Month: November 2011

How To Be More Pointed with Your Application

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Pastoral, PreachingLeave a comment

Is your application reaching the entire city?

Peter Adam’s provides 8 ways we can be more pointed in our application of Scripture in our preaching ministry. These are good to think through as you prepare your sermon. If you are not a preacher, and most of you reading this blog are not, feel free to forward this along to your pastor. I believe these are helpful tips.

Here is what Adam’s says:

(1) Ask: What message does God want to give these people from this text?

(2) Focus upon four or five representative people in your congregation (one old, one young, one single, one married, one male, one female, etc.) and think through what difference you want this text to make to their lives.

(3) Work out the main ideas, preconceptions, movements, and theological strands in the congregation, and apply the text to each of them (the conservatives, the charismatics, the progressives, etc.).

(4) Meet once a week with various members of the congregation, talk with them about the text you plan to preach on next Sunday, and ask them what they make of it.

(5) Meet every Monday night with a small group to discuss the sermon you preached yesterday, and the text you will preach on next Sunday.

(6) Imagine you are counseling an individual. How would you apply this text to that person?

(7) Pray for your people more, and learn to love them more. Love is quick-eyed.

(8) Spend only half your preparation time one the meaning of the text, and then spend the rest of the time working on the application.

Resource

Quoted from Peter Adam Speaking God’s Words, 133.

Image: Damian Brandon / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Why Preach Expository Sermons?

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Pastoral, Preaching6 Comments

Today I am reading through Peter Adam’s book Speaking God’s Words, and I came across a section on why we need to preach expository messages. I would like to share with you what Adam’s says.

Reasons For Preaching Expository Messages:

(1) Expository sermons help us to let God set the agenda for our lives.

The danger of topical preaching is that it implies that we know what is important! Expository preaching lets God set the agenda in an obvious and public way.

(2) Expository preaching treats the Bible as God treated it, respecting the particular contexts, history and style of the human authors.

God chose to have the Bible written in books, each by a human author, and not as a collection of useful but disconnected sayings. We should follow God by preaching the way He wrote.

(3) This kind of preaching gives ample time for us to make clear the context of the Bible passage from which we are preaching.

If the Bible passage follows on from last week, the congregation will understand the context clearly. If I change the context each week, and include three or four Bible passages in my sermon, it will be very hard for the congregation to hear any text in context. This is not a model we should encourage. Expository preaching helps us to take each text in context, as God causes it be written.

Resource

Quoted from Peter Adam, Speaking God’s Words, 128.

Image: arkorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net