Exploring words used in the original languages helps you understand a passage even more clearly. Master the basics of the original languages of the Old and New Testaments.
The courses and their corresponding textbooks provide a solid foundation for learning the grammar, syntax, and vocabulary of biblical Greek and Hebrew. Commentaries are useful to help you understand how other respected preachers have understood your chosen topic. While other books can cover specific topics more in-depth, commentaries focus on biblical passages. There are three main kinds of commentaries: pastoral, devotional, and critical. Keep reading to learn more about each commentary type.
Pastoral commentaries are written to help preachers and teachers find biblical insights and application points.
They also help preachers navigate specific questions or concerns in the text, whether or not they have training in original languages. This volume commentary series regularly ranks high on BestCommentaries. Block Wheaton College , and more.
The Preaching the Word series 37 vols. Kent Hughes, models the best of expository preaching. Kaiser Jr. Carson, J. Packer, and more.
Each volume is warm and accessible for preachers and laity alike. The Bible Speaks Today series 55 vols. This series is an excellent introduction to commentaries while offering powerful insights and applications for pastors and Church leaders to use in sermon and lesson preparation. The Tyndale Commentary Series has long been a trusted resource for Bible study.
If you want to get into more technical methods of understanding Scripture, a critical commentary may fit your needs. These commentaries are more academic in nature, relying on original language study, scholarly literature, and other kinds of textual criticism.
The Anchor Yale Bible 90 vols. This prestigious series sets the standard for critical commentaries because of its thoroughness, breadth, and accessibility. Move seamlessly from writing and preparing to preaching your sermon. The Sermon Editor Tool in Logos lets you conveniently draft your sermon right alongside your study tools and automatically generates an outline and presentation slides based on your work.
Many preachers and writers say the same thing recommend thinking of a specific person—or a handful of people—in the congregation who will hear a sermon, then writing the sermon with them in mind. Just make sure the majority of your church will understand your illustrations and quotes.
No matter what tactics you use as you write your sermon, the important part is knowing your audience well. Make your sermons come alive with vivid illustrations from the likes of Charles Spurgeon and D. The Biblical Illustrator series includes excerpts from Augustine, J. Ryle, Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, and more. A verse-by-verse commentary compiled by Joseph S.
Exell, The Biblical Illustrator provides the content you need to craft high-quality sermons: commentary, illustrations, outlines, and more. That is to say, we should not try to fit the Bible conveniently into our priorities, but rather we should reorder the priorities of our lives so that they line up with the Bible. In other words, while the primary situations of the original readers of the Bible are no doubt different than those of modern readers, the primary intention for both is likely the same: the reader should be brought into line with the worldview of the Bible.
As important as proper application is, the preacher cannot possibly explain every way that the text could be applied. It may be that each hearer of a sermon would most obediently apply the sermon differently in his own situation. So rather attempt to list every way that a text could be applied, he is probably wiser to give his readers a correct interpretation of a passage along with a few suggestions for how that interpretation could be put into practice, and then urge the hearers to seek out the best way for them to personally apply that truth.
Healthy sermons are a strong indicator of healthy churches. Church members should pray that pastors would devote themselves to this task and seek to understand why preaching is primary in the life of the church. Missionaries should seek to develop and train men for the ministry of preaching so that healthy sermons can become the normal way that churches and believers are built up in the faith and equipped to share the gospel with others.
David Prairie is currently a pre-field missionary with ABWE planning to serve in Moldova doing Theological Education and assisting with church planting efforts. He and his wife Brandi have four children. We use cookies to improve your experience on our website. Please read our privacy policy to find out more. Skip to main content. Time is short. Eternity matters. Help missionaries get to the field. Search form Search this site. Give Contact My Account Locations.
Search this site. Not all missionaries will be pastors or church planters, but all missionaries should be able to discern sound preaching. One Danger to Avoid Because this type of critique is somewhat normal in my current line of work, it would be easy and natural for me to only be evaluating the sermon as though I were the instructor needing to grade the student and never learning from the sermon as a rescued sinner who needs regular Scriptural exhortations.
Call pastors who demonstrate a commitment to sound teaching When you want to create a pattern for sound teaching, a good place to start is by only putting people behind the pulpit who show the ability to rightly divide the word of truth 1 Tim 32; 2 Tim Pray for your pastor to preach soundly and encourage him when he does. Confront your pastor when he strays from sound teaching.
The Characteristics of Healthy Sermons Healthy sermons are almost always preached by pastors who are spiritually healthy. A healthy sermon is expositionally accurate. A healthy sermon is biblically theological. A healthy sermon is Christologically centered.
A healthy sermon is evangelistically urgent. A healthy sermon is doctrinally sound. A healthy sermon is contextually applicable. About the Author. Learn More. So what about you? Did it make you feel really good or really bad about yourself, others, or God? Can you trust your feelings? Do those feelings ever lie to you? How do you know when to trust your feelings? God alone creates the unique kind of responses Charles Spurgeons preaching evoked, and we should celebrate these unique movements of the Spirit.
But we should also support and celebrate faithful pastors who work hard, preach faithfully, love their people, and endure with patient faithfulness. Most pastors are more like Charles Simeon than Charles Spurgeon, whose early years of ministry included tomatoes to the face and empty pews. Both preached faithfully; only one received adulation. As you listen, be careful not to trust your emotions too much. But Paul says pastors are to preach the Word, not move the soul, heart, or mind.
In other words, do you understand your Bible better because you heard this sermon? And do you see that the pastor crafted his message in such a way that the main point of his message was the main point of the Scripture he is preaching from? Maybe you sense that he missed it.
Good preaching—predominately but not exclusively—is expositional. Good preaching goes verse by verse through books of the Bible in order to reveal the whole counsel of God. I hope this question sounds strange to your ears.
What evangelical church would leave Jesus out? It would have fit neatly into any local synagogue. But we should not only ask if Christ was preached, we should also ask how Christ was preached. Did the preacher make it sound like Jesus came and died so that you could have a better marriage and more obedient kids? Christians and non-Christians both need nothing less than the resurrected and living Christ.
0コメント