Tag: How To Prepare a Sermon

Dr. Sidney Greidanus on Ten Steps from Text to Sermon

Dr. Greidanus’ *Ten Steps from Text to Sermon

Sidney Greidanus

(1) Select the preaching text.

Select the preaching text with an eye to congregational needs. The text must be a literary unit and contain a vital theme.

(2) Read the text in its literary context.

Read and reread the text in its context and jot down initial questions.

(3) Outline the structure of the text.

In the Hebrew/Aramaic or Greek text, note the major affirmations, clausal flow, plot line, scenes, or other literary structures. Mark major units with headings and verse references.

(4) Interpret the text in its own historical setting.

a. Literary interpretation

b. Historical interpretation

c. Theocentric interpretation

Review your results with the help of some good commentaries.

(5) Formulate the text’s theme, goal, and need addressed.

a. State the textual theme in a brief sentence that summarizes the message of the text for its original hearers: subject and predicate. What is the text saying?

b. State the goal of the author for his original hearers. What is the text doing? Does the author aim to persuade, to motivate, to urge, to warn, to comfort? Be specific.

c. State the need the author addressed – the question behind the text.

(6) Understand the message in the contexts of canon and redemptive history.

a. Canonical interpretation: interpret the message in the context of the whole canon;

b. Redemptive-historical interpretation: understand the message in the context of God’s redemptive history from creation to new creation;

c. Christocentric interpretation: explore the ways of (1) redemptive-historical progression, (2) promise-fulfillment, (3) typology, (4) analogy, (5) longitudinal themes, (6) New Testament references, and (7) contrast.

(7) Formulate the sermon theme, goal, and need addressed.

a. Ideally, your sermon theme will be the same as your textual theme (Step 5a). If Step 6 forces a change, stay as close as possible to the textual theme. Your theme will guide especially the development of the body of the sermon.

b. Your goal must be in harmony with the author’s goal (Step 5b) and match the sermon theme. Your goal will guide the style of the sermon as well as the content of its conclusion.

c. State the need you are addressing. This need should be similar to the need addressed by the author. The need will inform the content of your introduction.

(8) Select a suitable sermon form.

Select a sermon form that respects the form of the text (didactic or narrative, deductive or inductive) and that achieves the goal of the sermon.

(9) Prepare the sermon outline.

If possible, follow the flow of the text (Step 3) in the body of the sermon. Main points, derived from the text, support the theme. The introduction should expose the need. The conclusion should clinch your goal.

(10) Write the sermon in oral style.

Say it out loud as you write it. Write in oral style, using short sentences, vivid words, strong nouns and verbs, active voice, present tense, images and illustrations.

PCFD Greidanus

*Adapted from Appendix One in Sidney Greidanus. Preaching Christ From Daniel (Foundations For Expository Sermons). Grand Rapids, MI. Eerdmans, 2012.

About the Author:

Sidney Greidanus received his B.A. from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI, his B.D. from Calvin Theological Seminary, also in Grand Rapids, and his Th.D. from the Free University in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His dissertation, Sola Scriptura: Problems and Principles in Preaching Historical Texts, was first published in 1970 and reprinted in 1979. Since returning to North America, he served as pastor of two Christian Reformed Churches in Canada, taught at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI, The King’s College in Edmonton, AB, Canada, and since 1990 has been professor of preaching at Calvin Theological Seminary.

Besides many articles and sermons, he has published several excellent scholarly and theologically rich books on preaching including:

Preaching Christ from Daniel: Foundations for Expository Sermons. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012.

Preaching Christ from Ecclesiastes: Foundations for Expository Sermons. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.

Preaching Christ from Genesis: Foundations for Expository Sermons. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.

Sola Scriptura: Problems and Principles in Preaching Historical Texts. Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2001.

Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999. (from which the article above is adapted).

The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text: Interpreting and Preaching Biblical Literature: Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 1989. Selected “The 1990 Book of the Year” by the Journal Preaching.

Dr. Zack Eswine’s Sermon Preparation Help For Preaching in a Post-Everything World

 *Adapted from Appendix 1 in Zach Eswine’s outstanding award winning book

Preaching to a Post-Everything World: Crafting Biblical Sermons that Connect with our Culture (Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker, 2008).

Use the Four Stories in Six Steps

 

^Day/Hour – (explanation: Some might use one day for each step. For these preachers I have broken steps down into days. Others might use each step in one day. For these preachers I have broken the steps down into hours.)

 ^Monday/Hour One – Step One

 Story #1 – Goal = What does this text teach me about God?

Identify the textual manner (word type and mood).

Locate parrot words. Connecting words, and divine comments.

Interrogate the big idea with questions (who, what, when, where, why, how)

Show and tell from the text.

Identify the echoes of redemption (armor, promise, fruit, gift, diaconal, miracle, community, divine silence, himself).

Find the illustrative path (picture, sensory, and creation words).

^Tuesday/Hour Two – Step Two

 Story #2 – Goal = What does this text teach me about people?

Identify echoes of creation (worship, relationship, vocation, conscience)

Identify echoes of the fall (fallen, finite, fragile, faltering)

Identify idol noise (superstition, skepticism, suspicion, stardom, stealing, squandering, sophistry).

Expose my moralistic responses to fallen echoes and idol noise.

Locate the vine.

^Wednesday/Hour Three – Step Three

 Story #3 – Goal = What does this text teach me about life under the sun?

Identify the Context of Reality (COR) (life situations, life seasons).

Discern my expository bans (censoring, muting, equivocating, evicting).

Expose my simplistic response to life under the sun.

Account for the accents of my hearers (memoir, marketplace, lore, land).

Translate cultural connections with biblical redirection (“You have heard it said…, but I say to you…”).

Describe the third way.

Account for the consciences of my hearers (hard-hearted and soft-hearted).

Bring echoes of heaven and hell into these features as appropriate.

^Thursday/Hour Four – Step Four

 Story #4 – Goal = What does this text say to me?

Receive instruction (grieving and quenching the Spirit).

Locate the vine.

Seek repentance.

Find forgiveness.

Give thanks and praise.

Testify.

^Friday/Hour Five – Step Five

 Goal: Place the four stories into a deductive or inductive sermon form

 

^Saturday/Sunday/Hour Six – Step Six

 Goal = Pray the four stories

Pray for illumination = Psalm 119:18, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.”

Pray for a message = Ephesians 6:19, “and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.”

Pray for an open door = Colossians 4:3-4, “At the same time, pray for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison.”

Pray for effectiveness = 2 Thessalonians 3:1, “Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you,”

Pray for clarity = Colossians 4:4, “that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.”

Pray for boldness = Ephesians 6:20, “for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.”

Pray for a deliverance = 2 Thessalonians 3:2, “and that we be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith.”

*Zack Eswine serves as the Senior Pastor of Riverside Community Church in St. Louis, Missouri. His role focuses his time on setting vision, preaching, spiritual formation and pastoral care.

Dr. Eswine has served in pastoral roles for over twenty years. He served as Assistant Professor of Homiletics and Director for Doctor of Ministry for six years at Covenant Theological Seminary.  Zack’s most recent book, won Preaching Today’s Book of the Year Award in 2009. It is entitled, Preaching to a Post-Everything World: Crafting Biblical Sermons that Connect with our Culture (Baker, 2008).  He has also written, Kindled Fire: How the Methods of C.H. Spurgeon can help your Preaching (Mentor, 2006). His forthcoming books are entitled, Preaching Barefoot: Life and Ministry as a Human Being (Crossway) and Spurgeon’s Sorrows: Handling the Darker Sides of Life and Ministry (Christian Focus).