre and structure to signal meaning. So, I was excited to read Daniel’s application of Alter’s method to Luke’s Gospel. I’m also currently preaching through Luke, so the timing was excellent for me personally.
 
Green summarizes Alter, “Direct discourse, the spoken parts of the narratives, carries the crux meaning literarily and theologically.” It’s true that direct discourse often carries crucial parts of meaning, but in narratives the plot drives the subject. The placement of direct discourse in the story determines if it contains the subject or complement. Take for instance, Luke’s record of Jesus’ transfiguration. In verse 35 we hear God saying, “This is my Son…listen to him!” Because God’s speech appears so late in the preaching portion, it forms a major part of the complement. The subject, however, occurs early in the plot as Jesus’ handpicked trio sees Jesus’ glory (what Ryken in his commentary on Luke refers to as a “vision of the glorified Christ”).
 
We could state the big idea of the transfiguration: The result of seeing the glory of Christ (subject) is that we should recognize Him as God’s Son and listen to Him (complement).
 
Find your subject in the opening plot and let that subject drive your sermon. Then, allow strategic speeches occurring in the climax or conclusion of the narrative to complete your subject and provide the primary application.
 
Question: How did you identify your big idea in yesterday’s sermon?