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Expository Preaching (Step Four: Organizing the Sermon) (01)
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Paul Jang
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2008-03-24 13:24:16, hit : 3,636 |
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Expository Preaching (Step Four: Organizing the Sermon) (01)
(4) Step Four: Organizing the Sermon
The sermon must be theoretical and practical because it is the delivery of the Word of God. God is A God of order, and his Word is orderly. And human being who delivers the Word of God also is orderly one. Because the language which is the instrument of delivery of the Word of God has a structure, it must be orderly. In order to let his people understand the very truth that he is delivering, preacher must orderly speak the Word of God. If not so, his preaching will be failed to get them.
First of all, preacher should mind the importance of a good sermon structure. It must be important to both the preacher and the listener. Virtually to the preacher is it important that it gives guidance in preparation so that it may help in gathering and omitting in material. And it is important to the preacher that it gives confidence in delivery to know where he is going. In some cases, it can free you from dependence on notes of the sermon.
And also, to the listener is it important that it gives confidence in the preacher's knowledge of where he is going, helps the mind to focus and follow the argument, and aids the listeners have memory. Secondly, preacher should crystallize the central idea of the passage. "Every sermon should be ruthlessly unitary in its theme. this is the first and great commandment"[Ian Pitt-Watson, at the Fuller Theological Seminary].
Virtually every text book on preaching makes this point. John Henry Jowett siad, "I have a conviction that no sermon is ready for preaching, no ready for writing out, until we can express its theme in a short, pregnant sentence as clear as a crystal.
I find the getting of that sentence is the hardest, the most exacting, and the most fruitful labor in my study. To compel oneself to fashion that sentence, to dismiss every word that is vague, ragged, ambiguous, to think oneself through to a form of word which defines the theme with scrupulous exactness-- this is surely one of the most vital and essential factors in the making of a sermon; and I do not think any sermon ought to be preached over even written until that sentence has emerged, clear and lucid as a cloudless moon."(John Henry Jowett, The preacher: His Life and Work).
Terminology may vary to use, for example central idea, proposition, theme, thesis, main thought, homiletical idea.... What are the importance of the homiletical idea? The reasons are as the following. It promotes stability of structure (the foundation of the entire structure of the sermon). It ensures unity of thought. It contributes to forcefulness of impact.
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Introduction
Ministry 