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Editorial Director: Jonathan Leeman

Editor: Sam Emadi
Managing Editor: Alex Duke
Layout: Rubner Durais
Cover Design: OpenBox9
Production Manager: Rick Denham & Mary Beth Freeman
9Marks President: Mark Dever
Contents
Editor’s Note
8
Jonathan Leeman

YOUR CHURCH NEEDS PREACHING

4 Reflections after Listening to 18 Hours of Sermons
10
in America’s Biggest Churches
Colton Corter

Why Even Mature Christians Need Gospel-Centered

18
Preaching
Jeramie Rinne

I Was A Gospel-Believing Preacher Who Didn’t

24
Preach the Gospel
Ed Moore

The Easy Application Your Sermon Is Probably

31
Missing
Keith Collier

PREACHING IN THE BIBLE

Reflections on 2 Timothy 4:1
34
Ligon Duncan

37
Reflections on 1 Peter 1:10–12
Tim Cantrell
 Reflections on 1 Thessalonians 2:13
40
Ryan Fullerton

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 2:1–5

43
Sinclair Ferguson

HOW (NOT) TO PREACH

“Thou Shalt Not Steal” and Other Sermon Points
46
I Didn’t Make Up: Some Thoughts on Pastoral
Plagiarism
Jared C. Wilson

How Not to Preach the Pentateuch

52
David King

59
How Not to Preach Historical Narrative
Sam Emadi

How Not to Preach the Psalms

71
Jim Hamilton

How Not to Preach the Prophets

77
Nick Roark

How Not to Preach Wisdom Literature

82
Juan Sanchez

How Not to Preach the Gospels

88
Aubrey Sequeira
 How Not to Preach the Epistles
94
Bobby Scott

Bad Biblical Theology Leads to Bad Sermons

101
Sam Emadi

107
Preaching Without Exemplars?
Jason Hood

115
Allegorical Interpretation: Finding the Line Before
You Cross It
Robert Kinney

HOW TO PREACH
122
What Would the Puritans Say to Us Now? Learning
from Puritan Prescriptions on Preaching
Matt Haste

Three Most Important Words I Learned in Seminary:

128
“Textual, Epochal, Canonical”
David Schrock

Must You Share the Gospel In Every Sermon?

135
Invitation Without the Altar Call
Aaron Menikoff

Gospel-Centered Preaching in Hard Places

141
Andy Prime

Preaching to Different Types of Hearers

151
Jonathan Leeman
 Discipling and Developing Leaders Through a
154
Sermon Application Team
Mark Vroegop

159
How Long Should a Sermon Be?
Jonathan Leeman
Editor’s Note

Jonathan Leeman

A
few years ago, I was enjoying dinner with David Helm, au-
thor of Expositional Preaching and the founder of The
Charles Simeon Trust, probably the best preacher tra-
ining ministry out there. He mentioned that he was concerned
about the growing popularity of gospel-centered preaching. 
 What?! Why? Isn’t gospel-centered preaching a good thing? 
He answered, “Because the tail is going to start wagging the
dog.” Helm was worried that young preachers would get lazy,
not pay close attention to their texts, and move toward Christ
too quickly. They wouldn’t do careful exegetical work; or preach
the point of their particular texts; or take canonically responsible
ways of moving toward the gospel. To put it another way, they
would allegorize. 
Of course, that’s not the only problem with preaching out the-
re. Some preachers don’t preach the gospel at all. Others fail to
apply the text to their whole church. And still others fail to respect
the rules of their particular genre, have bad biblical theology, or

8
preach without exemplars. For all this start with Colton Colter’s
overview of preaching today. He listened to nearly 20 hours of
preaching from America’s biggest evangelical churches, and then
wrote about what he heard. It’s both discouraging and important.
Then look at the articles by Robert Kinney, Ed Moore, Keith Co-
llier, Jason Hood, and Sam Emadi.
We’ve taken the photographic negative (remember those?)
approach to preaching genres—“How Not to Preach…”—by fo-
cusing on mistakes that seem pretty common among preachers
today. Our goal is not to be overly critical, but to offer a guide for
identifying the pitfalls any of us might fall into unawares.  
The 9Marks Journal concludes with some constructive advice
on preaching well, including a dense but absolutely crucial piece
by David Schrock as well as typically helpful and wise articles
by Mark Vroegop, Aaron Menikoff, Matt Haste, and Andy Pri-
me. Also, don’t miss the encouraging reflections on several we-
ll-known preaching texts by Ligon Duncan, Tim Cantrell, and
Ryan Fullerton. 
Brother pastors, we must give careful attention to our prea-
ching.  God’s preached Word, working through God’s Spirit, is
God’s primary instrument for growing God’s church. In fact,
God’s Word is the most powerful force in the universe. God crea-
ted the universe through his Word, and he is recreating it through
his Word (Gen. 1:3; 2 Cor. 4:6). 
God grows us as individuals and as local churches through our
ears. That’s why the apostles in Jerusalem asked others to care for
the needs of the widows and address the unity problem in the
church—two crucial matters! They knew they had to attend to the
ministry of the Word and prayer.
If you’re the main preaching pastor in your church, do your
priorities match theirs?

9
4 Reflections after
Listening to 18 Hours of
Sermons in America’s
Biggest Churches

Colton Corter

W
hat’s the preaching like in America’s biggest churches?
That’s the question my wife and I set out to answer.
We listened to four sermons each from the coun-
try’s nine biggest evangelical churches: Church of the Highlands
(Birmingham, AL), North Point Ministries (Alpharetta, GA),
Gateway Church (Southlake, TX), Crossroads Church (Cincin-
nati, OH), Christ’s Church of the Valley (Peoria, AZ), Saddle-
back Church (Lake Forest, CA), Christ Fellowship Church (Palm
Beach Gardens, FL), Elevation Church (Mathews, NC), and Sou-
theast Christian Church (Louisville, KY). With an average ser-
mon length of about 30 minutes, these reflections are based on

10
approximately 18 total hours of material. As we listened, we found
several common threads. Those threads will make up most this
article—a state of American preaching, if you will.

1. THE GOSPEL AT BEST ASSUMED; MOST OF THE TIME,

IT’S ENTIRELY ABSENT.
Let me begin with the most important observation: in 36 sermons,
the good news of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection was
unclear 36 times. Often, some or all of these facets of the Chris-
tian gospel were left out. “No gospel” became a common note.
I don’t mean to say various elements of the gospel weren’t oc-
casionally mentioned; they were. Todd Mullins (Christ Fellows-
hip Church) mentions in his sermon series, “What Do You See
Next?”, that faith is believing in what Jesus did for you—carrying
the cross, rising from the dead, etc. But none of those elements are
articulated or explained. It’s unclear exactly why we need Jesus to
do anything for us. Furthermore, it’s unclear exactly what he did
by doing the things Mullins mentions. Isolated phrases here and
there without much reference to how the Bible puts them together
was the norm.
In his sermon, “The Robe of Righteousness,” Robert Morris (Ga-
teway Church) provides a happy exception. He mentions the doc-
trine of imputation, stating that we aren’t worthy of God and are
in need of a “balancing (of our) . . . account.” Morris goes on to say
that in the gospel we get Jesus’ assets while Jesus receives our debts.
That’s as close to the gospel that any of these sermons gets—and
even in this instance, the true things Morris mentions are isolated
from the rest of the truths that make up the gospel message. (Nei-
ther God’s holy judgment, sin, nor repentance is mentioned.)
But here’s what’s even more disheartening: in his next sermon,
Morris says the Jesus who accomplished all this for us “lays down
all his divinity” (“The Ring of Authority”). Conspicuously mis-
11
sing from Morris’ explanation of what he calls “substitutionary,
propitiatory, blood-bought salvation” is the response one must
have to this message in order to be saved, which leads us to our
next observation.
2. REPENTANCE RARELY COMES ACROSS AS SOMETHING
URGENT AND NECESSARY; INSTEAD, IT’S EITHER
OPTIONAL OR NOT WORTH MENTIONING AT ALL.
Repentance was mentioned only a handful of times in the ser-
mons we listened to. Kyle Idleman (Southeast Christian Church)
mentions repentance as a way to grow in Christian maturity. Mo-
rris says his daughter repented once and she was healed from mi-
graines because the open door the enemy had in her life had been
closed by doing so. Steven Furtick (Elevation Church), when spea-
king of the prodigal son, quips that the prodigal wasn’t repentant,
just hungry. In explaining how brokenness precedes breakthrou-
ghs, Chris Hodges (Church of the Highlands) mentions repentan-
ce but doesn’t explain what it means or what it looks like to actua-
lly repent. In fact, Hodges hints that nominal Christianity—what
he calls “fire insurance” Christianity—while not optimal, is all
you need (“Mirror, Mirror”).
Furthermore, the pastors of these churches rarely spoke like
they were conscious that there were people in the building who
were actively on their way to hell until they turned from their sins
and trusted in Christ for salvation. Humans are never described
as being in willful rebellion against God, and so sinfulness is des-
cribed almost as a neutral happenstance, something that ought to
be corrected by this or that but need not be overly dawdled over.
Because of this, every blessed promise and every moral com-
mand was applied to everyone without exception. It would take
someone with acute self- and Bible-awareness to realize that the
sliver of sinfulness mentioned throughout the sermon is enough
to sink their ship.
12
3. WHILE THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL IS ABSENT, ITS
SHADOW LURKS IN THE BACKGROUND.
At least two of the churches, North Point and Crossroads, had
a sermon or sermons on the subject of “winning.” Brian Tome
(Crossroads) defines winning this way: “to find God’s will for
your life and accomplish it” (“Tenacity”, week 2). What’s Tome’s
win for this year? 100,000 social media followers so that his “spi-
ritual influence” can spread. Tome goes on to say in his sermon,
“Target,” that “winning” is a biblical commandment.
Nearly all the sermons we listened to had a decidedly cheery
tone. We also heard a lot about miracles—not necessarily as an
implication of a decided theological framework, but rather as a
rhetorical device to justify the sermon’s positive outlook on the
future.
Let me be clear: I don’t remember a single sermon that espou-
sed an explicit prosperity gospel. No sowing seeds. No reaping
financial harvests. But if you listened in as a visitor, it would be
hard not to come away thinking that God wants you to live a ha-
ppy life full of relational, mental, and emotional “wins.” Whether
the preacher referred to “winning” or not, listening to these ser-
mons could make one think that Christianity is most interested
in curbing our bad habits so that we can all be better versions of
ourselves. In fact, taken at face value, Ashley Wooldridge deserves
an honorable mention in the clearest gospel category. He explai-
ned that Jesus lived a perfect life, died for all, and rose from the
dead. But he said these things to prove Jesus is “the x-factor of
habit change.” (“Stopping a Bad Habit”).
Put simply, the themes of self-improvement and self-actualiza-
tion crowded out a prior necessity: heart change and sanctification.
Our greatest problem becomes that undesirable habit, not our un-
derlying sin before God. And the result of knowing the Lord is re-
duced to being a better you and living a full life. The word “sin,”

13
whether in believers or unbelievers, is rarely mentioned. All of this,
of course, is divorced from any discussion of God’s judgment. In
these sermons, God is affable. He’s not level with us, but he’s willing
to level with us. He’s serious, but not too serious.
What about suffering? Well, there seemed to me to be an uns-
tated assumption that positivity and progress comprise the gene-
ral tenor of the Christian life. When suffering is talked about, it
was usually mentioned as something to escape by talking to an
elder or changing certain habits or mindsets. I couldn’t help but
wonder: would these churches be a hard place for those whose
lives, year after year after year, just kind of subsist?
Thankfully, Hodges (Church of the Highlands) devotes an en-
tire message to suffering (“No Pain, No Gain”). He affirms that
God leads us through dark days. But just as he points the audien-
ce to eternity with God in heaven, he makes a quip to lighten the
mood. Still, this dose of realism served as a welcomed departure
from what were otherwise generally light and positive sermons.

4. THE USE OF THE BIBLE GENERALLY FELL INTO TWO

CATEGORIES: MISUSE OR ABUSE.
Every preacher utilized the Bible in one way or the other—some
more than others, others worse than some! Morris stood out as
one who consistently read the entire passage he wanted to preach.
Hodges read most of Genesis 32 in his sermon entitled “Wrest-
leMania.” Rick Warren said Saddleback self-consciously tries to
base everything they do on the Word of God. Most of the ser-
mons had a main text of sorts but the degree to which the text
was used varied. Narratives and parables were by far the preferred
genre, and the move from text to application was usually hasty
and direct.
Take, for example, Idleman’s sermon, “One Day at a Time.”
Luke 2 is his main text. He uses the passage to make the following
14
point: since it took Jesus one day at a time to become who he was,
we should expect the same. Tome said Rahab’s story is a lesson
that no matter what happened in 2019, you can be a winner in
2020 (“Tenacity,” Week 2). Hodges compares the Old Testament
law to things we in the present can’t break through in “Mirror,
Mirror”; in “Wrestlemania”, he uses Jacob wrestling with God as
an opportunity to ask his listeners about the areas they were cu-
rrently wrestling through.
In still another sermon, “Hide and Seek,” Hodges makes a
hermeneutic move that is paradigmatic for the rest of the ser-
mons we heard. He directly applies promises given to Jehosha-
phat and David assuring them of military victory (1 Samuel 30)
to modern hearers. The application skips past the Bible’s storyli-
ne and fulfillment in Christ and moves directly to psychologi-
zed, anecdotal advice.
Simply put, in these sermons, men mostly mishandle the
Bible. It’s referenced, not revered; alluded to, not explained; sat
across from, not under. When biblical stories are there, they’re
commonly being co-opted into the vocabulary of whatever
else the preacher is trying to say about winning or breaking
through or whatever. The words on the page rarely speak for
themselves.

CONCLUSION
The point of this project isn’t to poke fun at these churches or to
indict their motivations. God alone knows the heart, and we are
left simply to evaluate based on what’s observable. The point of
this project is to provide a snapshot of what a large percentage of
American church-goers might hear when they darken the doors
of a church building on Sunday morning. We assume that becau-
se such preaching is popular in large churches, it’s often aspiratio-
nal in smaller churches.
15
 Our main take away, I believe, is to soberly reflect on the ser-
mons we give and the sermons we listen to week in and week out.
May God grant us and our churches mercy to clearly proclaim the
gospel, edify the saints, and invite unbelievers into the greatest
joy imaginable—life with God in Christ.

SERMON APPENDIX
North Point Community Church – Andy Stanley
• “Winning” (December 29, 2019)
• “Talking Points – One is the Win” (January 12, 2020)
• “Talking Points – Choosing Sides” (January 19, 2020)
• “Talking Points – Kingdom First” (January 26, 2020)

Saddleback Church – Rick Warren

• “The Only Family That Will Last Forever” (January 5, 2020)
• “What On Earth Am I Here For?” (January 12, 2020)
• “The Values That Matter Most to Us” (January 19, 2020)
• “How God Grows Our Faith” (January 26, 2020)

Southeast Christian Church – Kyle Idleman

• “One Day at a Time” (January 5, 2020)
• “One Decision at a Time” (January 12, 2020)
• “One Dollar at a Time” (January 19, 2020)
• “One Need at a Time” (February 9, 2020)

Crossroads Church – Brian Tome

• “Tenacity (January 11, 2020)
• “Target” (January 4, 2020)
• “People Over Politics” (February 8, 2020)
• “Love” (December 21, 2019)

Gateway Church – Robert Morris

16
• “King of Kings” (December 7, 2019)
• “The Robe of Righteousness” (January 11, 2020)
• “The Ring of Authority” (January 18, 2020)
• “The Shoes of Sonship” (January 25, 2020)

Christ’s Church of the Valley – Ashley Wooldridge

• “Starting a New Habit” (January 18, 2020)
• “Start With Who Over Do” (January 11, 2020)
• “Stopping a Bad Habit” (January 25, 2020)
• “Owner Vs. General Manager (February 8, 2020)

Elevation Church – Steven Furtick

• “The Father Saw” (January 19, 2020)
• “Ghosted” (January 26, 2020)
• “Flip the Bag” (February 2, 2020)
• “Your Season to Succeed” (February 9, 2020)

Christ Fellowship Church – Todd Mullins

• “The God of More Than Enough” (November 11, 2019)
• “What Do You See Next? – Part 1 (January 6, 2020)
• “What Do You See Next? – Part 2 (January 13, 2020)
• “What Do You See Next? – Part 3 (January 21, 2020)

Church of the Highlands – Chris Hodges

• “WrestleMania” (January 5, 2020)
• “Mirror, Mirror” (January 12, 2020)
• “No Pain, No Gain (January 19, 2020)
• “Hide and Seek” (January 26, 2020)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Colton Corter lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he is a mem-
ber of University Baptist Church.
17
Why Mature Christians
Need Gospel-Centered
Preaching

Jeramie Rinne

A
nwar is one of our elders and a father of three in his 50s.
He teaches adult education classes, he leads Bible studies
in both English and Arabic, and he meets with a platoon
of men weekly at 6:30 a.m. before church for accountability and
discipleship. The brother is a shepherding machine. He fearlessly
wades into sticky pastoral situations and commands the respect
and trust of the congregation.
Deborah has walked with her savior for 58 years. She listens
to my sermons with her Bible open, pen in hand. She takes the
treasures from the Word into her week to mentor others. Deborah
prays like she has a direct line to God. She’s faced many difficul-
ties over the years, but these struggles only drive the stake of her
faith deeper into Jesus. Her white hair is a glorious crown of wis-
dom and maturity.

18
 Do seasoned saints like Anwar and Deborah need gospel-cen-
tered preaching? Haven’t they progressed way past the basic tru-
ths of Jesus’ death and resurrection? Isn’t proclaiming Christ cru-
cified week after week to them like telling a gourmet chef how to
fry an egg, or reminding an ER doctor how to check vital signs?
Aren’t we supposed to “leave behind the elementary doctrine of
Christ and go on to maturity” (Hebrews 6:1)?1
In my experience, mature believers not only need gospel-cen-
tered preaching, but in fact savor it. Here’s four things this type of
preaching does for those grown-up in their faith:

1. IT CONNECTS THE BIBLE.

Mature Christians love the Scriptures. You can sometimes spot
the veteran believers at church by the worn Bibles they carry, fi-
lled with highlighted pages. But these life-long Scripture students
still need help putting their Bibles together. They know the stories,
but often they haven’t been shown how all those stories connect to
form a single narrative that culminates in Jesus Christ.
They’ve heard sermons, for example, about how to imitate Jo-
seph’s integrity by fleeing sexual temptation. But they often ha-
ven’t been shown how Joseph prefigures the betrayal, innocent
suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and global salvation
of Jesus. They can tell you all about Adam in the garden and
draw good morals from the story. But they likely can’t articula-
te Adam’s royal-priestly calling or map out God’s successive, but
unsuccessful, Adamic “reboots” through Noah, Abraham, Israel,
and David. They can’t explain how all this climaxes in Jesus, the
last Adam, the true Son of God.
1  Hebrews 6:1–3 might seem to suggest that the gospel is something that mature Christians leave behind. Jared
Wilson (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/jared-c-wilson/hebrews-6-teach-move-gospel/) and
John Piper (https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/does-hebrews-tell-us-to-grow-up-beyond-the-
gospel) give helpful responses. It’s also noteworthy that the entire epistle of Hebrews gives us some of the richest,
deepest theological reflections on the meaning of Christ’s death in the New Testament. It stretches credulity to
think that the writer of Hebrews sees his letter as an elementary doctrine of Christ that should be left behind.

19
 Gospel-centered preaching threads together the Bible’s pre-
cious texts into a sparkling necklace, and Jesus is the crown jewel
in the center. It creates biblical-theological “aha” moments that
thrill mature Christians like Anwar and Deborah. Seeing Jesus
in all of Scripture is like going through the attic and finding let-
ters or old photos from your beloved grandmother whom you’ve
known for years. They help you know her and treasure her all the
more by learning more of her story.

2. IT INSPIRES SPIRITUAL GROWTH.

Anwar and Deborah would be quick to tell you that they haven’t
arrived yet spiritually. They have a long way to go. “Mature” and
“maturing” aren’t mutually exclusive categories. Even the apostle
Paul said of himself:
Not that I have already obtained all this or am already perfect
(teleioo), but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jes-
us has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have
made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind
and straining for what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for
the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of
us who are mature (teleios) think this way, and if in anything you
think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.” (Phil 3:12–15).
According to Paul, mature (teleios) Christians like himself
press on to be perfect (teleioo). And what does perfection entail?
Perfection is knowing Christ and having a life shaped by his dea-
th and resurrection. Paul again:
Indeed I count everything a loss because of the surpassing
worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffe-
red the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I
may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness
of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes from
faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on fai-
20
th—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and
share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any
means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Phil
3:8–11).
Even mature believers experience mission drift. The world, the
flesh, and the devil distract us from the great aim of knowing
Christ. Gospel-centered preaching empowers precisely the kind
of Christ-pursuing mindset and sanctification Paul describes by
holding Christ up before saints like Anwar and Deborah. We all
need someone to stand before us weekly and call us to fix our eyes
on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. The Bible is not
ultimately an instruction book for life, or a moral encyclopedia
of do’s and don’ts. It’s a great drama, an epic saga in which Jes-
us Christ is the heroic leading man who’s death and resurrection
enables us to know him and be like him.

3. IT FOSTERS UNITY.
The Roman Christians seemed to be mature. Their faith was being
proclaimed throughout the whole world (Romans 1:8), and Paul
was convinced that they were “full of goodness, filled with all
knowledge and able to instruct one another” (Romans 15:14). Yet
he was “eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome”
(Romans 1:15) and in fact spent the first 11 chapters doing so.
Why?
Part of the reason Paul sent this gospel-soaked letter was be-
cause the Roman church struggled with unity. Rifts between Jew
and Gentile, between the strong and the weak (Romans 14), stra-
ined their fellowship. Yes, even mature Christians can struggle
to maintain unity. Even proven gospel workers like Euodia and
Synthche needed help agreeing (Philippians 4:2–3). I’ve noticed
over the years that often the ugliest church splits revolve around
conflict between long-time, pillar members.
21
 Regular gospel-centered preaching reminds mature Chris-
tians of our unity in Christ. Those who have been reconciled to
God through Jesus’ death and resurrection have no excuse to
be at odds with one another because the gospel is the power of
salvation for both Jews and Gentiles (Romans 1:16). The gospel
destroys walls of hostility and makes one new man out of two
(Ephesians 2:13–18). Preaching Christ crucified weekly reminds
us that Jesus laid down his rights to serve and save us. That’s
why Paul reminded the Romans that both strong and weak
Christians should respect one another’s consciences in debata-
ble matters. Christ lived and died for them, and both the strong
and weak were trying to live for Christ according to their cons-
cience (Romans 14:1–9).

4. IT STOKES WORSHIP.
Most importantly, gospel-centered preaching fuels awe of Jesus.
Our hearts swell with affection for Christ when we see him and
his gospel as the center of history, the ground and model of our
sanctification, and the source of our unity in the church.
Mature believers need this desperately. Our flesh still craves
idols, even after decades of walking with God. Our fear of God
leaks. The bonfire of devotion burns low. We living sacrifices keep
crawling off the altar. Even the most mature believer can grow
numb at Jesus’ worth and take the wonder of our salvation for
granted. We need regular exposure to the glory of God as revea-
led in the cross.
Gospel-centered preaching does just that. If Christ and his
saving work is like a perfect, million-carat diamond with thou-
sands of facets, then gospel-centered preaching aims to lift up and
slowly turn that diamond before the congregation so that ever-
yone may be dazzled again and again by seeing Jesus’ excellency
from different angles.
22
 We gospel preachers have a great privilege. We get to walk
every week with the blood-bought people of God—both spiritual
babes and spiritual adults—just like Jesus walked with the two
disciples on the road to Emmaus. And like Jesus, we open our
Bibles to Moses and all the Prophets and interpret to our hearers
from all the Scriptures the things concerning Jesus. And when we
do, Jesus exalts himself in their hearts and minds, and they exult
in him. And by God’s grace, they will say, “Did not our hearts
burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened
to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeramie Rinne is an author and the senior pastor of Evangelical
Community Church of Abu Dhabi in the UAE.

23
I Was A Gospel-
Believing Preacher
Who Didn’t Preach the
Gospel

Ed Moore

I
was a minister of the gospel who for many years did not
preach the gospel to my flock. How did this happen? Let me
back up.
It’s the early 1940s. Picture a zealous young man standing on a
billiards table in the small western Pennsylvania town of DuBois,
preaching the gospel to my father and his friends. My dad spent
most of his spare time as a teenager in the pool hall, smoking
cigarettes and losing money. He was raised in a liberal, mainline
church. He’d never heard the gospel until a bold, self-appointed
herald of the good news perched himself on a pool table and an-
nounced that “Christ died for the ungodly.”
24
 The sermon yielded no immediate results, but the message of
the cross was clearly delivered. The young preacher never saw the
fruit of his labor; he was killed in World War II. But shortly after
the war, God saved my newlywed parents—and for the rest of his
life, my dad remained thankful for that young man who initially
brought him the message of saving grace. He lived the rest of his
days committed to the gospel. By trade, he was a top-40 radio DJ.
He would sign off the air each day by saying, “This is your country
cousin, Charles Archibald Moore, bidding you farewell and en-
couraging you to place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and his
precious blood.” He was never ashamed of the gospel, and always
gaged the ability of a preacher based upon how many times he
mentioned “the blood of Jesus Christ.”
Fast forward to 1961. I was born on the same day that my
maternal grandmother was buried. At her funeral, that same
gospel was preached and my uncle came to saving faith. All
this to say that the gospel was the centerpiece of our family
life long before I was born. I point this out not to boast, but
rather to state that God graciously placed me in a home where
the gospel was a priority. Eventually, God brought me spiri-
tual life at the age of 16 when, upon hearing the gospel for the
umpteenth time, the Holy Spirit regenerated me and granted
repentance and saving faith.
My college years were spent aggressively sharing the gospel
with the lost through the influence of a campus ministry. I gra-
duated from the University of Georgia in 1984 and started my
first ministry job two days later. I worked as an overzealous youth
director, and my evangelistic efforts gave evidence that I was fu-
lly convinced that the power of God unto salvation is the gospel.
Even though my methodology at the time was decisionalistic, my
burden for those teenagers was heartfelt and genuine.
Thankfully, there was a major shift in my theology during
this stage of life. The truths of reformed soteriology gripped
25
my heart and my enthusiasm to rescue the perishing remained.
In time, I earned an M.Div. and became the pastor of North
Shore Baptist Church in Bayside, NY. If you were to listen to
my sermons from 19842005—and I strongly suggest that you
do not invest your time doing so—you would be hard pressed
to find a single message in which I did not preach the gospel to
unbelievers. I was raised with the gospel, I believed the gospel,
I preached the gospel!
And yet, my sermons and my entire ministry were incon-
gruent. There was always a portion of the message dedicated to
the unbeliever. I told them in clear terms the necessity of coming
in faith to Christ for eternal life. I have no regrets with respect
to how I addressed the enemies of God. The gospel was in every
message I ever preached, but there was a problem: it was confined
to the unconverted. Once the obligatory outward call to salvation
box was checked, I would then preach the rest of the sermon to
believers. The spiritual growth portion of the message may have
been true to the text, but it was almost always driven by moralistic
and/or legalistic motives.
How could this happen? In my worldview, the gospel was for
the unsaved—and only for the unsaved. The practical application
for day-to-day Christian living was driven by long to-do lists and
usually propelled by guilt and shame. The messages, which always
included a “come to Jesus for salvation” commercial, were for the
most part works-based, motivational speeches with chapter and
verse support. This was sadly true because I didn’t grasp the fact
that the gospel is for both the unsaved and the saved, for both
evangelism and sanctification.
I was not intentionally withholding gospel help from the
saints; I simply did not understand that the gospel is for belie-
vers. How could I have missed this when it’s so plainly obvious
in the New Testament? I’ll never know the answer to this ques-
tion. I can, however, liken it to my discovery of the doctrines
26
of grace. When God’s sovereignty in all things was pointed out
to me, I suddenly saw it everywhere in Holy Writ. It was as if
someone had stolen my Bible in the middle of the night and in-
serted verses on every page which supported the glorious truth
that “salvation is of the Lord.” Likewise, when it was brought
to my attention that the gospel is for the saved, it was an equa-
lly profound revelation. Ironically, many of the verses which
unequivocally support the fact that Christians need the gospel
were verses that I had committed to memory as a child. This is
why it is so important to teach not only what a verse says, but
also what it means.
Speaking of means, the means that God used to bring this
to my attention was a desire to learn about church planting. In
2005, I became acquainted with some men who were part of a
Sovereign Grace church. I knew very little about their ministry
at the time. I was aware that they had really good music and that
they were very fruitful in church planting. When I was invited
to attend a pastors’ conference in April of 2005, I went with the
intention of learning something about how our church could be
more effective in church planting endeavors in NYC. My inten-
tions were noble, but God had something much more founda-
tional in store for me.
At the time, I wasn’t highly skilled at overseeing church plan-
ting efforts and, sadly, that conference did nothing to elevate my
abilities. To this day, fifteen years later, I remain comparatively
deficient at church planting. However, I was graciously introdu-
ced to something infinitely more valuable, and that was the clear
teaching in Scripture that the gospel is of first importance in the
life of a child of God. At that conference, Pastor Mike Bullmore,
from Bristol, Wisconsin, preached a sermon entitled “The Func-
tional Centrality of the Gospel.” A light went on in my head and
my life was forever changed. C.J. Mahaney’s little orange book,
The Cross Centered Life, reinforced everything I learned at that
27
conference. I was further helped by the writing of Jerry Bridges in
his masterpiece, The Gospel for Real Life.
I still remember the profound, paradigm-shifting encounter
I had with God and His Word. These truths which invaded my
thinking and preaching also had a profound impact on my heart
and ministry. I do not have a sufficient vocabulary that can ade-
quately put into words the joy that flooded my heart when I came
to see that every aspect of my life in Christ is defined by the fact
that Christ, my Redeemer, suffered in my place and rose again for
my justification. Once again, it was right under my nose all along,
and I just didn’t see it.
Everything that I am saying can be demonstrated simply by
reading the words that are written in the Bible. One need not have
a special decoder in order to see that the gospel is for the regene-
rate. This glorious gospel reaches deep into all areas of one’s life.
A fresh emphasis on the gospel will simultaneously bring both
deeper conviction of sin and sweeter relief when applied to the
soul. I had always lived with a very legalistic, performance-based
value system. In my theology, the concept of “grace” always had
a forensic emphasis with respect to my justification. To be clear, I
still believe that! I just never could apply “grace” in day-to-day life
until I saw the ways in which the gospel informs Christian living.
These connections to Christ crucified radically changed the way
that I lived, taught, and ministered.
When I introduced my newfound love for the gospel to my
congregation, they immediately embraced it with joy. In fact, I
don’t recall anyone putting up any resistance to the overarching
priority that the gospel is of first importance. Fifteen years later,
it is a delight to write this article and remember the story of how
God touched my heart with these glorious truths.
Allow me to cite a few examples from Scripture as to how the
gospel informed my thinking, preaching, and living.
Giving: 2 Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord
28
Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became
poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”
Service: Mark 10:45 “For even the Son of Man came not to be
served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Marriage: Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, as
Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
Purity: 1 Corinthians 6:20 “For you were bought with a price.
So glorify God in your body.”
Forgiveness: Ephesians 4:32 “Be kind to one another, tender-
hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
It sounds so strange now, but, as I said at the beginning, I
was actually a minister of the gospel who for many years did not
preach the gospel to my flock.
Even now, I have a weekly (sometimes daily) battle to keep
Christ and his gospel as the preeminent feature of my sermons
and service. I’m well-served to continually be reminded of what
Paul said to a group of Christians in Corinth: “Now I would re-
mind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you
received, in which you stand” (1 Corinthians 15:1).
Why would the apostle have to give this reminder to people
who already know it? Why would he have to stress this gospel
(which is of first importance) to people who have already been
saved by it? It’s because the gospel is not only the means by which
we are saved, but it is also the means by which we walk through
this life.
Colossians 2:6 “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the
Lord, so walk in him.”
I always knew this verse, but I never knew this verse!
How did we receive Christ? Through the gospel! Likewise,
through that same gospel we are to walk.
Examine your life, ministry, and sermons. Does the message
of Christ crucified unmistakably characterize who you are? I, my-
self, need to re-ask this question on a regular basis. Hopefully a
29
grace-filled, Spirit-led self-examination will sharpen your focus
on the cross. And, hopefully, there will be a corresponding joy
that accompanies this truth.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ed Moore is the senior pastor of North Shore Baptist Church in
Bayside, New York.

30
The Easy Application
Your Sermon Is
Probably Missing

Keith Collier

I
n the course of sermon preparation, as you consider applica-
tions of the text, who do you have in mind? Maybe you picture
particular church members. Perhaps you think of different life
stages. You ask, “How does this passage apply to business pro-
fessionals, young marrieds, youth, parents, grandparents, singles,
empty nesters?” Typically, these applications are aimed at how an
individual believer might live out God’s Word. But there’s an ob-
vious category that you’re probably overlooking: your church. You
might call it corporate, or congregational, application.
Corporate application addresses how God’s Word speaks to a
church’s congregational life together. This includes how members
relate to one another and work together to live out the Scriptures.
It also includes how the church as a whole can apply the text.

31
 Every text has corporate applications. After all, the Bible is
a congregational book—written about a people, to a people, for
a people. While stories of individuals are scattered throughout
Scripture, they’re told within God’s greater work among his peo-
ple as a whole. From the Pentateuch to the prophets, the Old Tes-
tament addresses God’s distinct, covenant people, Israel. From the
Gospels to Revelation, the New Testament reveals the formation
and deployment of God’s new covenant people, the church. Even
the metaphors used for the church in the New Testament—family,
kingdom, building, body—are corporate entities made up of indi-
vidual parts. So our application must address the individual parts
as well as the corporate whole.
Let’s take a look at two examples (one OT and one NT):
Psalm 116 is a thanksgiving psalm with abundant applications
for the individual believer. It begins as a personal prayer: “I love
the Lord because he has heard my appeal for mercy. Because he
has turned his ear to me, I will call out to him as long as I live” (v.
1–2). The psalmist goes on to praise God for rescuing him from
a hopeless situation and delivering him from the pit of despair.
Individual applications include trusting God in the midst of di-
fficulty, crying out to him in moments of need, and praising him
for his deliverance.
While it’s an individual prayer, it’s offered in a congregational
context. It was a psalm sung in the temple after God had answe-
red an individual’s prayer for help (v. 14). Verses 17–19 show this
sacrifice of praise overflowing in the presence of the Lord’s people
and in the courts of the Lord’s house, allowing the people of God
to celebrate God’s grace and goodness together. So, one corporate
application is the value of testimonies within the body of Christ.
Another application is that we ought to “weep with those who
weep,” walking with them in their moments of affliction. We also
ought to “rejoice with those who rejoice,” celebrating God’s mercy
and deliverance together.
32
 The Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:5–15) contains Jesus’ teaching on
how to pray. I’ve heard some amazing sermons from this passa-
ge that have dramatically impacted my personal prayer life, but
very few highlight its corporate aspects and applications. English
translations make it easy to miss because they use the same word
“you” for both singular and plural.
In Texas, we have a plural for you: y’all. And when you read
the Lord’s prayer in the original language, you’ll find only verse 6
has a singular “you” followed by singular verbs. Everywhere else,
Jesus uses “y’all” followed by plural verbs. The addition of “our”
and “us” throughout the prayer solidifies its congregational natu-
re. Jesus is giving a picture of what individual and corporate pra-
yer should look like. As a congregation, we pray for one another’s
needs to be met and for protection against temptation. Additiona-
lly, our forgiveness of one another applies to church unity as well
as the process of church discipline.
So, as you prepare your sermon for Sunday and work through
application, don’t forget to ask questions like these:
• How should the core truths of this passage shape the congre-
gational life of our church?
• How should this truth shape what we do as a church, why we
do it, and how we do it?
• How does this passage affect our polity?
• How does it affect the way we love, care, and interact with
one another?
• How does it affect our mission together?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Keith Collier serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church in
Groesbeck, TX.

33
Reflections on
2 Timothy 4:1

Ligon Duncan

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, 

who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing
and his kingdom: 2 preach the word
2 Timothy 4:1

I
n 2 Timothy 4:1, Paul charges Timothy to commit himself to
preaching. In this final epistle of his life, Paul labors to impress
on Timothy the seriousness of this charge. We can see how se-
riously Paul considers the preaching task by noticing five qualif-
ying phrases.
First, I solemnly charge you. I imagine that Timothy would
have been startled by Paul’s use of “solemn” in this verse. After
all, it’s not like Paul was only discussing light and trivial mat-
ters in the previous chapter. Paul had just encouraged Timothy to
affirm Scripture as God’s Word, to follow him in suffering, and to

34
protect the sheep from false teaching. For Paul, faithful preaching
is a matter of utmost solemnity.
Second, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God. Timo-
thy must give an account of his ministry to the judge of all crea-
tion—the maker of heaven and earth. Paul is essentially saying,
“The audience for this solemn oath-taking ceremony is the Lord
Himself.” Paul wants Timothy to be aware that preaching must
be carried out under God’s watch and in his presence. The Lord
himself is Timothy’s ultimate audience—God is watching what
he is doing.
Third, I solemnly charge you  in the presence of Christ Jes-
us. Paul calls on Timothy to swear allegiance to this particular
task under the watchful gaze of his Redeemer. Timothy’s job is to
preach the word of salvation under the gaze of the one who gave
his life for him.
Fourth, I solemnly charge you in the presence of Christ Jes-
us,  who is to judge the living and the dead.” Jesus Christ is not
only our Savior. He’s the ruler of all history—the one who will
judge the living and the dead. Paul wants Timothy to remember
that ministers are going to be judged in accordance to their faith-
fulness by the Lord Jesus Christ on the Last Day. As James says,
“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you
know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness”
(Jas. 3:1). One day, every pastor must stand before Jesus and give
an account for how faithfully he served his flock, and in particu-
lar, how faithfully he preached God’s Word.
Fifth, I solemnly charge you by his appearing and his kingdom.
Every faithful gospel preacher longs for one thing: the Day of the
coming of the Lord. On that day, every knee shall bow and every
tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Paul charges Timo-
thy to keep his eye on eternity, to preach in light of that day. So of-
ten we focus only on the challenges and issues that are before us.
But Paul reminds us to keep our perspective focused on eternity.
35
 Ultimately, Paul reminds Timothy that he must give an ac-
count of his preaching, not to Paul, or even to his congregation,
but to the Lord Jesus. We preach to honor him.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ligon Duncan is the chancellor and CEO of Reformed Theolo-
gical Seminary. You can find him on Twitter at @LigonDuncan.

36
Reflections on
1 Peter 1:10–12

Tim Cantrell

 
Concerning this salvation, the prophets who
prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and
inquired carefully,  inquiring what person or time the Spirit of
Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings
of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them
that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that
have now been announced to you through those who preached the
good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into
which angels long to look.
1 Peter 1:10–12

A
s a young preacher, I was asked to expound 1 Peter to
university students who patiently endured my rookie
sermons. Since then, I’ve returned countless times to 1
Peter for encouragement. Tucked away in Peter’s prologue, we
find the above encouragement that preachers dare not miss.

37
 This fisherman-turned-preacher introduces his epistle by
magnifying the glories of the gospel for persecuted Christians
and comforting sufferers with the benefits of our salvation.
When Peter reaches verse 12, he stirs the heart of every faith-
ful pastor with two realities: what we preach (our message), and
how we preach (our muscle). We know Peter is talking to prea-
chers by the verbs he uses to describe the preacher’s task: “an-
nouncing” and “evangelizing.” As I enter the pulpit this coming
Sunday, these two reminders fill me with an overwhelming sen-
se of gospel privilege.

FIRST, CONSIDER OUR MESSAGE.

This glorious “salvation” and “grace” was foretold long ago in mes-
sianic prophecy, over centuries of careful searching and burning
curiosity (v. 10). Consider Isaiah. He knew God had promised “a
Son would be given,” an “Immanuel” would come, and a Suffe-
ring Servant would die for sinners (Isa. 7:14; 9:16; 53). Through
these prophets, God’s Spirit was “pointing” to a bloody cross and
an empty tomb (1 Pet. 1:11). But who would this savior be, and
when would he come? They saw the bud, but never the blossom.
We live on the other side of the cross, surrounded by the rich
flowering of gospel fulfillment. The Lord also showed these seers
of old that they were “serving” future saints—like you and me (v.
12a). Preachers, let’s read and preach the Old Testament as the
apostles did, convinced that it was also written “for us” (Rom.
4:23; 15:4; 1 Cor. 9:9; 10:11). Jesus said, “Many prophets and saints
. . . longed to see what you now see, yet never saw it; to hear what
you hear, yet never heard it” (Matt. 13:17).
Even more, Peter even says that “angels long to look” into
this gospel message (v. 12d). Gabriel longs to discover what God
has done to redeem sinners. How this humbles and inspires the
preacher!
38
SECOND, CONSIDER OUR MUSCLE:
“preached . . . by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” (v. 12).
Praise God that we do not approach the pulpit in our own stren-
gth. Heaven has come to the aid of poor, weak, deflated preachers
prone to discouragement. God has not left us without an abun-
dant supply of his strength for every sermon: “‘Not by might nor
by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts” (Zech. 4:6).
The same Spirit who inspired the prophets and who empowered
the apostles is no less active and almighty today as Christ builds
his church through faithful preaching.
Dear brothers, may this God-given privilege and power fire
our hearts and fuel our preaching to the end of the age!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Cantrell is the senior pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Jo-
hannesburg, South Africa.

39
Reflections on
1 Thessalonians 2:13

Ryan Fullerton

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you recei-
ved the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not
as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which
is at work in you believers.
1 Thessalonians 2:13

P
reachers are aware of many things as they prepare. They’re
aware of the people they will speak to—the mom in the
third row in the middle of a divorce, the atheist friend who
is visiting on account of her neighbor’s invitation. We’re aware of
our appearance. We don’t want to be that guy who preached with
his fly down. We’re aware of the clock. Will this sermon that I’ve
already drastically edited fit into the time remaining in the servi-
ce? We’re aware of our notes, wondering whether they will serve
us well or fail us?

40
 Preachers are aware of many things, and if we’re not careful,
we’ll become subtly unaware of the main thing—we are mounting
the pulpit to share the very words of the living God. The Apostle
Paul was keenly aware of this: “And we also thank God constant-
ly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you
heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what
it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers” (1
Thess. 2:13).
Paul’s preaching was just as human as our preaching. He re-
minds the Thessalonians that the word they heard came “from
us.” It came from ordinary guys—men with real time constraints,
men with self-awareness (no doubt Paul’s cohorts were aware that
they were not all equally gifted), men with illnesses (Paul with his
eyes, Timothy with his stomach), men who followed the occasio-
nal rabbit trail (see Eph. 3:1–21, especially 2–14).
Nonetheless, the Word they spoke was not the words of men.
Though it came immediately from men, it came ultimately from
God. True to form, this word from God came with powerful li-
fe-changing results. It was “at work” in these believers (2:13). It
birthed in them saving faith, laboring love, and steadfast hope
in Jesus Christ (1:3). It filled them with the Holy Spirit’s power
and deep conviction (1:5). So powerful was God’s work in them
that it made God’s invisible work of election visible through their
lives (1:4). This word made them “imitators of the churches of
God in Christ” (2:14), so that, like it does everywhere it goes, it
created men and women who “suffered” for Christ’s sake (2:14).
The Word we preach comes from very ordinary human lips but
it comes with power that says, “let there be light” and “the light
of the glory of Christ” shines in the hearts of many who hear us
(Gen. 1:3, 2 Cor. 4:6). As Calvin says, this word produces in God’s
people such “reverence, fear, and obedience inasmuch as people,
touched with a feeling of divine majesty, will never allow themsel-
ves to play games with it.” What a word we preach!
41
 Brothers, often when I mount the pulpit I’m aware of the little
things, like that uncooperative microphone wire on the side of
my face. But we must remain aware of something far greater. The
word we preach is not our own. It is God’s. It creates worlds. It
gives faith. It grants repentance. In our congregation it will not
fail to produce and grow new creations in Christ! This thought
fills me with awe and gives me confidence to speak nothing but
his Word.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ryan Fullerton is the senior pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church
in Louisville, Kentucky. You can find him on Twitter at @Ryan-
Fullerton.

42
Reflections on
1 Corinthians 2:1–5

Sinclair Ferguson

And I, when I came to you, brothers, 

did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty
speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you
except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in
weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and
my message were not in plausible words of wisdom,
but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 s
o that your faith might not rest in the wisdom
of men but in the power of God.
1 Corinthians 2:1–5

T
he power of Paul’s words lies in the divine logic of the gos-
pel, not merely in the word-order of his sentences. What,
then, is the logic of 1 Corinthians 2:1–5?

43
 It’s that the message of the gospel is God-centered (“I proclai-
med to you the testimony about God” v.1) and Christ-dominated
(“nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (v.2).
This gospel requires its heralds to be experientially united to
Christ in the outworking of his death (“weakness,” “fear,” “trem-
bling” v.3). For, as Paul elsewhere explains more fully, new life
works in others when “death is at work in us” (2 Cor. 4: 10–12; cf.
Phil. 3:10–12; Col.1:24).
This in turn implies that our style of preaching must also be
marked by crucifixion to the ways of the world, rejecting modes
of communicating the message that do not harmonise with its
cruciform content (“not . . . with eloquence or human wisdom . . .
not with wise and persuasive words” vv.1, 4).
It also leads to this result: the faith of those who respond is not
produced by the preacher’s natural gifts (if so, it may easily dissi-
pate in his absence or through his failure). It clearly depends on
the Spirit’s power.
Paul’s words in part reflect his distinctive calling and circum-
stances. Nevertheless, their implications are profoundly challen-
ging for preachers today. Here are four:
1. Dying in the pulpit is a sine qua non of new life in the pew.
Of course, some aspects of preaching get “easier.” But not the
“dying.” That will continue until you are dead. I sometimes wish
that everyone in the congregation could preach just once, in order
to experience “pulpit dying.” It would surely lead to more fervent
prayer for the ministry and ministers of the Word!
2. Paul does not eschew an eloquence created by Christ and the gos-
pel. After all, 1 Corinthians 2:1–5 is itself a powerfully eloquent para-
graph. But his Christ-eloquence arises from his monumental grasp of
the gospel and its implications. It is not the eloquence of someone who
communicates the impression he has mastered the text and loves the
position of preacher. No, it springs from being mastered by the text
and the fire of pastoral love it ignites for those to whom he ministers.
44
 3. There cannot simultaneously be a demonstration of the Spi-
rit’s power and of my powers—whether of intellect, or of speech,
or of personality. To this extent James Denney’s oft-cited words
remain true: “No man can give the impression that he himself is
clever and that Christ is mighty to save.”
4. Paul’s words provide three significant litmus tests for my
preaching:
(i) To what extent does my congregation sense that my prea-
ching is dominantly “about God” (v.1)?
(ii) To what extent does my congregation feel “he is determi-
ned to know nothing while with us except Jesus Christ and
him crucified” (v.2)?
(iii) To what extent does my congregation experience “the Spi-
rit’s power” (v.4) in my preaching so that their faith rests
“on God’s power” (v.5)?
Challenging indeed!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sinclair Ferguson is a Ligonier teaching fellow and Chancellor's
Professor of Systematic Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary.

45
“Thou Shalt Not Steal”
and Other Sermon
Points I Didn’t Make
Up
SOME THOUGHTS ON PASTORAL PLAGIARISM

Jared C. Wilson

A
little over ten years ago, I was asked to ghostwrite a book
for a famous Christian author. That was when I first woke
up to the reality of plagiarism among Christian leaders.
I’d heard of ghostwriting; I just didn’t realize how widespread it
was until I saw behind-the-scenes of the evangelical publishing
world. I wondered: How can professing believers pass off another’s
words as their own?
Imagine my shock a few years after that when I first learned
that some Christian preachers do the same!

46
 Turns out it’s a rather big thing, more widespread than most
churchgoers even know. Just a couple of months ago, a friend
asked me for advice on what to do about a pastor acquaintance
across town who regularly preaches someone else’s sermons as if
they were his own work. There are even some churches and prea-
ching resource services that package sermon content for sale to
preachers in need of a message.
Is it really that wrong? Aren’t we all just standing up and le-
aning into the Word of God which isn’t original to us, anyway?
And if someone was helped by the sermon, isn’t that all that ma-
tters?
Well, no. Pastoral plagiarism matters because worship in “spi-
rit and truth” (Jn. 4:24) matters. Plagiarized preaching is in fact a
big deal. How do we know that?

WHY PLAGIARIZED PREACHING MATTERS

1. Plagiarism is disobedience.
God has commanded us not to lie and not to steal. Passing off
another’s work as your own is a disobedience two-fer. The prea-
cher who relies on plagiarized material isn’t just being dishonest,
he’s also stealing the hard work of another.
It’s not wise to test God this way. Standing up on a regular
basis before his people to declare his truth while engaging in wi-
llful dishonesty is a recipe for spiritual disaster. If you take the-
se crooked, lazy shortcuts on such an important element of your
ministry as the weekly sermon, other crooked, lazy shortcuts will
follow, and likely are already taking place.

2. Plagiarism is potentially disqualifying.

The two non-negotiable elements of the pastoral task are “pra-
yer and the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). There are plenty of
other important things pastors must do, but these two are essen-
47
tially what make up pastoring. And a necessary requirement for
the office of the pastorate is being “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2).
This is really the only “skill set” required of the pastor (as all the
other biblical requirements speak to character and disposition).
Being able to teach is of course a gift, not merely a skill, but the
regular and willful sermon plagiarist is bringing his gift and his
skill into question.
Being “able to teach” doesn’t simply mean being able to per-
form. It’s not primarily about eloquence. It’s about being able
to rightly handle the word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15). If on a regular
basis you’re leaning on someone else’s exegesis, someone else’s
exposition, someone else’s personal illustrations, you’re eroding
your own credibility to do the work and thus your own qualifi-
cation to hold the office.

3. Plagiarism is distinctly unpastoral.

This is what I mean: faithful preachers have their congrega-
tions in mind when they’re preparing their sermons. They’re
praying for their people, as many by name as possible, when
they’re reading and meditating on the text. They’re doing
appropriate contextualization in their preaching, keeping in
mind the specific people and their needs (and concerns and
sins and idols) when they’re making application or composing
illustrations.
Faithful preachers write sermons for their people. Plagiarists
think somebody’s leftovers will suffice. What would you think
about the shepherd who relied on someone else’s work to feed his
sheep? If he couldn’t be moved to do the hard work of feeding the
flock himself, you might think, after a while, that he didn’t actua-
lly love them.
Now that you’re good and anxious about plagiarism, how mi-
ght you avoid it?

48
HOW NOT TO PLAGIARIZE
1. When in doubt, cite it.
Most preachers understand that re-preaching someone else’s
entire sermon is not just dishonest, but also weird. It’s more of
the little elements of the sermon that sometimes have the feel of
grayness. How do you know when to attribute certain turns of
phrases or popular sentiments? If you’re not sure about the source
of a particular line or passage, do your due diligence in looking
it up. If you know someone originated the phrase but can’t locate
the source, at the very least introduce the line with something
like, “As someone once said…” or “As they say…”

2. When not in doubt, cite it.

If you know who originated a phrase or portion of your ser-
mon you want to re-create, give credit. Always. Of course, you
don’t have to give the publishing date and page number in a pul-
pit sermon, but nothing is lost at all by introducing that portion
with “John Piper writes…” or “R.C. Sproul once said…” Nothing
is lost except perhaps a bit of the pride you shouldn’t be coddling
anyway. There’s certainly nothing good gained by knowingly pas-
sing off another’s words as your own.
This applies to illustrations as well. In some of the strangest exam-
ples of pastoral plagiarism I’ve been told about—but never witnessed,
as far as I know!—someone will tell me about hearing a preacher
tell a moving or funny first-person story and then later hearing the
exact same story, in the exact same words, from another preacher,
also in the first person! Passing off another person’s actual experience
as your own isn’t just lying and stealing, it’s also just downright biza-
rre. Don’t be a weirdo. If the illustration is really that good and your
sermon can’t do without it, say, “I heard Matt Chandler tell a story
once about . . .” or something similar. Or better yet, think of an actual
story from your own experience that is comparable.

49
 3. Do the work and trust the gospel.
There’s nothing substantially satisfying in passing off another’s
hard work as your own. It may “land” well. It may move people. It
might generate the laughs, the tears, and the applause you crave,
but you know it’s a lie. You didn’t earn any of it. It’s a sham.
How does this happen? Sometimes preachers are led into
temptation to plagiarize because of overly busy schedules. They
run out of time each week to prepare a sermon and feel cornered
by the Sunday deadline. It’s easier to take someone else’s long,
thought-out message than cram and crank out their own. In such
cases, an overhaul of pastoral priorities may be in order.
Remember that the ministry of the Word is the primary task of
the pastor. This means other things may need to take a secondary
seat. In some small church or bi-vocational settings, you may
need to be diligent to train your church to minister well to each
other rather than relying totally on you to be their only supply
of ministry. But do whatever you can to prioritize the Word and
start as early as you can in preparing the preaching. This is what
God has called you to do.
Sometimes, however, it’s not a lack of prioritization or time
management that leads a preacher into the temptation to plagia-
rize. Sometimes, it’s simply their own insecurity. They don’t think
much of their own preaching and fear the congregation doesn’t
either. Maybe they’ve even been told as much. Setting aside for the
moment the possibility that one isn’t qualified to teach, remember
that biblical preaching isn’t reliant on eloquence or showmanship
(1 Cor. 2:2). It’s not reliant on intellectual elitism or academic dis-
plays. It’s reliant on the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So trust the gospel. Work hard at your sermon, doing your
work as unto the Lord. Put your heart, soul, mind, and strength
into it. Your people are worth your best work. But the impetus to
do this week and week out must come from your approved posi-
tion as a co-heir of grace. If your sense of approval or justification
50
is found in a great performance or in congregational approval
or an increasing attendance, you’re setting yourself up for a fall.
Trust the gospel to do what you cannot, even on your best day.
The gospel is where the power is. Mark Dever, H.B. Charles, and
Ray Ortlund might be able to preach the gospel better than you,
but they cannot preach a better gospel!
It was James Spurgeon who said that, by the way, about his
grandson Charles.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jared C. Wilson is an author, the Director of Content Strategy for
Midwestern Seminary, and the managing editor of their websi-
te For The Church. You can find him on Twitter at @jaredcwi-
lson.

51
How Not to Preach the
Pentateuch

David King

T
he Pentateuch, sometimes called the Torah or the Law, re-
fers to the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. If you’ve ever prea-
ched from any of these books, you know they can be challenging.
What follows are five pitfalls to avoid.

1. DON’T PREACH ONLY THE FUN PARTS OF THE

PENTATEUCH.
For most pastors, I suspect the fun parts are the stories. Adam
and Eve, Noah and the flood, the tower of Babel, the patriarchs’
accounts, the Joseph cycle, the exodus from Egypt, the wilderness
wanderings—who doesn’t like the stories! Not only are they ins-
tructive, they’re enjoyable.

52
 Or perhaps the fun parts for you are the obvious messianic
prophecies and types. You love preaching about the serpent-crus-
hing offspring, Melchizedek, the scepter in Judah, the bronze ser-
pent, or the prophet like Moses.
Or maybe you get a kick out of preaching the genealogies, or the
tabernacle measurements, or the holiness code. To each his own!
The point is, it’s tempting as pastors to preach only those
parts of the Bible that personally interest us. We need to resist
that temptation. God has breathed out all Scripture, which means
every bit of it is profitable for shaping us into mature Christians
who know how to live for Jesus (2 Tim. 3:15-17). That doesn’t mean
you should preach a verse-by-verse exposition of Genesis–Deute-
ronomy, but it does mean you shouldn’t limit your preaching of
the Pentateuch only to those parts you like, or that you think your
people will like. From the grandeur of the creation account to the
identification of the short-eared owl as covenantally unclean, God
inspired all of it for the benefit of his people. Which means we
should find a way to preach it all.
2. DON’T PREACH THE PENTATEUCH AS THE BOOKS OF
MOSES INSTEAD OF THE BOOK OF MOSES.
The Pentateuch isn’t so much five books as it is one book. We’re
meant to understand it as a whole. Multiple considerations su-
pport the Pentateuch’s unity: the fivefold division was likely the
practical result of scroll length; each of the books presupposes
knowledge of the others; it seems to have an overall literary struc-
ture hinging on four major poetic sections; plus, later biblical re-
velation consistently considers the Pentateuch to be a unit. On
this last point, tellingly, the Pentateuch is never referred to as the
books (plural) of Moses but always the book (singular) of Moses
(e.g., 2 Chron. 25:4; Ezra 6:18; Neh. 13:1; Mark 12:26).
So what does the Pentateuch’s unity mean for our preaching?
It means we must grapple not just with the message of each book
53
on its own but in relation to the others. It means we should give
thought to the plot and meaning of the Pentateuch as a whole. It
means we can’t interpret our preaching text in isolation from the
entire story Moses has built around it. It’s all meant to be unders-
tood together.
Lots of exciting work is being done on the message of the Pen-
tateuch, and this article isn’t the place to survey the arguments
(nor am I qualified to do so). But it might be helpful for me to
highlight three key observations that seem foolish to ignore.
First, the story of the Pentateuch follows a covenantal plotline.
After the fall of Adam, God promises to send a redeemer—an
offspring of a woman to bruise the head of the serpent. This divine
promise unfolds through a covenant with Noah, then Abraham,
and finally with Israel. We need to understand how our preaching
text fits within this covenantal plotline.
Second, the Pentateuch ends on a sad note: God prophesies
Israel’s failure under the law, Moses dies, and God’s covenantal
promises of a redeemer-offspring, land, and international bles-
sing remain unfulfilled. If the Pentateuch were a play, it would be
a tragedy! So any kind of triumphalist “you-can-do-it” preaching
from the Pentateuch will be out of step with the work as a whole.
Third, Israel’s failure and the unfulfilled promises seem desig-
ned to stir up faith and hope within those who read the Penta-
teuch. Faith—because God’s people shouldn’t trust in their ability
to keep the law. Even while living under the law, they should fo-
llow in the steps of Abraham, who believed God and whose faith
was counted as righteousness. Hope—because God keeps his pro-
mises, and his covenant promises haven’t yet come to pass at the
end of Deuteronomy. Where is the redeemer-offspring? We need
him! Surely God will send him soon.
In short, the overall effect of the Pentateuch should be an ero-
sion of self-reliance and an encouragement to trust in God, lon-
ging for the arrival of his promised redeemer. The preacher who
54
approaches the Pentateuch as a disunified collection of books ra-
ther than as “the book of Moses” will likely miss this message.

3. DON’T PREACH THE STORIES OF THE PENTATEUCH AS

MERE MORAL LESSONS.
If we miss the main message of the Pentateuch, we’ll fail to see
how the parts connect to the whole. Consequently, we’ll interpret
the stories in isolation from the covenant plotline and totally miss
how each one either advances or threatens God’s redemptive pro-
mises. All we’ll be left with is moral lessons about how to act or
not act.
For instance, is Sarah’s barrenness merely an example of how
to deal with disappointment in life? Is sibling rivalry between
Jacob and Esau merely an occasion to encourage families to get
along? Is the Red Sea merely an opportunity to preach on how a
miracle-working God can get us out of impossible situations? Is
the bad report of the spies merely a chance to challenge people not
to doubt their destiny?
I need to put in a good word for moral living. Being moral,
as God defines it, is a good thing. Three cheers for morality! The
Bible itself instructs us to learn from the examples of Israel that
we see in the Pentateuch (1 Cor. 10:1–11). But morality is never an
end in itself, and the stories of the Pentateuch aren’t told so that
we’ll all just be better people. There’s no such thing as mere mo-
rality in the Bible.
So to answer the questions above: no. None of the stories I
mentioned—nor any of the ones I didn’t—are given to us merely
as moral lessons for living a good life. Moral wisdom will present
itself to us as we interpret the stories, and insofar as it accords
with life in Christ, we may preach it. But we must not confuse the-
se secondary insights with primary meaning. In order to discern
the intended meaning of the story, we must interpret it in light of
55
the whole story of the Pentateuch, set within the context of the
entire Bible.
Take Sarah’s barrenness as a case study. No doubt her barren-
ness was a source of disappointment to her. Most people will be
able to connect with her disappointment through whatever lack
they’ve experienced in their own lives. Seeing how God provided
for Sarah will encourage them to trust the Lord. That’s not a bad
moral lesson.
However, the real issue in the story is far more significant to
their well-being than merely seeing an encouraging example of
God’s provision. The real issue in the story has to do with how Sa-
rah’s barrenness posed a threat to God’s covenant promises. God
had promised to make Abraham the father of a multitude, and
that he and his offspring would inherit the land, bless the nations,
and enjoy God forever. And yet . . . Abraham’s wife was barren!
Would God fulfill his promises? If so, how? And if not, is there
any hope for redemption?
Miraculously, God opened 90-year-old Sarah’s womb and gave
her Isaac. The threat of barrenness was wonderfully averted, and
God’s covenant promises continued on toward fulfillment in Is-
rael and ultimately in the offspring of Abraham, Christ Jesus him-
self. Understanding this story in light of both the Pentateuch and
the entire Bible reveals its real significance: if God doesn’t overco-
me Sarah’s barrenness, his promises will have failed, Jesus never
enters the world, and we cannot be saved.
If we’re to preach the gospel and not just mere morality, we
must connect the parts to the whole. We must interpret each in-
dividual story in light of the whole story of both the Pentateuch
and the entire Bible.
4. DON’T PREACH THE LAW AS IF WE’RE STILL UNDER
THE OLD COVENANT.
You can’t talk about preaching the Pentateuch without talking
56
about how to preach the laws given in association with the old
covenant. It’s vital to understand that Christians are no longer
“under the law” (Gal 5:18). The old covenant is “obsolete,” having
given way to a new and better covenant in Christ (Heb. 8:13). The
result is that we serve God “in the new way of the Spirit and not
in the old way of the written code” (Rom. 7:6).
However, we’re not antinomians. Though the law-as-covenant
has been rendered obsolete, the laws themselves continue to shape
our obedience. The Jerusalem Council, for example, when offering
ethical instruction to Gentile believers, distilled laws about sacri-
fices, idol worship, and sexual immorality (Acts 15:28–29). Paul
cites several of the Ten Commandments as exemplary of Chris-
tian love (Rom. 13:8–10), and even uses a law about muzzling an
ox to commend the payment of pastors (1 Cor. 9:9). Jesus, Paul,
and James each make a point of summarizing the believer’s ethi-
cal life according to the law’s great commandment: “You shall
love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31; Gal. 5:14; Jas. 2:8).
Peter quotes from the law when encouraging Christian holiness
(1 Pet. 1:15–16). Even the laws that are fulfilled and set aside re-
main instructive, such as the food laws, which help us understand
the true source of human uncleanness and our need to reach the
nations (Mark 7:18–23; Acts 10:9–29). Though the law-as-cove-
nant has passed away, the law-as-Scripture remains profitable for
the Christian.
Some traditions divide the old covenant into moral, civil, and
ceremonial categories, asserting that the so-called moral law is
still in effect. Such a division of the law is ultimately unnecessary.
As a covenant, none of the law remains in effect. Jesus has fulfi-
lled it all—moral, civil, and ceremonial. But as practical instruc-
tion in ethics and wisdom, all the law remains useful in shaping
the Christian life—not just the Shema and the Ten Command-
ments! We must simply preach each law in light of its fulfillment
in Christ.
57
5. DON’T PREACH ANY PART OF THE PENTATEUCH AS IF
JESUS HASN’T COME.
This pitfall is the most crucial to avoid. Just about everything else
in this article comes down to this. Don’t preach any part of the
Pentateuch as if Jesus hasn’t come. Take up every bit of Genesis–
Deuteronomy, interpret it in light of the whole, and show how it
points to Christ and finds its fulfillment in him.
No doubt you’ve seen the “You Had One Job” memes. As
Christian preachers, we have one job: preach Christ! We’re to
preach Christ from the Prophets, preach Christ from the Wri-
tings, preach Christ from the Gospels, preach Christ from the
letters, preach Christ from Revelation. And we’re to preach him
from the Pentateuch, too! Which shouldn’t be too hard to do, for
according to Jesus, “Moses wrote of me” (John 5:46).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David King is the pastor of Concord Baptist Church in Chatta-
nooga, Tennessee. You can find him on Twitter at @dvdkng.

58
How Not to Preach
Historical Narrative

Sam Emadi

D
espite making up roughly 40 percent of the Old Testa-
ment, historical narratives are often a locked box for
many evangelicals, including preachers.
The biggest question we need to answer when preaching his-
torical narratives is “what is the meaning of these events?” And
given that these narratives often don’t come with explanatory
theological commentary, how do we determine the meaning of
the event?
Below I’ll discuss ways you shouldn’t preach historical narra-
tive, illustrating each point by primarily looking at 1 Samuel 4–7:
the battle of Aphek, the conflict between Dagon and Yahweh, and
the battle of Ebenezer. If you haven’t read those chapters in a whi-
le, I’d encourage you to give them a look.

59
1. DON’T CREATE YOUR OWN VERSION OF THE STORY.
Preach the text, not historical backgrounds. Sometimes prea-
chers are more fascinated by their historical reconstruction of
the events described in Scripture than by the actual words of
Scripture. Describing the landscape of Aphek or postulating
why the Philistines chose to attack along a specific route may
help our understanding of the text, but emphasize the text. Ne-
ver let your historical reconstruction overwhelm the story as
God told it in Scripture.

2. DON’T ISOLATE IT FROM EARLIER STORIES,

The basic rule of interpretation is context, context, context. Before
you jump straight to Jesus, consider how your story develops pre-
vious themes in Scripture. Or consider how it mirrors previous
events, or assumes an already established understanding of cha-
racters and motivations.
For instance, a number of scholars have ridiculed the notion
that Rahab’s scarlet cord foreshadows the blood of Christ. Cer-
tainly, some preachers have approached the connection between
the two events fancifully. But the relationship between Rahab’s
cord and the cross isn’t as far-fetched when we read Joshua in li-
ght of earlier stories. Joshua 2 shares a number of linguistic and
thematic parallels with Exodus 12, including the fact that both
the scarlet cord in the window and the Passover blood on the
doorpost are called “signs” of God’s deliverance (Exod 12:13; Josh
2:12). These allusions and a number of other features in the early
chapters of Joshua invite readers to see Rahab’s salvation as a new
Passover. Yet astoundingly in this Passover God isn’t saving his
people from Egypt but making a Gentile prostitute part of the
people of God.2
2  For more on the relationship between Joshua 2 and Exodus 12 see David Schrock, “What Designates a Valid
Type? A Christotelic, Covenantal Proposal.” Southeastern Theological Review 5, no. 1 (2014): 3–26; Peter Leithart,
“Passover and the Structure of Joshua 2.” Biblical Horizons 99 (November 1997).

60
 Of course, not every detail in the text produces such rich theo-
logical connections, but reading in light of earlier narratives still
helps your congregation understand the logic and drama of the
story. Consider the first verses of 1 Samuel 4. After the Philistines
slaughter 4,000 Israelites on the battlefield, the Israelites ask that
the Ark of the Covenant join the military on the front lines (1
Sam 4:3). But as the Ark arrives the narrator offers an important
detail: “the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with
the ark of the covenant of God” (1 Sam. 4:4).
Cue the foreboding music. If we’ve been paying attention to
previous stories, we know Hophni and Phinehas’ presence is an
ominous one. These sons of Eli are symbols of Israel’s covenant
infidelity (1 Sam. 2:12–17), the failure of the priesthood (1 Sam.
2:27–36), and the Lord’s impending judgment (1 Sam. 2:34). They
represent death, when what Israel really needs is resurrection.

3. DON’T FORGET THE COVENANTS.

Scholars sometimes note that Old Testament narrators are cha-
racterized by reticence. In other words, the way they tell stories
is suggestive and allusive; they don’t often break the fourth wall
and tell readers “the point.” On occasion, the narrator breaks in
with an explanatory comment, like the ominous conclusion to the
story of David’s sin with Bathsheba —“the thing that David had
done displeased the Lord” (2 Sam. 11:27). But these instances are
remarkable precisely because they’re the exception, not the rule.
So how do we know “God’s perspective” on the meaning of the
events recorded in Scripture if the authors don’t always tell us?
Simple, we read each story in light of all of Scripture, particularly
in light of the covenants. In the covenants, God defines his rela-
tionship with his people through promises, laws, blessings, and
warnings. The covenants provide us a set of expectations. They
give us an interpretive lens to assess what’s happening. In other
61
words, they give us the divine perspective on Israel’s history. We
don’t ultimately need to be told that David’s actions with Bathshe-
ba are evil; the covenants already tell us as much (Exod. 20:14, 17;
Deut. 17:17). The fact that the author underscores God’s response
signals that God is mega-displeased with David.
The covenants reveal the meaning of the event. When God
blesses Potiphar on account of Joseph, he’s fulfilling his promise
to Abraham to bless the nations (Gen. 12:3). When Moses tells
us that Israel was “fruitful and multiplied greatly” in the land of
Goshen (Gen. 47:27), he’s not randomly noting Hebrew fertility
rates. He’s recalling the Adamic commission of the creation cove-
nant (Gen. 1:28) and the seed promise of the Abrahamic covenant
(Gen. 12:2; 17:2). God is fulfilling through Israel his purposes for
creation he began with Adam. When the narrator chronicles So-
lomon’s many horses in 1 Kings 4:26, previous injunctions in the
Mosaic covenant show us God is ultimately displeased with So-
lomon’s actions (Deut. 17:14–17)—even if God’s displeasure isn’t
mentioned in the immediate context.
Consider how the covenants inform our understanding of 1
Samuel 4. Israel is living in disobedience. The word of the Lord is
rare (1 Sam 3:1). The priests are corrupt (1 Sam 2:12–36). Amidst
all this, the covenants show us exactly what we should expect.
When Israel disobeys, God sends judgment through foreign mi-
litaries (Deut. 28:25–26). Israel’s defeat under the Philistines isn’t
mere happenstance, but the judgment of God against their co-
rruption. The Lord is enacting covenant curses against the nation.
Of course, 1 Samuel 4 never explicitly says that the Philistines
are God’s instrument of judgment. But by reading in light of the
covenants we see the meaning of this event. And, of course, the
covenant sets up our expectations for what follows. If Israel conti-
nues in their wickedness they will be exiled from the land (Deut.
28:36).

62
4. DON’T MISS WHAT GOD IS DOING,
Closely related to the previous point, don’t forget to ask: What
is God doing in the story? It’s so easy to get caught up in the hu-
man drama we sometimes forget to see what these stories show us
about the character of God and his purposes in the world.
Once again, the covenants provide the framework to unders-
tand what God is doing in redemptive history, even when the bi-
blical authors don’t explicitly tell us.
For example, Joshua’s victory in the battle of Jericho shows us
something of Joshua’s unwavering faith. But even more, the ba-
ttle shows us that God fights for his people and fulfills covenant
promises. David’s victory over Goliath is truly a story of faith and
courage. But even more, it’s a story of how God uses the weak
things of the world to shame the wise, and how he mediates his
own victory through a messianic king to his people.3
Back to 1 Samuel and the battle of Aphek. What happens to the
book’s main characters—Hannah, Samuel, and Eli—after this?
They completely disappear from the story. Instead, the author fo-
cuses on the Ark of the Covenant, a symbolic stand-in for Yahweh
himself (Exod. 25:22). At this point, the narrator subverts our ex-
pectations. We expect the Philistines to carry Israel off into exile,
yet Israel remains in the land. Instead, the Philistines take the
Ark of the Covenant into exile, placing it in the temple of Dagon
like a defeated, humiliated deity (1 Sam. 5:1–2).
But in this exile and apparent weakness, Yahweh shows his
strength. He topples Dagon and cuts off his hands. After defeating
Dagon, he goes after Dagon’s people—moving from city to city
utterly destroying the Philistines and accomplishing what Israel
never could.
The story is one of substitution. Yahweh himself undergoes
Israel’s covenant curses in their place—an idea alluded to as far
3  David and Goliath’s conflict is a small-scale reproduction of Yahweh’s battle with Dagon in 1 Samuel 5. Both
Dagon’s and Goliath’s heads roll. The Philistine meets the same fate as his God.

63
back as Genesis 15:17. Yahweh is exiled in Israel’s place and then
from a place of apparent weakness defeats Israel’s enemies.
Preach what God is doing in each Old Testament story. What
God does in Christ in the New Testament is foreshadowed in the
old (1 Cor. 15:3–4).

5. DON’T IGNORE THE LITERARY FEATURES OF THE

STORY.
The biblical authors employ a number of literary features in histo-
rical narrative. Here’s a sampling:

• Parallelism (Abraham and Isaac’s encounters with Abime-

lech [Gen. 20; 26]).
• Inclusio [Joseph’s brothers bowing to him at the beginning
and end of the Joseph story [Gen: 37:6–8 and 50:18]).
• Creative use of numbers (the fivefold “curse” in Gen. 1–11
contrasted with the fivefold “blessing” in Gen. 12:1–3)
• Sandwiched stories (Judah’s story in Gen. 38 sandwiched by
Joseph stories [Gen 37; 39–41])
• Narrative patterns (cycle of the judges).

One literary feature in biblical narrative is verbal repetition.

In 1 Samuel 5 consider the author’s repeated mention of hands.
Yahweh cuts off Dagon’s “hands”—symbols of strength and au-
thority (1 Sam 5:4; cf. Isa. 14:27; 41:20; Acts 4:28). The author re-
peats the word “hands” four times in the next seven verses, fo-
cusing on Yahweh’s powerful hands: “The hand of the Lord was
heavy against the people of Ashdod” (6, 7, 9, 11).4 The verbal repe-
tition underscores the meaning of the event. The Philistines think
Dagon has the upper-hand on Yahweh, but Yahweh shows Dagon
4  Further, the paragraph following the destruction of Dagon (1 Sam 5:6–12) both begins and ends with the “the
hand of the Lord was heavy” (vv. 6, 12) forming an inclusio around the passage.

64
has no hands at all. Dagon’s hands are weightless, impotent, shat-
tered. The Lord’s hand is heavy, strong, and effectual.

6. DON’T MISS THE STRUCTURE,

You don’t need to sketch out the structure of a passage on a white
board for your congregation. And I’m not suggesting you pepper
your sermons with language like “this story is a chiasm.” Most of
the time, explaining a complex literary structure just before lunch
on Sunday morning is not the wisest homiletical decision. But
understanding the structure may help unlock the meaning of the
event and help you explain its significance to your people.
For instance, the stories in 1 Samuel 4–7 are a chiasm.

A Battle of Aphek (Philistine victory), 4:1b–11

B Ark captured and exiled 4:12–22

C Ark in Philistia (plagues), 5:1–12

D Return of Ark, 6:1–18

C’ Ark in Beth Shemesh (plagues), 6:19–21

B’ Ark in Kiriath-jearim, 7:1–2

A’ Battle of Ebenezer (Israelite Victory), 7:3–175

The parallels between each corresponding section should en-

hance our understanding of each narrative. Consider the sections
C and C’. When Israelite priests receive the Ark into Beth-She-
mesh in 6:19–21, they treat it with no more reverence than the
5  Peter Leithart, A Son to Me: An Exposition of 1 &2 Samuel. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2003.

65
Philistines in 5:1–12. The result is the same: God judges the Israe-
lites just as he did the Philistines (1 Sam 6:19). Just as the Philis-
tines endeavored to get rid of the Ark, the Israelites do the same
(1 Sam 6:21). Even Israel’s priests are no better than Philistines.
They reflect the surrounding pagan nations. No wonder, Israel
will eventually want a “king like the nations,” a man who himself
turns out to be a cheap imitation of a Philistine giant.6
Or consider the A-Sections. Did you notice how the last line
reverses the events of the first? Once again, the Philistines and
Israel have gathered at Aphek for war. But this time, Israel has ge-
nuinely repented of sin—they put away their idols and “served the
Lord only” (1 Sam 7:4). The rest of the chapter describes Israel’s
victory over the Philistines in a way that recalls and reverses the
Philistine victory over Israel.
Don’t believe me? Consider the following details. In 1 Samuel
4, the Israelites thunder and shout (1 Sam 4:5). But in this final
battle, the Israelites are silent while Yahweh himself “thundered
with a mighty sound” (1 Sam. 7:10). In the first battle, the Philisti-
nes feared the shouts of Israel but ultimately won the day (1 Sam.
4:7). In 1 Samuel 7, Israel fears the Philistines, but the Lord gives
them victory (1 Sam. 7:7). In 1 Samuel 4 a child of Israel is named
“Ichabod,” which means “the glory of the Lord is gone.” But in 1
Samuel 7, they set up an altar and call it “Ebenezer,” which means
“the Lord has helped us.”
Comparing these parallel stories reveals something important:
Israel’s victory doesn’t rest on military might, but on their wors-
hip of Yahweh. Israel isn’t victorious because they have the better
army but because they repent of their sin. The arm of the flesh
leads to ruin; repentance leads to glory.

6  Saul is just what Israel asked for, a king “like all the nations” (1 Sam. 8:5). He is renowned, not for his godliness
and character, but, like Goliath, for his height (1 Sam. 9:2). Like Goliath and the Philistines, Saul uses a spear (1 Sam
18:10)—a spear that he turns against his own people (1 Sam. 22:17–19).

66
7. DON’T SHY AWAY FROM POINTING TO BIBLICAL
CHARACTERS AS POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE EXAMPLES.
As Jason Hood demonstrates in his article, Scripture itself teaches
we should preach biblical figures as positive and negative moral
examples. Paul said the Israelites who died in the wilderness were
“examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did” (1 Cor.
10:6).
The battles of Aphek and Ebenezer are chock-full of negati-
ve examples—sinners with whom we easily identify. The Israeli-
te soldiers in chapter 4 are superstitious, treating the Ark of the
Covenant like a lucky charm. The members of your church may
not rub lucky rabbit’s feet to make them feel safe, but they might
look to their bank accounts or other things they own to bring
them good fortune. The priests in Beth-Shemesh are obstinate,
indifferent to God’s law and thus consumed by his holiness. Those
listening to your sermon should know the same: we must not treat
God’s law flippantly or his holiness lightly.
The stories are also filled with positive examples—saints whom
we should aspire to imitate. Samuel stands out. He’s a model of
patience and fidelity in ministry, characterized by speaking the
word of God (1 Sam. 4:1) and prayer (1 Sam. 7:5). He begins his
preaching ministry in 1 Samuel 4:1 but only begins to see fruit
from his labors over twenty years later (1 Sam 7:2). Christians who
might feel discouraged by the apparent lack of fruit should re-
member this: Samuel labored for over 20 years just to get Israel to
obey the first commandment (1 Sam. 7:4)!

8. DON’T ASSUME THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY TO GET TO

JESUS,
While preaching through Old Testament narrative, preachers
committed to Christ-centered exposition are often only on the

67
lookout for types. But there are many hermeneutically legitimate
paths to Jesus. Sidney Griedanus’ seven suggestions are a particu-
larly helpful catalog:7

• Redemptive-Historical Progression. How does this story deve-

lop redemptive history in a way that ultimately culminates in
Jesus Christ?
• Promise-Fulfillment. Is there a promise in the text fulfilled by
Christ?
• Typology. Is there a divinely orchestrated pattern of events or
an institution that prophetically foreshadows the person and
work of Christ?
• Analogy. Do any parallels exist between laws, promises, or
situations found in the story and the laws, promises, or situa-
tions we find ourselves in as God’s New Covenant people?
• Longitudinal Themes. Does this text develop any significant
biblical-theological themes (temple, kingship, priesthood,
etc.) that are ultimately fulfilled in Christ?
• New Testament References. Is this passage quoted anywhere
in the New Testament?
• Contrast. What aspects of this text contrast with Christ’s per-
son and work or the glories of the New Covenant?

By using these seven categories, we can see a number of ways

1 Samuel 4–7 finds its fulfillment in Christ. We’ve already no-
ted how the Ark of the Covenant goes into exile to defeat Israel’s
enemies—a type or pattern fulfilled in Christ. But preachers can
point to the gospel in other ways.

• Redemptive Historical Progression. 1 Samuel 4–7 takes pla-

ce at the end of the period of the judges, when “there was
7  For more see Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical
Method (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).

68
 no king in Israel [and] everyone did what was right in his
own eyes” (Judg. 21:25). Israel needs David. They need a king
to lead them in obeying God’s law—a king we now have in
Christ.
• Analogy. Israel responded to Samuel’s preaching with repen-
tance and worship. God requires us to respond to his Word
in the same way.
• Longitudinal Themes. Throughout the Old Testament, God
presents himself as a warrior-king saving his people by jud-
ging their enemies—something alluded to as early as Genesis
3:15. The exodus from Egypt is perhaps the most prominent
occurrence of this pattern—one the Philistines themselves
are aware of (1 Sam. 4:8). In 1 Samuel 4–7, God delivers Is-
rael from the Philistines by fighting on their behalf. This lon-
gitudinal theme —“God the Warrior-king”—culminates in
Christ when “[God] disarmed the rulers and authorities and
put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him”
(Col. 2:15).
• Contrast. Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas are wicked priests who
have failed to spiritually care for the nation. Israel is corrupt
from the top down. The church, however, has a faithful high
priest who never leads us into sin and always cares for his
people.

“SWIFT IN THE BOOKS”

In truth, the key to preaching any passage of Scripture is to im-
merse yourself in all of Scripture. As preachers, our aim should
be to imitate Ezra: “He was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses”
(Ezra 7:6). The phrase “skilled scribe” carries the connotation that
Ezra was “swift in the books.” In other words, Ezra knew his Bible.
Historical narratives are a rich, faith-fueling section of the Bi-
ble that authentically point us to the person and work of Christ.
69
Preaching Old Testament narrative is a daunting task, but these
stories remind us that God keeps his promises, even in times it
seems his Word has failed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sam Emadi is a member of Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louis-
ville, KY and serves as the Senior Editor at 9Marks.

70
How Not to Preach the
Psalms

Jim Hamilton

I
typically don’t like “How Not To” articles. They lend themsel-
ves to sounding as if some arrogant know-it-all is telling ever-
yone about all the mistakes they’ve made. It’s not my purpose
to make you regret sermons you’ve preached or derive some sick
pleasure in playing the elitist. I’m certainly not trying to put dis-
tance between you and the Psalter you love.
I have one big idea here that I want to make specific in a series
of ways. The big idea is this: don’t preach the Psalms in isolation.

DON’T PREACH THE PSALMS IN ISOLATION

Preachers often read the psalms without regard for their various
contexts. But we shouldn’t isolate individual statements within a
psalm from the literary structure of the whole psalm, we shouldn’t
isolate individual psalms from their context in the book, and we

71
shouldn’t isolate the Psalter as a whole from either the rest of the
Old Testament or the New Testament. So here comes a list of
“Don’ts” that all have to do with not isolating the psalms from the
context intended by their authors.
Just to be clear: I think the individual psalmists intended phra-
ses and lines to be read in the context of the whole psalm, and
I think the person(s) who put the whole Psalter together did so
purposefully and intended for readers to interpret the psalms in
a particular order. This ordering of the Psalter engages patterns
and promises found in the rest of the Old Testament, and those
who ordered the Psalter intended to provoke the very hopes and
expectations for which we find the New Testament claiming ful-
fillment.

DON’T PREACH A PSALM IN ISOLATION FROM ITS

LITERARY CONTEXT
The psalmists were poets, and words fitly spoken are apples of
gold in settings of silver (Prov. 25:11). If you want to see the gold
in the beauty intended by the author, you have to consider it in
its setting of silver. In other words, if you want to understand a
particular line in a psalm, you have to understand the literary
structure of the individual one you’re reading.
Take Psalm 12:6, for instance, which extols the purity of God’s
words. How does that line fit in the context of Psalm 12? Often,
biblical material is structured chiastically, so that the first and last
statements correspond to and exposit each other, as do the second
and second to last, the third and third to last (and so forth). In this
structure, the key statements are situated in the middle. Often
these central statements reach back to the beginning and antici-
pate the end. Consider how this works in Psalm 12. The Psalm’s
chiastic structure looks like this:

72
12:1, The Vanishing Faithful

12:2–4, The Empty Words of the Wicked

12:5, Yahweh Promises to Vindicate the Poor and Needy

12:6–7, The Pure Words of the Lord

12:8, The Strutting Wicked

The first verse speaks of how the godly and faithful are endan-
gered, and the last verse speaks of how the wicked strut about.
In verses 2–4 we find statements about liars with their flattery
and boasting contrasted with a celebration of God’s pure words
in 12:6–7. At the center of Psalm 12 (v. 5), Yahweh declares that
he will arise to deliver the endangered faithful from verse 1 and
address the strutting wicked of verse 8. Verses 6–7, then, not only
celebrate God’s pure words in contrast to the lies and boasts of the
wicked in verses 2–4, they also confess faith that God will keep
the promise he makes in verse 5.
In your preaching, don’t miss the literary structures—struc-
tures full of beauty that communicate meaning—the psalmists
have built.

DON’T PREACH INDIVIDUAL PSALMS IN ISOLATION FROM

THE WHOLE BOOK OF PSALMS
My counsel here pertains not merely to the flow of thought from
one psalm to another (on that point refer to my sermon on Psalms
42–48 here). In addition to these kinds of connections between
adjacent psalms, there are wide-angle connections between dis-
tant psalms. Noting these connections can help us make sense of
some of the more difficult statements in the Psalter.
73
 For instance, Psalm 137:9 is pretty shocking: “Blessed shall he
be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!”
There’s an important connection between the word “dashes” here
and the same Hebrew verb in Psalm 2:9, “You shall break them
with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
This linguistic point of contact shows us that Psalm 137 blesses
the future king from David’s line to whom the Lord speaks in
Psalm 2. Further, Psalm 2:10 gave fair warning to rebel kings, ur-
ging them to be wise and submit to the Lord’s anointed king lest
they “perish in the way” (2:10–12). Psalm 137:9 graphically and—
dare I say it—mercifully warns the wicked who refuse to repent of
what will happen to them and to their children if they refuse to
heed Psalm 2’s admonition to “Kiss the son” and “take refuge in
him” (2:12).
In a very real sense, the context for every line in the Psalter is
not only the whole psalm but the whole Psalter.
DON’T PREACH THE PSALMS IN ISOLATION FROM THE
REST OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Here’s the most important sentence in this article: The most im-
portant background for understanding psalms is earlier Scripture.
Consider Psalm 29. David starts by calling the “sons of God” (see
ESV footnote) to ascribe glory to Yahweh (29:1–2). Then he cele-
brates the power of Yahweh’s voice (29:3–9), before speaking of
Yahweh sitting enthroned over the flood (29:10–11).
Where else do we see this same imagery? Recall Genesis 6–9.
The Lord who sits enthroned over the flood in Psalm 29:10 is the
same Lord who sits enthroned in the heavens, laughing at those
who plot to overthrow him and his Messiah in Psalm 2:1–4.
The Psalms point not only backward to earlier Scripture, as
when David prays that the blessing of Abraham (Gen. 12:1–3) will
be fulfilled in the king God has promised to raise up from his
line (2 Sam. 7:14) in Psalm 72:17 (cf. esp. Gen. 12:3; 2 Sam. 7:9),
74
but also forward to later Scripture. For example, David, who lived
around 1000 BC, prayed in Psalm 72:8 that the future king from
his line would “have dominion [cf. Gen. 1:28] from sea to sea, and
from the river to the ends of the earth.” After the return from
exile, around 520 BC Zechariah prophesied that when the Lord
brought the king, “humble and mounted on a donkey” (Zech.
9:9), that king would rule “from sea to sea, and from the river to
the ends of the earth” (Zech. 9:10). Zechariah quotes Psalm 72 as
he prophesies of the future king from David’s line.

DON’T READ THE PSALMS IN ISOLATION FROM THE NEW

TESTAMENT
The New Testament authors read the Psalms typologically. They
recognize patterns in redemptive history that are ultimately ful-
filled in Jesus. For instance, David really was betrayed by a close
friend whom he trusted, someone who ate his bread and then
later lifted his heel against David (Ps 41:9). David may refer to
someone like Ahithophel, who was David’s own counselor, but
who joined Absalom’s revolt in an attempt to overthrow David
(see 2 Sam 15–17). So in Psalm 41 David describes his own expe-
rience. But he also sees a correspondence between his experien-
ce and the experience of earlier figures like Joseph and Moses,
who were also rejected and opposed by their own kinsmen, even
those closest to them (Joseph’s brothers, Gen 37; Miriam and
Aaron, Num 12). Is it too much to suppose that David expected
that the pattern seen in Joseph, repeated in Moses and then in
David, would be fulfilled in the experience of the king God pro-
mised to raise up from his line?
On the basis of having worked through the entirety of the Psal-
ter testing this hypothesis, I propose that this is exactly what Da-
vid is doing in his psalms: he’s describing his own experience,
but he understands that his own experience is an installation of a
75
pattern of events seen previously in the Scriptures, and he expects
that pattern to find fulfillment in the seed God has promised to
him (see, e.g., Ps 18:50).
So, in John 13, Jesus begins to warn his disciples that one of
them will betray him with the words, “But the Scripture will be
fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me’”
(John 13:18, quoting Psalm 41:9). David was not predicting the
future in Psalm 41:9; he was describing his own experience. And
Jesus is not claiming a fulfillment of a future prediction in John
13:18, but rather the fulfillment of a typological pattern. Like Da-
vid, Jesus understood the typological correspondence between
Joseph, Moses, and David, and Jesus knew that what they pre-
figured and foreshadowed would be fulfilled in him. And this, I
contend, is fully in keeping with what David intended to commu-
nicate in Psalm 41.
Don’t preach the Psalms in isolation—from their immediate or
broad context. May God bless his Word in your mouth, and may
the sentiments in the Psalms be the heartbeat of God’s people.8

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Hamilton is Professor of Biblical Theology at The Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary and Senior Pastor of Kenwood Bap-
tist Church in Louisville, KY. You can follow him on Twitter @
DrJimHamilton.

8  This section has been adapted from my forthcoming commentary Psalms. 2 vols. BTCP. Bellingham: Lexham.

76
How Not to Preach
the Old Testament
Prophets

Nick Roark

P
reaching faithfully from the Old Testament is always a cha-
llenge. But preaching faithfully from the Old Testament
Prophets is perhaps most challenging of all. “The books of
Israel’s prophets are among the most difficult in the Old Testa-
ment, and probably among the most difficult books ever written.”9
Luther agreed: ““The prophets have a queer way of talking, like
people who, instead of proceeding in an orderly manner, ramble
off from one thing to the next, so that you cannot make head or
tail of them or see what they are getting at.”10
Yet, despite the difficulty, we cannot neglect or avoid preaching
the Prophets if we seek to declare to our people the whole coun-
9  Delbert R. Hillers, Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969), 124.
10  Martin Luther, quoted in Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology vol. 2 (New York: Harper & Row, 1965),
33. (Luther’s Works, Weimar edition, Volume 19: 350).

77
sel of God (Acts 20:27). Instead of telling you what to do, here is
a brief list of what not to do when preaching from the Prophets.
Consider the following a “not-to-do” checklist.

1. DON’T PREACH ABOUT THE PROPHET. PREACH THE

MESSAGE OF THE PROPHETIC BOOK.
The first thing not to do when preaching from the Old Testament
Prophets is to preach about the prophet. Instead preach the mes-
sage of the divinely inspired book that bears the prophet’s name.
The Old Testament prophets are colorful characters. Isaiah
stripped off all his clothes and wandered around naked for three
years (Isaiah 20:1–3). Jonah, the stubborn prophet, fled in a boat
from the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry
land (Jonah 1:1–3). Jeremiah hid his linen loincloth in a cleft of the
rock by the Euphrates River (Jeremiah 13:1–6). Hosea dutifully
married a prostitute in obedience to the Lord’s command (Ho-
sea 1:2–3). With such interesting biographical material as this to
work with, it’s easy for the preacher to be seduced into treating the
Prophets as if they were a form of ancient Israelite memoir. But
the prophetic books aren’t biographies of the prophets. In many
instances, we know only scant details about their personal lives.
Instead of preaching about the prophets, the task of the faithful
expositor is to proclaim the message of the God-breathed prophe-
tic books, the sacred writings, which are able to make your hearers
wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:15;
4:2). This requires prayerful and careful reading and rereading
of the prophetic books, meditating day and night (Psalm 1), as
well as asking for and receiving wisdom from the Lord Himself.
For: “Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever
is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the LORD are
right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in
them” (Hosea 14:9).
78
2. DON’T FOCUS EXCLUSIVELY UPON ISRAEL. HIGHLIGHT
GOD’S GLORIOUS GLOBAL PURPOSES FOR ALL NATIONS.
The second thing not to do when preaching from the Old Tes-
tament Prophets is to focus exclusively upon Israel. It’s easy to
read the Prophets and come away thinking these books are so-
lely about the Lord’s ancient dealings with the people of Israel.
After reading the prophetic books, some Christians might even
begin to feel like they’ve been reading someone else’s mail! Af-
ter all, to the Israelites “belong the adoption, the glory, the co-
venants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according
to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.
Amen” (Romans 9:4–5).
Certainly, the prophetic books inform us of historical events
that occurred in Israel’s past. But Israel’s past was the divine can-
vas on which God painted his plans for the future.11 Israel’s past is
the prologue for the world. The Lord’s divine plans for the future
not only feature Israel, but also highlight God’s glorious global
purposes for all nations. The Prophets proclaim the vision of the
last days found in the Pentateuch, where God promises to bless
the whole world through Abraham and his offspring (Genesis
12:3; 22:17–18; 49:10; Galatians 3:16).
This glorious hope isn’t intended only to summon the house
of Jacob to walk in the light of the LORD. God also intends that
His salvation reach to the ends of the earth (Isaiah 2:2–5; 49:6;
52:10). Not only is the whole world presently filled with His glory
(Isaiah 6:3), but one day in the future “the earth will be filled with
the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the
sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). One day, the heavens and the earth will
be made new (Isaiah 65:17). You must proclaim this global good
news when you preach the Prophets.

11  John Sailhamer, Biblical Prophecy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 47.

79
3. DON’T JUST PREACH DIVINE JUDGMENT. POINT TO
CHRIST AND THE BRIGHT HOPE OF THE NEW COVENANT.
Prophetic preaching is often associated with the earnest procla-
mation of impending doom. And for good reason! The theme of
divine judgment spans the breadth of the Prophets. If you seek to
preach expositionally through the prophetic books, then you must
faithfully address God’s anger towards the sins of His people. Dis-
obedience has consequences. And the prophets constantly remind
God’s unfaithful people of the curses for disobedience that were
first promised in Deuteronomy 28. In this way, preaching from the
prophetic books often involves an exegesis of an exegesis, because
the prophetic books interpret and apply earlier biblical texts. This is
why the prophetic books are brimming with Bible.
But just as the Prophets interpret and apply the Pentateuch’s
warnings of divine judgment for disobedience, they also marve-
lously illuminate the glorious hope of the coming Messiah and
the promise of the new covenant. Atop the dark backdrop of the
failure of God’s people to believe and obey his Word rests the bri-
ght vision of the forever Davidic King and the establishment of a
his forever kingdom through a new covenant (Isaiah 9:6–7; Jere-
miah 31:32–34). The glorious global purposes of God revealed in
the Prophets look beyond the ravages of the exile and center on
the arrival of this future King like David (Ezek. 34:23).
Elsewhere, the Lord says that this new covenant will involve
a regathering of his people through a kind of new exodus (Ezek.
36:26–28; cf. Deut. 30:3–4) and a pouring out of his Spirit in
a fresh way, such that all the people of God will be given new
hearts to trust and obey their King (Joel 2:28–29; Acts 2:14–21).
The prophets even hold out the hope that the King of all creation
will bring about a new creation, a new heaven and a new earth
in which all the nations shall worship before the Lord (Isa. 65:17;
66:22–23).

80
 Any faithful preaching of the prophetic books must inclu-
de consistently pointing our people to Jesus Christ, the seed of
Abraham, the son of David, the prophet like Moses, the Suffering
Servant, who was obedient to the point of death, even death on
a cross, who inaugurated the new covenant and purchased the
church of God with His own blood (Luke 22:20; Acts 20:28). “He
was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniqui-
ties; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and
with His wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone as-
tray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD
has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:5-6)
Jesus Christ, the risen Lord, taught His disciples to look for
Him in the Prophets. “And beginning with Moses and all the Pro-
phets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things con-
cerning himself” (Luke 24:27; see also 1 Peter 1:10–12). So preach
the Prophets by pointing your hearers to the Coming One whom
the Old Testament prophets all longed to see. “To Him all the
prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives
forgiveness of sins through His name” (Acts 10:43).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nick Roark is the pastor of Franconia Baptist Church in Alexan-
dria, Virginia. You can find him on Twitter at @NickRoark.

81
How Not to Preach
Wisdom Literature

Juan Sanchez

W
hen was the last time you preached through wisdom
literature? Think about it for a moment. Look back
over your preaching calendar if you need to. I was for-
ced to ask myself this question a few years ago. I’m committed to
preaching through books of the Bible in their entirety. I’m also
committed to preaching the whole counsel of God, so we alterna-
te regularly between the Old and New Testaments and through
the various genres of Scripture. Despite all that, I found that I had
neglected wisdom literature.
I’m sure there are any number of reasons why. After all, who
wants to preach through Song of Solomon on Sunday mornings
to a mixed-gender, multi-generational, multi-ethnic congrega-
tion? Sure, like most pastors, I preached through a few wisdom
Psalms here and there—mostly on Sunday nights or during the
summer. Job? Well, that’s a long book—42 chapters, to be exact,

82
and not the most encouraging either. And while we’re speaking of
not encouraging, how much more negative can you get than Ec-
clesiastes? “Nothing new here! Oh, and by the way, every pursuit
is empty, and life is a vapor!” Thanks, but no thanks! Now, I must
admit that Proverbs is pretty practical stuff, right? But preaching
it without sounding like Dr. Phil? That poses its own challenges.

WHY PREACH WISDOM LITERATURE

Maybe you’re much more mature than me. Maybe you’ve prea-
ched through all of Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and
the Song of Solomon. I, on the other hand, had to come to terms
that if the Bible is God’s Word, sufficient and without error, then
I must preach all of it—including wisdom literature. It’s part of
the divinely inspired canon. It’s God’s Word. And when we stand
before God and give an account, we must be able to say with the
apostle Paul that we held nothing back. Our hands are clean of
their blood because we preached the whole counsel of God (Acts
20:26–27).
So, knowing we need to preach wisdom literature, let’s consider
three overarching questions that will help us preach it faithfully.

1. Ask yourself: what was the original author communicating

to his audience?
In other words, what did the message mean to them in their
then? This requires the hard work of exegesis. Once you’ve identi-
fied the type of text you’re working with (discourse, narrative, or
poetry), utilize the strategies that type of text requires. If you’re
working through Proverbs, for example, it’s mainly poetry. You
will need to understand certain characteristics of poetry— para-
llelism, images, stanzas, etc.—to understand the message.
Knowing the characteristics of the genre will help you discern
how the author has structured the text or passage. Discerning
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structure will reveal its shape and emphases, which will in turn
shape the structure and emphases of your sermon.
And yet, once you’ve discerned the shape and emphases of
your passage, you still need to understand its context: in surroun-
ding passages, in the whole book, and even in the whole Bible.
Take Ecclesiastes, for example. At first glance, it’s a depressing
book. But when you understand that the author is exposing the
emptiness of life “under the sun”—a worldview in which there is
no God and therefore no heavens—it begins to make sense. Those
who live with a materialistic worldview “under the sun” will find
their search for purpose meaningless and their pursuits empty.
Instead, our purpose and hope are found in the God who exists in
the heavens. It is he whom we should love and fear. Knowing the
overarching theme of Ecclesiastes helps identify the argument of
the individual passages.
It’s also vital to understand historical context. What’s going on
in the lives of the original hearers that will inform the interpreta-
tion of your passage? Sometimes, the literary context answers the-
se questions. Other times, other passages of Scripture shed light.
Often, though, a good dictionary, encyclopedia, or commentary
can provide the needed historical background that will help you
better understand what your passage meant to them in their then.
For example, Proverbs seems primarily written to Solomon’s
sons (Proverbs 1:1, 8; 2:1; 3:1; 4:1; 5:1; 6:1; 7:1; 10:1). Solomon seeks
to prepare his sons for covenant faithfulness and even kingship.
This idea of covenant faithfulness is important for understanding
wisdom literature. The Law was given to Moses in the first five
books of the Bible, the Torah. The life or death of Israel was con-
tingent on faithful covenant keeping (Exodus 19:5–6). If Israel
obeyed the covenant, they would be richly blessed. If they broke
the covenant, they would be terribly cursed (Deuteronomy 28).
Israel’s king was the primary covenant keeper (Isaiah 55:3-4). As
the kings of Israel went, so followed the nation.
84
 Wisdom literature was a means for instructing Israel in cove-
nant faithfulness and warning them of the consequences of cove-
nant breaking. If Israel obeyed, they received incredible promi-
ses—an abundance of crops, of offspring, and of military trium-
phs. However, if they disobeyed, God would bring them famine,
barrenness, defeat, and exile. Wisdom literature distinguishes the
way of wisdom, righteousness, and covenant faithfulness from
the way of foolishness, unrighteousness, and covenant breaking.
Read in this light, Proverbs has some teeth. They’re not mere
principles that are often true; they show the path to obtaining the
covenant promises.
Answering this first question is often the hardest work in ser-
mon preparation. We’re trying to identify what the passage meant
to them in their then. Once you’ve done that, write out a brief
sentence that summarizes the author’s main idea. This step is vital
because if you’re unclear as to the author’s point, your sermon’s
main argument will be unclear to your hearers. Still, while this
first question may be the most challenging in the process of ser-
mon preparation, we’re only just beginning.

2. Ask yourself: what light does Christ and his coming shed on
your text of Scripture?
Wisdom literature in the Old Testament was written in a co-
venantal context: God’s covenant with Israel. But Christ’s coming
has inaugurated a new covenant. How does this affect how we
should read wisdom literature text today?
Before we answer that question, we must remember that before
Jesus inaugurated the new covenant, he fulfilled the old covenant.
He did so by satisfying its demands fully, thus fulfilling all righ-
teousness. Due to his faithful covenant keeping, Jesus obtained
all the covenant blessings. Jesus also fulfilled the old covenant by
receiving its curses in the place of covenant-breakers (Galatians
3:13–14). Jesus saved us from the covenant curses by bearing them
85
in our place; he won for us the covenant blessings through his
faithful covenant keeping. In doing so, he fulfilled the old cove-
nant, which was temporary to begin with (Galatians 4:1–7), and
he inaugurated the new covenant. Now, with the law written on
our hearts and God’s Spirit indwelling us, we are empowered to
keep the covenant by walking in the way of wisdom.
This raises a question: is wisdom the same in the old and new
covenant? Yes, it is. It’s a divine gift (Proverbs 2:1–7; James 1:5;
3:15). It’s graciously given to us that we may know how to walk
in covenant faithfulness (James 3:13–18). It gives us insight into
God’s character, purposes, and ways by which we develop a view
of the world that helps us discern the path of righteousness. Now,
under the new covenant, we walk in the way of wisdom and fo-
llow Jesus’ steps in the knowledge and fear of God. We receive
all the blessings of the covenant, not on the basis of our covenant
faithfulness, but by faith in Jesus, the one who kept the covenant
for us.
Sometimes, there will be a direct citation of a portion of your
text elsewhere in Scripture. See how other authors understand it,
especially if it’s in the New Testament. Other times, you’ll need
to trace a theme or type from your text to the New Testament.
However you get to Jesus—direct citation, allusion, theme, type,
promise-fulfillment, analogy, or contrast—you must reveal Christ
and his good news for his people from your text. Otherwise, par-
ticularly in Old Testament wisdom literature, you’ll merely be
preaching moralistic sermons devoid of power.

3. Finally, ask yourself: what will be my main argument from

this passage of Scripture?
The original author’s main point or idea written to them in
their then must now be written for us in our now. In other words,
you want to make the same argument the original author made
to his audience but in the language of today and in light of Christ.
86
This becomes your sermon’s main argument, its big theme or
idea. Once you’ve written your main argument in a brief sentence
in today’s language, flesh out the text’s implications for both be-
lievers and unbelievers.
Once you’ve prepared, boldly preach the point of the text and
apply it faithfully to your congregation. Because you’re preaching
the text in light of Christ, you won’t preach a moralistic sermon.
Instead, you’ll preach Jesus Christ, our wisdom, the One who em-
powers his people to walk in the way of wisdom.

HELPFUL RESOURCES
Estes, Daniel J., Handbook on the Wisdom Books and Psalms
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2005).

Greidanus, Sidney, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A

Contemporary Hermeneutical Method (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1999).

Kidner, Derek, The Wisdom of Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes: An

Introduction to Wisdom
Literature (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1985).

O’Donnel, Douglas Sean, The Beginning and End of Wisdom:

Preaching Christ from the First and Last Chapters of Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes, and Job (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Juan Sanchez is the preaching pastor of High Pointe Baptist
Church in Austin, Texas. You can find him on Twitter at @ma-
norjuan.

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How Not to Preach
the Gospels

Aubrey Sequeira

I
grew up in a city that features the second longest beach in the
world—the Marina Beach in Chennai. Marina Beach, one of
the busiest in the world, is also one of the deadliest. Though the
waters seem friendly and inviting, even experienced swimmers
can quickly find themselves caught in a dangerous undertow, pu-
lled out by rip tides, and buried in a watery grave.
Sounds ominous, but that’s an image I often think about when
I’m trying to preach the Gospels. Wide-eyed preachers approach
these books with a sense of familiarity and excitement, ready to
unveil these portraits of Jesus for their congregations, and then
unexpectedly find themselves tossed about and struggling, crying
out “Someone, help me!”
The Gospels give us beautiful portraits of Jesus; they give us
rich theology. But they come with their own set of hermeneuti-
cal and homiletical challenges—challenges we must know how

88
to navigate to faithfully proclaim Christ. Here are five “no swim
zones” to avoid, five ways not to preach the Gospels:

1. DON’T PREACH THE GOSPELS AS A SET OF ISOLATED

“PERICOPES” WITHOUT REFERENCE TO THEIR LARGER
STORY.
The Gospels include a number of events and discourses from
Jesus’ life, woven into a coherent literary whole with a theologi-
cal purpose. Most evangelicals rightly avoid a historical-critical
approach that sees the Gospels as a patchwork of unrelated stories
with questionable historicity. But the ghosts of these historical
critical approaches still haunt evangelical preachers when they
preach individual units of text—pericopes, to use a word common
in Gospel studies—with no reference to the literary flow and lar-
ger theological story of each Gospel.
The Gospels aren’t an anthology of short stories each with their
own moral. Rather, they’re theological narratives. We must there-
fore help our hearers pay attention to the theological message of
each writer and the particular emphases of each Gospel. In prea-
ching them, we must show our hearers both how smaller literary
units contribute to the whole, and how the whole affects the mea-
ning of each individual story.
For instance, in Matthew’s Gospel, the preacher must beware
the temptation to preach the parable of the sower (Matt 13:1–23)
merely as a call to hearers to be “good soil” that receives the Word
rightly. Rather, this parable must be understood in its place in the
plot of Matthew’s Gospel. These parables explain why the king-
dom of heaven that has arrived in Jesus’ person and message is
all but invisible and is rejected by many. The parable of the sower
reminds us of the sovereignty of the sower in the already/not-yet
dynamic of the kingdom. Though the seed of the Word will face
circumstances that seek to destroy, choke out, or wither its advan-
89
ce, the sower will finally be vindicated, for this seed will ultimate-
ly bear fruit far beyond expectations.

2. DON’T PREACH THE GOSPELS WITHOUT SHOWING

THEIR PLACE IN THE BIBLE’S LARGER STORY.
The Gospels are both coherent literary accounts, and the climax
of God’s grand story that began in Genesis, unfolds through the
Old Testament, and culminates in Christ. Each Gospel presents
Jesus the Messiah as the fulfillment of the Old Testament storyli-
ne in different ways:

• Matthew presents Jesus as the Son of David, the Son of Abra-

ham, the one in whom the kingdom of heaven has arrived in
fulfillment of the Scriptures.
• Mark shows us that Yahweh has made his promised return
to save his people in the enigmatic person of the Son of Man
(Dan. 7:13–14; Mark 14:61–62), who in a dramatic plot twist
is also the Suffering Servant (Isa. 53:11–12; Mark 10:45).
• Luke portrays Jesus as the promised Redeemer of Israel and
the nations, the One whose suffering and glory was anticipa-
ted by the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.
• John boldly yet allusively presents Jesus as the true Temple,
the true manna from heaven, the true light of God’s presen-
ce with his people, the true Shepherd of God’s people, the
true one in whom the Old Testament hope of resurrection is
fulfilled, the true fruit-bearing vine that Israel failed to be,
and above all the Great i am who has come to dwell with his
people.

Preachers must help people see, as Luther said, how the Old
Testament is “the swaddling cloths and the manger in which

90
Christ lies,”12 while also helping people see how Christ brings
Scripture’s storyline to a climax and sheds new light on all that
has gone before.13

3. DON’T PREACH THE GOSPELS BY SUBSTITUTING A

HISTORY “BEHIND-THE-TEXT” FOR THE TEXT ITSELF.
Preachers committed to Scripture should steer clear of another
error of critical methodologies: the urge to create a history “be-
hind-the-text” and preach that history instead of preaching the
text itself.
What do I mean by this? Historical-critical methodologies have
long advocated re-creation of the “historical Jesus,” a supposed
wise sage or political zealot (or someone else) who stands behind
the highly embellished presentations of the Gospel authors. Whi-
le evangelicals balk at such ideas, we find ourselves guilty of the
same mistake, when, in the interest of apologetics or harmoniza-
tion, we try to re-construct “what actually happened” and preach
that narrative instead of preaching what each Gospel writer is te-
lling us in inspired words. This particular ghost of historical-cri-
tical past seems to favor appearances during Christmas season
and Passion Week when preachers make a mash of the infancy
or passion narratives to recreate and preach their own version of
Christ’s birth or death.
Of course, good preachers should employ a wise and judicious
approach to harmonization both for apologetic purposes (to help
our hearers see that the Gospels complement rather than contra-
dict one another) and for hearing the unique voice of each Gospel.
12  Martin Luther, “Preface to the Old Testament,” quoted in Richard B. Hays, Reading Backwards: Figural
Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014), 1.
13  Apart from good commentaries, preachers will be especially helped in this area by Richard B. Hays, Echoes
of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016); although the reader must be warned against
Hays’ commitment to postmodern intertextual hermeneutics. Other helpful tools for preachers include G. K.
Beale and D. A. Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2007).

91
We must, however, resist the urge to preach our own speculative
reconstructions with the same authority as the authority of the
inspired text itself.
4. DON’T PREACH THE GOSPELS AS IF THE RED LETTERS
ARE MORE INSPIRED OR IMPORTANT THAN THE REST OF
SCRIPTURE.
This point ought to be taken for granted among evangelicals, but
the false dichotomy between Jesus’ words and the rest of Scripture
is like the unclean spirit that keeps returning to possess churches
that have once been exorcised of its influence. For example, it’s be-
coming increasingly common today, even in evangelical circles,
to claim that Jesus “never condemned homosexuality”—or that
Jesus advocates a brand of “social justice” that’s different from
Paul or other parts of Scripture. When preaching the Gospels,
we must be careful not to claim that the Gospels somehow reveal
Jesus to us in a way that the rest of the Bible does not, for all of
Scripture reveals Christ and him crucified.
Moreover, all of Scripture is the Spirit-inspired product of the
Son’s redemptive work: all the words of Scripture are the words of
Christ, not just the red-letters (John 14:26; 16:13–15). All of Scrip-
ture is God-breathed and is the Word of God (2 Tim 3:16).
In preaching, therefore, we should avoid any kind of verbiage
or emphasis that indicates otherwise. Beware the deadly under-
tow of setting the “red-letters” or “words of Christ” or the Gospels
themselves over against the rest of the Old or New Testament!

5. DON’T PREACH THE GOSPELS WITHOUT PREACHING

THE GOSPEL.
The Gospels have been famously described as “passion narratives
with extended introductions,” and rightly so.14 The shadow of the
14  M. Kähler, paraphrased by Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey 2nd ed.
(Nashville: B&H Academic, 2009), 129.

92
cross looms large in all four Gospels. As Don Carson says, “In
each case the narrative rushes toward the cross and resurrection;
the cross and resurrection are the climax.”15 It’s tempting, for ins-
tance, to preach Matthew’s temptation narrative (Matt. 4:1–11) as
revealing the example of Jesus overcoming temptation through
applying God’s Word. And in one sense, it does. We fail as prea-
chers, however, if we do not also preach this narrative as demons-
trating Jesus’ identity as the true and greater Israel and the true
and greater Adam, overcoming temptation where all who have
gone before him have failed.
Jesus continues living in perfect obedience till once again he
hears the voice of his tempter saying “if you are the Son of God,”
questioning his divine identity and sonship. But this time, he’s
not hungry in the wilderness; he’s now hanging naked on the
Cross (Matt 27:40). And yet again, he again overcomes through
obedience, thus saving his people from their sin and being gran-
ted all authority in heaven and on earth.
The Gospels are portraits of Jesus. But above all, they’re por-
traits of Christ crucified, the Savior of his people. From the man-
ger to the empty tomb, therefore, our sermons ought to bleed,
pointing our hearers to the crucified Messiah King who suffers
and dies to redeem his people and rises again to reign over his
inaugurated kingdom. The first preacher to herald the arrival of
Jesus called him “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the
world!” (John 1:29). Go and do likewise!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aubrey Sequeira grew up in South India. He serves as associate
pastor at the Evangelical Community Church of Abu Dhabi and
teaches theology at the Gulf Training Center, Dubai. You can fo-
llow him on Twitter at @AubreySequeira.
15  D. A. Carson, “The SBJT Forum: What are the most common errors that people make when it comes
to understanding and proclaiming the kingdom?” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 12 (2008): 107.

93
How Not to Preach
the Epistles

Bobby Scott

I
f you haven’t read Expositional Preaching by David Helm, pause
for a minute and order it. I wholeheartedly agree with Mark
Dever’s endorsement, “If I were teaching a preaching class and
could assign the students only one book, this might be the one.”
And guess what? The book is about 100 pages and no bigger than
your hand! I like quick and insightful reads. Here’s how Helm
defines expository preaching.
It is empowered preaching that rightfully submits the shape
and emphasis of the sermon to the shape and emphasis of a bibli-
cal text. In that way it brings out of the text what the Holy Spirit
put there . . . and does not put into the text what the preacher
thinks might be there.
My assignment is to explain how not to do that when prea-
ching through epistles. Before I begin, let me confess that some
of what I will share will be from my own personal failures as a

94
preacher, and if you’re a preacher I’m sure some of what I write
will expose some of yours. It’s really easy to deceive ourselves into
thinking we are faithfully preaching the Word when we actually
are preaching our own thoughts.
If you’re not a preacher, I encourage you to read carefully.
Why? Because it’s really easy to think that we’ve heard a profound
sermon, when in fact we’ve just heard someone butcher a text and
read in and out of it things God never put into the text. Every
believer needs to carefully consider how to listen to sermons to
make sure the preacher preaches what the Word of God actually
teaches. If the Word of God commends the Bereans for checking
against Scripture what Paul preached, then it would be wise of
you to examine carefully the sermons that are preached to you
(Acts 17:10–11).
So, here are a few ways epistles should not be exposited.
 
1. DON’T SKIP READING THE TEXT.
How many times have you expositionally preached through an
epistle and decided that you didn’t have time to actually read the
text you’re preaching? Remember that the Bible, and not your ser-
mon, is the Word of God. Paul exhorted Timothy “Until I come,
give your attention to the public reading, exhortation, and tea-
ching” (of Scripture), 1 Timothy 4:13 (CSB). Notice, Paul doesn’t
say give attention only to your exhortation and teaching, but first
he commands, “Give your attention to the public reading!”
It is the Word of God, not our thoughts about the Word of God,
that God uses to transform believers from one level of glory to the
next (2 Cor. 3:18). So preachers of the Word of God, make time
in your sermons to read the Word. If you don’t have time, feel
free to cut out jokes, anecdotal stories, and sports illustrations.
Your folks probably don’t think you’re that funny anyway, and if
they follow sports they’ve heard better insights than yours. And if
95
you’re listening to someone preach through a text and they don’t
read it, make sure that you do. The Bible is God’s breathed-out
Word, your pastor’s sermon isn’t.
 
2. DON’T TAKE TEN YEARS TO PREACH THROUGH EACH
LETTER.
Now I know I’m treading on sacred ground. So let me try to exp-
lain. There’s no sin in s l o w l y preaching through each letter of
the Bible. Some of the church’s greatest expositors moved through
the New Testament at a tortoise’s pace. Nevertheless, I appeal to
letters of the New Testament really are just that—letters—and the
original recipients would have heard them read and explained in
a single sitting. While it’s certainly true that original readers sha-
red common cultures and history with the authors, I still contend
that letters can be meaningfully understood when preached over
shorter periods of time.
Otherwise, what does Paul mean when he affirms the clarity
of Scripture in 2 Corinthians 1:13, “For we are writing nothing
to you other than what you can read and also understand. I hope
you will understand completely” (CSB17). My pastoral concern
is this: unless God grants you greater longevity than Abraham,
if you take years and years to preach through each epistle, then
how will God’s sheep experience that “all Scripture is profitable
for teaching”? Our people need to hear and learn the full counsel
of God. So if you’re hardwired to exposit very, very, very slowly
through the Bible, then at least provide survey classes where your
people can have an opportunity to hear the entire Bible taught.
As important as it is to carefully explain and apply an epistle
like Romans, God’s people need to hear the man of God preach
all of the epistles and all of the Scriptures and to apply all of God’s
Word to their souls because all Scripture is profitable.  
 
96
3. DON’T MAKE IT YOUR GOAL TO BE RELEVANT.
Why should you preach what apostles and prophets, who lived
thousands of years ago, wrote to their pre-modern, pre-scienti-
fic, agrarian audiences? After all, times have changed. You know
your people. You know their situations, their problems, and their
needs. So every Sunday preach to them what you think they need
to hear.
That style of preaching is so common today. But what did Jes-
us say? He said, “The one who speaks on his own seeks his own
glory” (John 7:18).
There is a deep morality to preaching. God revealed his inerrant
truth in the Scriptures and gave the twofold means to receive it
(1) through humble dependence upon the Spirit (1 Cor 2), and
(2) through the hard labor of precise exegesis (2 Tim 2:15). Pride
and self-reliance will keep preachers blind and deaf to God’s tru-
th and will foolishly embolden them to replace God’s infallible
words with their own.
Think of the crime of replacing God thoughts with ours and
then binding people’s conscience to them as if they are God’s.
Therefore, let every faithful preacher surrender the entire prea-
ching process from exegesis to exposition to the authority of God.
Every preacher must commit to preaching what the text actually
says and how the text says what it says. Why? Because every word,
every sentence, every paragraph, every chapter, and every book is
God-breathed. Because the entire Bible, including every epistle, is
“profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in
righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16).
So preachers strengthened by the Holy Spirit must bear the
weight of the responsibility of preaching God’s Word—not his pet
peeves, not his hobby horses, not his worldly insights. The Word
of God is living, and therefore it will never become antiqued or
replaceable with the wisdom of any philosophy or any preacher.

97
4. DON’T SKIP STUDYING THE TEXT.
Preaching with what Spurgeon would call “unction” in no way
means preaching without studying. The Word of God demands
of preachers that we labor at studying the text so that, like a tent-
maker, we cut it precisely along its true lines (2 Tim 2:15). Every
effort must be taken to make sure that what the preacher says,
God has indeed said, and that result can only be achieved throu-
gh diligent labor.
For instance, if you opened up a magazine and saw the words
“He killed her,” how would you interpret it? A man murdered a
woman, and there is a dead body somewhere. But what if you read
that line in a sports magazine, or as a part of a political commen-
tary, or in the entertainment section describing a movie? There in
fact would not be a dead person or an actual murderer. Preaching
what the text says requires reading precisely, and reading precise-
ly means reading in context.
Epistles are letters to Christians, not systematic theologies.
They have a historical context, a specific occasion. Chloe’s peo-
ple sent Paul a letter with a list of problems (1 Cor. 1:10–11) and
questions, and 1 Corinthians is God’s answer to those problems
and questions (1 Cor. 7:25; 8:1; 11:17; 12:1; 16:1 etc.). The meaning
in biblical letters therefore can be discerned by reading along
through paragraphs, discerning the theme of those paragraphs,
and connecting those themes to the historical context of why the
letter was written.
Furthermore, authors convey meaning by the words they
choose and how they arrange them. Consider the following sta-
tements: “My neighbor is quiet.” “Is my neighbor quiet?” “Neigh-
bor, be quiet!” Each of those clauses uses the same words, but have
different meanings because I changed the word order and rela-
tionship and function of the words. The faithful expositor needs
to carefully follow the syntax of the text in the proper context

98
in order to discern the authorial intent of the text. They need to
investigate the relationship between words, phrases, and clauses.
This takes work! But when done faithfully, Paul again offers the
encouragement that through careful reading the reader can gain
an accurate and clear understanding of the Word of God (2 Cor.
1:13).
Those who draw the meaning out of the text and preach what
the text says will be blessed. Those who instead preach what they
think the congregation wants to hear (2 Tim 4:1–4) will fail. So
study and preach the Word. God ordained it as a means for your
salvation and for the salvation of those who hear you (1 Tim 4:16).
 
5. DON’T SKIP PRAYER.
Why pray when preaching is an intellectual exercise of reading
and interpreting a text and then communicating what you’ve
read? If you can read and interpret, you should be able to preach.
So why pray?
We should pray as we preach because there’s no weightier job
on earth, and no one is adequate to do it without God’s help (2
Cor. 2:15–17).
If anything ought to make a man pray it’s to be a sinner stan-
ding before other sinners with the charge to proclaim, “Thus says
the Lord.” It’s one thing to have the duty as an ambassador to re-
present a nation; it’s altogether another responsibility to represent
the Sovereign of the Universe. Men misquote men all the time;
men libel and slander one another. But the Bible explicitly warns
that few of us should be teachers of God’s Word for we will incur
a stricter judgment (James 3:1).
Preacher, for your soul’s sake and for the sake of those to whom
you preach, let the Word of God compel you to pray before, du-
ring, and after you preach. I’m reminded of a quote I heard attri-
buted to Spurgeon that someone heard him muttering as he as-
99
sailed his pulpit, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, I believe in the Holy
Spirit.” Brothers, without the help of the Holy Spirit there will be
no conviction of sin when you preach; there will be no repentan-
ce, no victories, no growing in grace, no Christ-like transforma-
tions. All these are the work that God brings about through the
preaching of his Word to his people by the working of the Spirit.
But be encouraged, brothers. If God has called you to preach,
and if you do preach his Word depending on his Spirit, then no
power in hell can hinder the outcome. God saves, God sanctifies,
God encourages, God builds his church through the preaching of
his Word. Be faithful, be humble, be diligent, and remain depen-
dent. Let God, whose words brought the universe into existence,
use you to herald the truth from his letters to the sheep he has
called you to shepherd.
And if you’re not a preacher, let me remind you: faithful expo-
sition exposes the precise meaning of the text. If you can consis-
tently close your Bible during the Sunday sermons, if you consis-
tently hear only stories and contemporary analogies, then lovin-
gly encourage your pastor to preach the Word (1 Tim 4:1–2). If he
or they refuse, then find a healthy church that does.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bobby Scott is a co-pastor of Community of Faith Bible Church in
South Gate, California.

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Bad Biblical Theology
Leads to Bad Sermons

Sam Emadi

M
uch modern evangelical biblical theology is a gift to the
church. It has successfully stemmed the tide of moralis-
tic preaching in many churches and has provided useful
theological resources to combat the most egregious theological
dangers of our day, such as the prosperity gospel.
But I’ve also witnessed—and been guilty of—some bad bibli-
cal theology. Over time, this bad biblical theology will undercut
a congregation’s health—warping the message of Scripture and
stunting a church’s growth in the knowledge of God.
All of us—not just preachers—should beware of bad biblical
theology. But what exactly does bad biblical theology look like?

1. BAD BIBLICAL THEOLOGY LEADS TO “CHRIST-

CENTERED” SERMONS THAT NEVER MAKE MORAL
DEMANDS OF THE CONGREGATION.
The Bible is opposed to moralism, not morality. Regrettably,
I’ve heard many sermons which confuse the two. I’ve even

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interacted with some preachers and seminary students who
would wince a little if they heard a preacher rattle off com-
mands to his congregation in the way Paul does in the epistles
(cf. 1 Cor. 16:13–14).
I appreciate the desire on the part of many pastors to avoid
“moralism” and to emphasize the gospel as the agent of trans-
formation in the Christian life. Yet it’s also the case that some
preachers—particularly younger ones—need to embrace that
preaching must also include appropriate exhortations for the con-
gregation to respond to Christ’s climactic fulfillment of the Old
Testament. The law “used lawfully” in gospel preaching (1 Tim.
1:8) is both biblical and necessary.
For example, preaching how Jesus fulfills the Davidic Cove-
nant and ascends the throne of Israel demands that we call people
to bow their knee to Jesus the king. Preaching how Jesus fulfills
the office of priest demands that we call people to trust in his sa-
crifice. Preaching Jesus as the prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:15a)
demands that we also tell people “to him you shall listen” (Deut.
18:15b). Preaching Jesus as the fulfillment of the temple demands
that we also teach people that Christ has poured the Spirit out on
his church and expects us to preserve the purity of God’s dwelling
through faithful discipleship and discipline. Preaching Jesus as
the fulfillment of the law demands that we also tell people “don’t
worship idols, honor your father and mother, don’t look at porn,
don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t covet.”
Additionally, preaching how Jesus fulfills Old Testament types
must include how the Messiah incorporates his people into that
fulfillment. I’ve left many sermons, which masterfully demons-
trated how Jesus fulfilled some Old Testament type, thinking,
“Wow, isn’t Jesus amazing! I sure wish he had something to do
with me!” It’s exhilarating to discover how every story in the Old
Testament whispers Jesus’ name—how every promise, person,
and pattern is ultimately fulfilled in him.
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 At the same time, we must remember that we are also a part
of the story. Jesus is the true and better temple, but he gives his
people that same identity (1 Cor. 3:16). Jesus is the true and better
Israel, but he incorporates those who put faith in him into the
new Israelite community (Gal. 6:16). Jesus rises from the dead,
fulfilling types of resurrection in the OT (1 Cor. 15:1–3), but his
resurrection is a first fruit of what’s to come, guaranteeing our
coming resurrection and offering a hope that should shape our
everyday lives (1 Cor .15:58). Christ-centered preaching is unavoi-
dably ecclesiological—he is the head, we are the body.
I commend preachers who don’t want to sully their congre-
gation’s estimation of God’s grace revealed in the cross and re-
surrection of Christ. Having experienced moralistic preaching, I
know first-hand the spiritual crises it creates. But avoiding im-
peratives altogether is shortsighted and misguided. I’m confident
the cripple in Mark 2 didn’t lose any sense of the wonder of grace
or reliance on Christ when the Lord commanded him to pick up
his mat and go home.
2. BAD BIBLICAL THEOLOGY LEADS TO SERMONS THAT
AVOID PRESENTING BIBLICAL CHARACTERS AS POSITIVE
AND NEGATIVE MORAL EXAMPLES. 
Perhaps you’ve heard youth pastors challenge you to “dare to
be a Daniel” or “flee sexual temptation like Joseph.” Perhaps
you’ve sat under preaching that encouraged you to “be like”
Abraham, David, Jonathan, Josiah, Paul, or even Jesus. In my
first year of seminary, I scoffed at such “moralism.” After a few
years, I stopped the scoffing. Yes, we must preach Jesus from
every text authentically by reading each passage in light of the
entire canon of Scripture and the climax of redemptive-history
in Christ. And yes, the characters of Scripture ultimately point
beyond themselves to the grace of God in his Son. But the New
Testament authors, in the context of a robust, Christ-centered
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biblical theology, do not shy away from presenting Old Testa-
ment characters as moral exemplars.
Jesus and the Apostles routinely call Christians to “be like”
or “not be like” Old Testament figures (cf. Heb. 12:16). Even Paul
tells us that Israel’s sinful actions in the wilderness “took place as
examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did” (1 Cor.
10:6; cf. 10:11). Likewise, James encourages believers to be like the
prophets, Job, and Elijah (Jas. 5:10–18). Paul even commends him-
self as someone the Corinthians ought to imitate (1 Cor. 11:1). Fur-
thermore, many of Jesus’ parables command listeners to imitate
exemplary characters (Matt. 7:24–27). After teaching on the Good
Samaritan, Jesus commanded the lawyer, “go and do likewise”
(Lk 10:37). In other words, “go and be like the good Samaritan.”
Of course, preaching that only employs biblical characters as
moral exemplars is unbiblical. But preaching that fails to draw
any moral implications from the lives of biblical characters is
equally unbiblical. We must show how each story finds its climax
in God’s final word in Christ, and we must draw out moral les-
sons from the lives of biblical characters.
To be sure, preaching should primarily aim at transforming
the heart, but transformed hearts still need to be taught to obser-
ve all that Jesus commanded (Matt. 28:20). Moral exemplars are
one of the most powerful ways to inspire obedience among God’s
people. Who can’t help but feel a little steel in their spine when
reading about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego standing tall
in the throng of kneeling idolaters (Dan 3)? As theologian Bruce
Wayne said in Batman Begins, “people need dramatic examples to
shake them out of apathy.”

3. BAD BIBLICAL THEOLOGY LEADS TO SERMONS THAT

SOUND THE SAME EVERY WEEK.
Some redemptive-historical preaching can fall into the trap of sa-
104
ying the same thing week after week. Rather than allowing the
contours of the text to shape the homiletical outline, some prea-
chers allow their biblical-theological commitments to dictate the
structure of their sermon, and so the point of each sermon always
tends to be the same: “look how Jesus fulfilled X from the Old
Testament.” As Derek Thomas has noted, a redemptive-historical
sermon can be “breathtaking” the first time you encounter it, but
if it’s the only tool in your tool-belt, your sermons will soon be-
come predictable. Again, as Thomas notes, redemptive-historical
preaching can often be characterized as having a “hermeneutic of
sameness.”16[1]
4. BAD BIBLICAL THEOLOGY LEADS TO SERMONS THAT
FOCUS SO INTENTLY ON THE “BIG PICTURE,” THEY AVOID
EXEGESIS AND ENGAGING THE DETAILS OF THE TEXT.
A final problem with some redemptive-historical preaching is
the way it fails to unpack the actual text being preached. Rather
than letting exegesis drive the sermon, I’ve heard many preachers
simply identify the big biblical-theological theme (temple, priest,
king, law, Sabbath, etc.) and then walk through Scripture’s meta-
narrative focusing on that theme. Unfortunately, this approach
ignores the most basic preaching question: “what does the text
say?” Ultimately, our biblical-theological route to Jesus must
emerge from exegesis of the text.

CONCLUSION
Evangelical preaching has benefitted from the lectures, articles,
and books reinvigorating the notion that every sermon ultimately
must lead its hearers to respond to God’s free grace in the gos-
pel. But no adjective fits better with preaching than “expository.”

16  Derek Thomas, “Expository Preaching” in Feed My Sheep: A Passionate Plea for Preaching (Lake Mary, FL:
Reformation Trust, 2008), 42.

105
Why? Because faithful sermons exposit the text, and faithful ex-
position takes into account the text’s literary, historical, covenan-
tal, and ultimately canonical context.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sam Emadi is a member of Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louis-
ville, KY and serves as the Senior Editor at 9Marks.

106
Preaching Without
Exemplars

Jason Hood

T
wenty years ago I was driving with a friend when he as-
ked me a Bible trivia question that shook my theological
paradigms: “What does Paul explicitly say that he teaches
‘everywhere in every church’?” I didn’t know the answer. I knew
that “first importance” topics certainly would have been taught
by Paul “everywhere in every church”: Jesus’ death for sinners ac-
cording to the Scriptures, his resurrection from the dead, and his
status as Davidic king (1 Cor. 15:3–4; 2 Tim. 2:8; Rom. 1:3–4). On
the basis of 1 Corinthians 2:2, I thought that “the cross of Christ”
might be the answer.
But none of these answers were correct.

“IMITATE ME AS I IMITATE CHRIST”

Instead, we find the answer in 1 Corinthians 4:8–17. In that passage
Paul reminds the Corinthians that he teaches his “ways in Christ
107
. . . everywhere in every church.” This passage carries enormous
import for our preaching, teaching, and pastoring. It reflects Paul’s
consistent pattern of holding out his own dramatic résumé as a mo-
del for others (2 Cor. 4:7–10; 11:21–12:10). “Imitate me as I imitate
Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1) is the mic-drop moment in the lengthy idol
meat discussion (1 Cor. 8:1–11:1). This call to imitate is the sum-
mation of Paul’s ethical reasoning. We can let go of what is right-
fully ours for the sake of others, just as Jesus did, just as Paul did.
Paul regularly offers himself and Jesus as countercultural blue-
prints for congregations tempted to construct their lives accor-
ding to the pattern of the world. Paul crucifies his comfort; they
must crucify sin. God in Christ welcomed you; they can welcome
other brothers and sisters across ethnic or theological lines. Paul
takes on the yoke of travel, prison, diligent prayer, and angst for
his congregations; his congregations must suffer through the hard
work of spiritual discipline.
Paul also holds out others as examples. Paul is sending them
Timothy, his “faithful son.” Translated from ancient discipleship
language, this nomenclature means that he is a true copy of his
teacher. He will not only teach Paul’s ways; he can live them. Later
in the Corinthian correspondence he holds up the generosity of the
Macedonians as an example for them (2 Cor. 8:1–5). He wants the
Philippians to imitate others who walk as Paul walks, not claiming
their own righteousness but looking to the Messiah. The Thessalo-
nians are commended as “imitators of us and of the Lord,” and they
have become models for other believers (1 Thess. 1:6–7).

WRONG WAYS TO THINK ABOUT IMITATION

My friend’s pop quiz triggered my inner Berean and spurred me
to revisit the Scriptures in the years that followed to explore the
role imitation plays in Christian discipleship and proclamation.
I’ve often asked Robby’s question of my students, and they’ve had
108
no more success than I. “Stump the seminarian” might seem like
a rather banal game to play, but thankfully my students often had
their curiosity stoked like mine. As I’ve asked them this question
over the years, even those steeped in the Scriptures don’t know the
answer, in part because imitation has been downplayed or altoge-
ther ignored by conservative expositors who recoil at its misuse.
Indeed, many people view Jesus and other biblical characters
merely as examples. As a young Christian, I attended a liberal arts
college where Jesus was, at most, an exemplar of love and toleran-
ce. I recently had the privilege of getting to know a pastor who
has worked in his city for more than two decades. This brother
has toiled in counsel, preaching, evangelism, and discipleship for
many decades. But as we discussed his typical preaching strate-
gies, it became clear that we have very different strategies for our
sermons, and that his need to deliver practical instruction domi-
nates his approach to proclamation. Under such pressure, “Jesus
as a model” can squeeze “Jesus as Savior” to the margins.
On the other hand, in response to such approaches I some-
times hear pastors downplay or even denigrate imitation. One
popular pastor formerly in my denomination argued that “Jesus
and Jesus alone is the Good Samaritan,” and we are not given the
parable to imitate the character or be instructed in behavior that
Jesus wants. There’s at least one problem with this: Jesus disagrees
(Luke 10:37). Surely if Paul, the apostle of grace, thinks this hi-
ghly of imitation, our preaching and teaching are sub-Pauline if
imitation is not a prominent feature. The solution is not to jettison
imitation but to look again at Scripture, letting Scripture’s own
interpretation guide our proclamation.

GUARDRAILS FOR PREACHING IMITATION

As we look to Scripture, we can discern a few hermeneutical han-
drails.
109
 First, a theology of imitation should begin not with Jesus and
other characters but with the imitation of God, who made humans
to look like him.
The imitation of God’s holiness and care bridges the ethics of
the Old and New Testaments (Lev. 11, Matt. 5:48; 1 Pet. 1:16; 1 Jn.
2:29; 3:3). If we anchor the imitation of Jesus and other biblical
characters in the imitation of Israel’s God, we’re better positioned
to move beyond the dead-end of merely being nice like a libe-
ral Jesus, or taking an overly literal, rote approach to imitation.
We can and should emphasize the beautiful “loving-kindness”
(chesed) of Ruth and Boaz as characters worthy of imitation, but
not without pointing to the God whose “loving-kindness (chesed)
they were imitating.
Just as God designed humanity to be like him, he saves huma-
nity for the same end. As Calvin writes, “The goal of our regene-
ration is that we may be like God, and that his glory may shine
forth in us” (Calvin Commentaries Col. 3:9–10).
Secondly, many uses of imitation in Scripture are less than ex-
plicit.
Because the mimetic purpose of literature is no longer as ob-
vious as it was in previous generations, faithful expositors must
help their audiences draw appropriate inferences from the text.
Paul’s frequent autobiographical comments are intended to have
mimetic impact. The four references to his suffering and impri-
sonment in Ephesians, for instance, seem to say: “I’m in prison,
and you likewise should be willing to sacrifice for the sake of the
gospel.” Matthew’s Gospel repeatedly shows Jesus modeling obe-
dience to his own commands, but the distance between the com-
mands and his obedience means that such connections won’t be
clear unless interpreters link them.
Third, imitation must be properly defined.
At a popular level, imitation is sometimes understood as rote
copying: wearing sandals, growing a beard, having twelve disci-
110
ples. Perhaps this is why imitation often falls by the wayside. We
fail to see Phineas as a zealous believer to imitate because we know
that we cannot run anyone through with a spear (Num. 25:6–11;
cf Ps. 106:29–31). But when we define imitation as the replication
of patterns and directions rather than precise duplication, zeal
for purity and holiness can be imitated even if our weapons are
spiritual rather than physical (Rom. 12:8; Rev. 3:19). As Kevin
Vanhoozer surmises, “Mimēsis is not about making exact copies.
Jesus’ person and work are singular, unique, and thus unrepeata-
ble. The Christian vocation is rather that of creative imitation, a
nonidentical participation in the missions of the Son and Spirit”
(The Drama of Doctrine, 401, emphasis his).
In the spirit of creative imitation, Mark famously records three
passion predictions. What is rarely recognized by interpreters is
that the paragraph or pericope following each of those predictions
sheds light on the cross-shaped path of Christian discipleship:

Jesus’ cross and sacrifice: 8:31–33; 9:30–32; 10:32–34

Disciples’ cross-shaped response:

8:34–38; 9:32–35; 10:35–45

For the Gospel writers, imitation is not about Peter walking

on water in imitation of Jesus so much as living after the pattern
of Jesus’s life of trust, obedience, and sacrificial love. Augustine
came to a similar conclusion: “What is walking as Jesus walked?
Walking upon the sea? No, it is walking in the way of righteous-
ness . . . the way of charity.” (Augustine, First Homily on I John).

ANSWERING OBJECTIONS
An objection sometimes raised is that the biblical characters are a
mix of good and bad and are therefore not really heroes. But fai-
111
lure and ambiguity don’t prevent characters from functioning as
examples. Abraham was a profound sinner, but he still illustrates
faith that justifies (Rom. 4), inherits and sojourns (Heb. 11), and
works (Jas. 2). The books of 1 and 2 Kings focus on the errors that
lead to the exile, while 1 and 2 Chronicles acknowledge sin and
judgment but place the accent on the success of God’s people in
worship, repentance, and prayer. The same character can be both
a model to follow and an example of what befalls us in unbelief
and disobedience. Don’t be like Manasseh (2 Kgs. 21:1–18). Be like
Manasseh (2 Chron. 33:1–20).
Another common objection is that emphasizing imitation obs-
cures the gospel. To be sure, we don’t want to become legalists
who major on instruction and minor on grace. But to the extent
our congregations are regenerate, we’re not speaking to those who
have no power to trust, love, and obey God. Moreover, finding
Jesus or the gospel in an Old Testament text makes it more likely
to be used for imitation, not less. Second Timothy 3:15–16 and
1 Corinthians 10:1–11 illustrate the way in which gospel-cente-
red interpretation facilitates moral interpretation and imitation
rather than eliminating it. Luther wisely lays out the right course
of action in A Brief Instruction on What to Look for and Expect in
the Gospels (1521):
The chief article and foundation of the Gospel is that before
you take Christ as an example, you accept and recognize him as a
gift, as a present that God has given you. . . . Now when you have
Christ as the foundation and chief blessing of your salvation, then
the other part follows: that you take him as your example, giving
yourself in service to your neighbor just as you see that Christ
has given himself for you. See, there faith and love move forward,
God’s commandment is fulfilled, and a person is happy and fear-
less to do and to suffer all things.
Luther rightly believes that imitation flows from the gospel; it
doesn’t compete with it. In Exodus, God compels Israel to reflect
112
his loving-kindness and holiness only after he has first shown
them his own loving-kindness by saving them from Egypt. The
Bible keeps a right order to the relationship between gospel and
imitation, and so must we.

IMITATION AND PREACHING

For preachers, the imitation of Jesus has value not merely for our
interpretation but also for our sanctification and ministry. Consi-
der the words of John Stott
The place of suffering in service and of passion in mission is
hardly ever taught today. But the greatest single secret of evan-
gelistic or missionary effectiveness is the willingness to suffer
and die. It may be a death to popularity (by faithfully preaching
the unpopular biblical gospel), or to pride (by the use of modest
methods in reliance on the Holy Spirit), or to racial or national
prejudice (by identification with another culture), or to material
comfort (by adopting a simple lifestyle). But the servant must su-
ffer if he is to bring light to the nations, and the seed must die if
it is to multiply. (The Cross of Christ [20th Anniversary ed.; IVP,
2006], 313)
Ministry in the 21st century no less than the first century will
require suffering and sacrifice.
Imitation should frequently garnish the homiletical plates we
set before our congregations. Virtually every biblical book deploys
Jesus or other characters as examples. Even tiny 3 John and Jude
use positive and negative examples (3 John 11, Jude 7–10). God
inspired his Word so that every nook and cranny would be useful
for moral instruction: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and
is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training
in righteousness.” We should use Scripture accordingly.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jason Hood is a former missionary in Tanzania and former Asst
Prof of New Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Semi-
nary’s urban campus in Boston. He and Emily and their four
children recently moved to Chattanooga from Boston, where
Jason serves as assistant pastor for mission and adult disciples-
hip at North Shore Fellowship (PCA). Jason is the author of Imi-
tating God in Christ  (IVP) and  The Messiah, His Brothers, and
the Nations (LNTS/T&T Clark), as well as a smattering of acade-
mic articles for journals such as JBL, WTJ, and BBR. He speaks at
conferences on topics such as missions and the kingdom of God
in the Bible.

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Allegorical
Interpretation: Finding
the Line Before You
Cross It

Robert Kinney

H
ave you heard Augustine’s take on the parable of the Good
Samaritan? It might leave you a little confused.
In Augustine’s rendering, there is a man (Adam) trave-
ling a road. Having been stripped (of immortality) and beaten (or
persuaded to sin) by robbers (the devil), he is ignored by a priest
(the Law) and a Levite (the Prophets) before being attended to by a
Samaritan (Jesus Christ). The Samaritan takes him to the inn (or
the Church) where two denarii (the promises of this life and the
life to come) are paid to the innkeeper (the Apostle Paul), to take
care of the man.17
17  Augustine, Enarationes in Psalmos 118, 121 and 125, De Doctrina Christiana 1.30.31ff, Sermo 299.

115
 It’s an intriguing example of allegorical interpretation. Yet for tho-
se committed to biblical exposition, this kind of interpretation is dee-
ply problematic.18 Expositional preaching should be constrained by
the author’s intent—and neither Jesus in his telling nor Luke in his
recording could have meant much of what Augustine suggests.19
But on the other hand, in our age of right commitments to
Christ-centered preaching and a right understanding that all the
Scriptures do point to the gospel of Jesus Christ, it’s easy to be
sympathetic to Augustine’s goal.20 The gospel should be prea-
ched! And indeed, the human mind was designed to appreciate
the beauty of intricate literary connections and be excited by the
fulfillment of such patterns. This makes allegorizing the Bible in
a sermon not only tempting, but satisfying.
Yet, again, allegory is something less than exposition. It’s diffi-
cult to know where to draw the line. How far is too far?
One of the most significant challenges to considering allegory
is a problem of definitions.
18  Without naming Augustine, John Calvin responds to this kind of interpretation in characteristically blunt
fashion: “The allegory which is here contrived by the advocates of free will is too absurd to deserve refutation…
I acknowledge that I have no liking for any of these interpretations; but we ought to have a deeper reverence for
Scripture than to reckon ourselves at liberty to disguise its natural meaning. And, indeed, any one may see that
the curiosity of certain men has led them to contrive these speculations, contrary to the intention of Christ.” See
Calvin’s commentary on Matthew 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34; Luke 10:25-37 in John Calvin, The Harmony of the
Gospels, Vol. 3 (trans. W. Pringle and J. King; Altenmünster: Jazzybee, 2012), 49. While Calvin’s comments indicate
that he is strongly opposed to this kind of allegorical interpretation, he ironically engages in it with a striking
frequency. For example, in his commentary on Exodus 28:X, he notes that the garments made for Aaron and his
sons are meant to ‘conceal their faults’ and, instead, display virtue and, indeed, the ‘wondrous glory of Christ.’ The
text, in Exod 28:2, simply states the garments are to be made “for glory and for beauty.” See Calvin’s commentary
on Exodus 28:2 in John Calvin, The Harmony of the Law, Vol. 2 (trans. J. King; Altenmünster: Jazzybee, 2012), 103.
19  Mark Dever defines expositional preaching as “preaching that takes for the point of a sermon the point of a
particular passage of Scripture.” Mark Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Third Edition (Wheaton: Crossway,
2000), 44. David R. Helm defines it similarly as “empowered preaching that rightfully submits the shape and
emphasis of the sermon to the shape and emphasis of a biblical text.” David R. Helm, Expositional Preaching: How
We Speak God’s Word Today (Wheaton, Crossway, 2014), 13. D.A. Carson defines it similarly as “the unpacking
of what is there.” He goes on to add: “it is unpacking what the biblical text or texts actually say. If we expect God
to re-reveal himself by his own words, then our expositions must reflect as faithfully as possible what God actually
said when the words were given to us in Scripture.” D.A. Carson, “Challenges for the Twenty-first-century Pulpit”
in Preach the Word: Essays in Honor of R. Kent Hughes (ed., L. Ryken, T. Wilson; Wheaton: Crossway: 2008), 176-
177. Finally, Bryan Chapell offers this definition: “An expository sermon takes its topic, main points, and subpoints
from a text.2 In an expository message, a preacher makes a commitment to explain what a particular text means by
using the spiritual principles it supports as the points of the message.” Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching:
Redeeming the Expository Sermon, Second Edition (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 131.
20  See Luke 24:13-49.

116
DEFINITIONS AND CHALLENGES
During antiquity and through the Middle Ages, allegorical inter-
pretation was one of a few ways of reading Scripture (along with
literal, moral, and anagogical interpretation). It focused primarily
on drawing connections between Jesus Christ (or others) and the
stories of the Old Testament. It’s thought to have emerged because
aspects of the Old Testament would be difficult to apply sensibly
without seeing a fulfillment in the gospel.21 One major problem
with the terminology from this period is that allegory is often used
interchangeably with parable and typology and can refer to any
sort of metaphorical or analogical correspondence. Even through
the Reformation, these terms are broadly indistinguishable.
It’s not until relatively recently that typology and allegory have
come to mean different things. Presently, we use the word typo-
logy to refer to connections between an Old Testament concept,
typically, and an escalated fulfillment in the gospel of Jesus Christ
that is textually warranted (by some standard), while we use the
term allegory to refer to more arbitrary connections that are not
textually warranted (by some standard).22
Dictionary definitions are not especially precise either. For
example, allegory is:
A popular form of literature in which a story points to a hidden
or symbolic parallel meaning. Certain elements, such as people,
things, and happenings in the story, point to corresponding ele-
ments in another realm or level of meaning.23
With such a broad definition—one that can encompass legiti-
mate typologies and exegetically sound ways of reading as well as
more fanciful reading—other nuances must be considered.
21  See Origen, On First Principles, 4.2.
22  See Aubrey Spears, “Preaching the Old Testament,” in Hearing the Old Testament: Listening for God’s Address
(ed., C.G. Bartholomew, D.J.H. Beldman; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 383-409.
23  Philip Barton Payne, “Allegory” in The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (ed. W.A. Elwell; Grand Rapids: Baker,
1996), 14. By contrast, Beale defines typology as “the study of analogical correspondences among revealed truths
about persons, events, institutions, and other things within the historical framework of God’s special revelation, which
from a retrospective view, are of a prophetic nature and are escalated in their meaning.” See G.K. Beale, Handbook on
the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Exegesis and Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 14.

117
PASSAGE VERSUS PREACHER
Perhaps the most important distinction is that of who is driving
the connection between passages. Is there something in the text
that indicates a legitimate connection? Or is the connection ori-
ginating entirely from the mind of the preacher? This is the most
important distinction to make and it provides us with a substan-
tive criterion for distinguishing between typology and allegory.24
If a passage anticipates a future fulfillment (whether in the im-
mediate literary and historical context or an ultimate fulfillment
in the Messiah, for example), it’s essential to trace how the passage
is ultimately fulfilled. The single best way to do this is to see how
a subsequent passage (usually in the New Testament) refers back
to your passage.25 If textual connections cannot be drawn, then
we have to consider that the source could be the preacher and not
the passage.
For example, consider the demise of Saul in 1 Samuel 28:20–
25. Having been confronted by the ghost of Samuel, Saul devolves
into “obeying the voice” of the medium of Endor. He consumes a
somber meal prepared by her. It’s one of the darkest moments in
the life a very troubled man, not least of which because he had just
been told he will die the next day.
To be sure, there are some interesting connections with the
Lord’s Supper here: one identified as an anointed one, consuming
a quasi-ceremonial meal the night before dying, and in particular
the partaking of unleavened bread. But is there anything in the text
that suggests a greater fulfillment to come? Is there anything in any
of the New Testament passages describing the Lord’s Supper that
24  The Bible gives us warrant for making a connection between an Old Testament passage and a fulfillment in
Christ, of course. For example, John the Baptist calls Jesus ‘the lamb of God’ in John 1:29. That the Passover lamb
is a type. An even clearer example of this is Romans 5:12-21, in which Adam is called a “type of the one who was
to come,” using the word type (τυπος).
25  Particularly useful here is David R. Helm’s advice on finding such connections: “A great shortcut that I use
almost every week is an index that comes with the Nestle-Aland 28th Edition. Even if you don’t read Greek, this
index is helpful because it lists every allusion and citation of the Old Testament in the New Testament.” David
Helm, Expositional Preaching: How We Speak God’s Word Today (Wheaton, Crossway, 2014), 71.

118
point us back to this passage in 1 Samuel 28? If we can answer the-
se questions, we’ll see who’s driving the connection. Is the author
giving us a textual reason to connect these two meals? Or are we, as
readers, making the connection completely on our own?
In making such connections, we run the risk of de-historici-
zing the original passage—or depriving it of its historical context
and legitimacy as foundational fact.26 We title the sermon some-
thing clever like “Saul’s Last Supper,” suggesting that this passage
anticipates an ultimate fulfillment in Christ’s final meal—though
by way of contrast as Saul dies for his own sins and Christ dies on
behalf of his people. In so doing, we might also skip textual steps
and then lose the point of the author in the passage, which is dar-
kly reflecting on the ultimate demise of Israel’s first king.
In this case, the connections the author of 1 Samuel makes
seem not to be to the Lord’s Supper, but the Passover meal. The
specter of dying sons (1 Sam 28:19), the slaughter of a young ani-
mal (1 Sam 28:24) and the baking of unleavened bread (also 1
Sam 28:24) are all suggestive details. In doing the hard work of
uncovering a biblical theological theme of that meal, we can then
legitimately connect to the Passover meal celebrated by our Lord.
In short, the question we have to be able to clearly answer is
whether the connections are coming from the passage, in which
case we can responsibly practice biblical theology, or from our
own minds—however theologically reasonable, in which case we
should be cautious.

INTERPRETATION VS. ILLUSTRATION

If we are convinced of a connection—though possibly allegori-
cal—one other distinction should come into play. It’s a distinction
of presentation. When making the connection, do we present it
26  David R. Helm addresses this concern of dehistoricizing texts in his chapter on Theological Reflection in David
Helm, Expositional Preaching: How We Speak God’s Word Today (Wheaton, Crossway, 2014), 61-86.

119
as an intention of the author? Or are we using the connection
illustratively?
If a legitimate textual connection can’t be made, we can still
make a gospel connection. That is, don’t present a gospel connec-
tion as an interpretation, but as an illustration. Illustrations, of
course, are not only endearing stories about pets or the harrowing
tales of hiking with the wrong boots. They’re not only historical
biography or clever stories that begin the sermon and, somehow,
always seem to find their punch line in the conclusion of the ser-
mon. We can also use the Bible to illustrate the Bible.
For example, Isaiah 43:1–7 teaches that God does not abandon
his children. Hezekiah had messed up pretty badly a few chapters
earlier by welcoming an envoy from Babylon. Yet God promises
in these opening verses of Isaiah 43 to be with his children throu-
gh the consequences of their sin (Babylonian exile). In fact, God
uses remarkably intimate language to articulate his love for his
people and his commitment to bring them home. This passage
does not connect textually to the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke
15:11–32, obviously. Yet that story of a lost son who is loved and
welcomed back by his father, having experienced something of an
exile, can provide a remarkably affective illustration. As long as
the parable is presented as such, and not as an intertextual inter-
pretation of Isaiah 43 or an ultimate fulfillment, it can be used to
preach the gospel with elegance.
In short, we need to be clear and precise in our communica-
tion. We must not present something as an interpretation that
isn’t intended by the author. But at he same time, we should not
be afraid to make connections as illustrations.

MOVING FORWARD
Even after considering both the source of a connection between a
text and the gospel (passage or preacher?) as well as how we will
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present it (as an interpretation or an illustration?), allegorical in-
terpretation remains a problematic venture. It becomes license to
mishandle the text of Scripture. What are we to do?
Here are a few suggestions:

1. Pray.
2. Do the hard work of exegesis, particularly finding the struc-
ture of the passage and seeing it in its literary and historical
context. What is the author’s intent? Are there theological
connections that are legitimate?
3. Consider how other parts of the Bible (typically New Testa-
ment connections) handle the content of your text. Is there
precedent for making this theological connection?
4. Work all the tools of biblical theology in your passage to see
what legitimate textual connections can be made. Is there
a theme, typology, trajectory, or other biblical-theological
connection that can be made legitimately?
5. When in doubt, choose to illustrate rather than suggest an
interpretation.

Allegorical interpretation is problematic. It can lead to prea-

ching that dehistoricizes the Scriptures or plays fast and loose
with God’s Word. Yet the impulse behind it—the desire to preach
the gospel from all the Scriptures—is a right one. Let’s work hard
and with careful nuance so that the good news may be proclai-
med in all our preaching.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Kinney is the Director of Ministries at the Simeon Trust,
a ministry for training preachers.

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What Would the Puritans
Say to Us Now? Learning
from Puritan Prescriptions
on Preaching

Matthew D. Haste

W
hat comes to your mind when you imagine a Puritan
pastor in the pulpit? Long, boring sermons? Monoto-
ne diatribes? Such notions fail to account for the tes-
timony of men like Humphrey Mills who spent three years strug-
gling to quiet his conscience after hearing a sermon by the famous
Puritan pastor, Richard Sibbes (1577–1635). Mills’ description of
Sibbes provides a more accurate picture of Puritan preachers:
“His sweet soul-melting Gospel-sermons won my heart and re-
freshed me much, for by him I saw and had much of God and was
confident in Christ.”27
27  Referenced in Michael Reeves, foreword to The Tender Heart, by Richard Sibbes, Pocket Puritans (1983; repr.,
Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2011), ix.

122
 Centuries later, the physician-turned-pastor Martyn Lloyd-Jo-
nes described Sibbes’ gospel-centered preaching in medicinal ter-
ms: “The heavenly Doctor Sibbes . . . was a balm to my soul at a
period in my life when I was overworked and badly overtired,
and therefore subject in an unusual manner to the onslaughts of
the devil. . . . His books [based on his sermons] quieted, soothed,
comforted, encouraged, and healed me.”28

PHYSICIANS
OF THE SOUL
That Sibbes could be effective despite the historical distance evi-
dences just how skilled many Puritans were as physicians of the
soul. As a result, they have much to say to us today about gos-
pel-centered preaching.29
The Puritans possessed what J. I. Packer called “a minute ac-
quaintance with the human heart.”30 While historical caricatures
tend to emphasize their external scrupulosity, in reality they ai-
med at the inner person by means of what they called the “plain
style” of preaching. This method, as outlined by the renowned
Puritan expositor William Perkins (1558–1602), encouraged
preachers to first explain the text of Scripture, then describe its
doctrinal significance, and finally to apply it to the particular “ex-
periences and condition of the church.”31 The best of the Puritans
weren’t content merely to defend doctrine from the pulpit; they
sought to apply truth in the pews by engaging the hearts of their
hearers. The directives below highlight five key strategies for appl-
ying the gospel to the heart.

28  D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers (1971; repr., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972), 175.
29  Portions of this article are adapted from Matthew D. Haste and Shane W. Parker, The Pastor’s Life: Practical
Wisdom from the Puritans (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2019).
30  J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision for the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1990), 29.
31  William Perkins, The Art of Prophesying, rev. ed. (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1996), 65.

123
PURITAN PRESCRIPTIONS FOR GOSPEL-CENTERED
PREACHING

1. Let Scripture Illustrate Scripture

Sibbes’ sermons were full of the Bible because he recognized
its role in transforming the heart. “Means do not make the heart
tender,” he noted, “but God through the use of means softens it
by his Word.”32 One practical outworking of this conviction was
Sibbes’ use of Scripture as a source for sermon illustrations.
For example, he encouraged his hearers to look to God him-
self for assurance of salvation, instead of trusting in the “the fig
leaves of morality.”33 By calling to mind the well-known biblical
image of fig leaves (Gen. 3:7), Sibbes provided a powerful contrast
between the frail, useless attempts to secure one’s own righteous-
ness with the trustworthy foundation of gospel truth.

2. Make Use of Memorable Images

Sibbes explained the gospel with powerful pictures. He did not
merely say, “See great things in little beginnings.” He mused, “See
a flame in a spark, a tree in a seed.”34 He not only called weary
Christians to look to Christ, but advised, “When we feel oursel-
ves cold in affection and duty, the best way is to warm ourselves
at this fire of his love and mercy.”35 For believers who longed to
maintain a tender heart, Sibbes encouraged, “Use the means of
grace; be always under the sunshine of the gospel.”36

Such pictures conveyed truth by engaging the imagination.

As Sibbes described, “The way to come to the heart is often to
pass through the fancy [the imagination].”37 He believed that “the
32  Sibbes, The Tender Heart, 19.
33  Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, Puritan Paperbacks (1630; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2008), 4.
34  Ibid., 124.
35  Ibid., 81.
36  Sibbes, The Tender Heart, 57.
37  Sibbes, Works, 1:66.

124
putting of lively colors upon common truths hath oft a strong
working both upon the fancy [the imagination] and our will and
affections.”38 These “lively colors” enhanced the appeal of “com-
mon truths” by engaging the heart.

3. Be Tender and Tactful

Sibbes counseled pastors to handle young believers with gent-
leness and to resist the temptation to be overbearing. A tender
Savior shouldn’t inspire ill-tempered shepherds. That Sibbes ma-
naged such a disposition himself seems clear from his reputation
among contemporaries and the way he was remembered by his
colleagues. In his day, he was known as “the honey mouth” and
“the sweet dropper” for his winsome ability to apply the gospel to
tender consciences.
Sibbes’ diplomatic temperament may have contributed to
his willingness to remain in the Church of England, even as
some of his protégés began to dissent. In The Bruised Reed,
Sibbes indirectly cautioned his comrades against being quick
to censure other believers or to break fellowship over disputa-
ble matters. He valued tact and discretion, remarking, “Where
most holiness is, there is most moderation, where it may be
without prejudice of piety to God and the good of others. We
see in Christ a marvelous temper of absolute holiness, with
great moderation.”39

4. Provide Practical Points of Application

Sibbes sought to comfort the troubled, but he also called the
faithful to action. He counseled the “bruised reed” to embrace
the work of God in his life, however painful it might be. “It is be-
tter to go bruised to heaven than sound to hell.”40 The “smoking
flax” must remember how God views her, despite her meager fai-
38  Ibid., 1:184.
39  Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, 33.
40  Ibid., 13.

125
th. Christ considers not just who we are, but who he will make us
to be, for he can fan a spark into a flame.
Such words of encouragement were accompanied by practical
instructions for pursuing the means of grace. In The Bruised Reed,
Sibbes specifically encouraged regular fellowship with other be-
lievers, the practice of spiritual disciplines, consistent attendan-
ce to hear preaching, and the exercise of grace through spiritual
obedience.

5. Keep Christ at the Center

In Jesus alone, Sibbes proclaimed, “All perfections of mercy
and love meet.”41 He spoke often of Christ and tied his expositions
to the Son’s person and work. By drawing the heart’s attention to
the mercy of Christ, Sibbes could counter discouragements, calm
scruples, and conquer the heart’s deepest fears. Whatever the spi-
ritual infirmity, the work of Christ supplies the cure: “There is
more mercy in Christ than sin in us.”42
Sibbes recognized the importance of both engaging the mind
and stirring the affections with truths about Jesus. “Because
knowledge and affection mutually help one another,” he argued,
“it is good to keep up our affections of love and delight by all sweet
inducements and divine encouragements; for what the heart likes
best, the mind studies most.”43 His preaching clearly aimed to ins-
pire hearts to love Christ above all.

”UNDER THE SUNSHINE OF THE GOSPEL”

Sibbes and other Puritans provide a faithful example of gos-
pel-centered preaching for pastors today. Though their context is
surely different, they addressed the same concerns pastors see in
ministry.
41  Ibid., 62.
42  Ibid., 33.
43  Ibid., 103.

126
 Pastor, there are bruised reeds in your midst. Will you lend
them strength or increase their burdens? There are smoldering
wicks before you every week. Will you fan them into life or snuff
them out? Your own heart is sure to grow cold at times. If your
sermons will be gospel-centered, you must heed Sibbes’ counsel:
“Be always under the sunshine of the gospel.” Bear this in mind
and rest in the tender mercy of our Savior as you endeavor to lead
others toward his light and easy yoke.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matt Haste is associate professor of biblical spirituality and direc-
tor of professional doctoral studies at The Southern Baptist Theo-
logical Seminary.

127
Three Most Important
Words I Learned in
Seminary: “Textual,
Epochal, Canonical”

David Schrock

H
ave you ever watched a movie in 3D? If so, you may have
ducked to miss the incoming airplanes or screamed as
sharks appeared to attack you. The sensory overload of
three dimensions doesn’t change the movie, but it does intensify
the experience.
In this essay, I will argue that we need to read Scripture along
three horizons. Like 3D glasses at an IMAX theater, these three
horizons help us discover God’s unfolding plan that finds its ul-
timate fulfillment in Christ. They help us see what’s going on (1)
in the text, (2) in the covenant history of that text, and (3) how a
multitude of texts revealed over time find their place in the whole

128
Bible. In sum, this approach looks at the Bible along textual, epo-
chal (or covenantal), and canonical horizons.
Faithful interpreters must consider the grammar and history
found at the textual level; they must also attend to the place any
passage stands in covenantal history; and they must explain how
this individual passage contributes to the whole Bible and is itself
informed by the rest of Scripture.
Only as we learn how to read the Bible along these three hori-
zons will we be able see how the leaves and the trees (i.e., words
and sentences) begin to form a well-ordered forest (the whole bi-
blical canon), a forest that has come to us through many seasons
of growth, decay, and rebirth (i.e., the progression of covenant
that have led to Christ).
To help see the forest and the trees, let’s consider each of these
horizons.

THE TEXTUAL HORIZON

When Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, he said, “For
truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota,
not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matt.
5:18). Among other things, this verse tells us that every letter (iota)
and every serif (dot) was inspired and important. Every word,
every sentence, every proposition and poetic image is necessary
for understanding the biblical text. Studying grammar and his-
tory is where interpretation begins; it’s where we discover mea-
ning as we grapple with the author’s intent.
Eschewing postmodern theories of interpretation that places
meaning in the reader, faithful interpretation seeks to know God’s
intentions through the intentions of the human author, which are
conveyed in the grammar of the text. At the textual level, word
usage, genre sensitivity, and literary structure are just some of the
ways we ascertain the grammatical-historical meaning of the text.
129
Likewise, Greek and Hebrew lexicons, biblical concordances, and
historical and cultural background studies help us to understand
the Bible at the textual level.
Interpretation begins here, and we cannot move to the next
two horizons until we have done the spadework. Often, errors in
interpretation and sameness in preaching (i.e., making every Old
Testament sermon sound the same) come from an inattention to
the textual horizon. We cannot superimpose our theological fra-
mework on the text, even if that framework may shed light. We
must see how the text in question is written to God’s people first.
Only then can we begin to make application to Christ and his
church.

THE EPOCHAL / COVENENTAL HORIZON

The epochal horizon recognizes that the Bible isn’t merely a cata-
logue of timeless truths. Rather, it’s a progressively revealed tes-
timony about God’s redemption in history. Jesus made this point
in Matthew 5:17, when he declared that he came to fulfill the Law
and the Prophets, not to destroy them.
On the whole, Scripture is written with a framework of pro-
mise and fulfillment. As Acts 13:32–33 says, “And we bring you
the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has
fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus.” Likewise, Hebrews
1:1–2 reveals the superior revelation of Christ the Son to the pro-
phets who served previous generations of believers.
In Galatians 3 Paul even builds an argument for the gospel
on the fact that the promise came 400 years before the Law. This
means that if the order of the Bible is neglected, the faith once for
all delivered to the saints will be undercut and the gospel put in
jeopardy. Thus, in interpreting the Bible, we must always ask the
question: When is it?
Sabbatarian differences notwithstanding, how many errors
130
in application would be prevented, if we realized that the Law of
Moses is no longer directly applicable? The Old Testament is use-
ful for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteous-
ness (2 Tim. 3:16), but the old covenant is no longer in service
(see Hebrews). Stated differently, both Testaments are written for
believers in Christ, but almost all the words in the Bible are not
written to believers directly.44
The most obvious example of this comes in 1 Corinthians 10,
where Paul speaks of the events in Israel’s history as being written
down for the church: “Now these things happened to them as an
example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom
the end of the ages has come” (v. 11). This slight distinction be-
tween “written to” and “written for” has a significant payoff, and
it requires discerning where a text fits in redemptive history in
order to make an appropriate application.
Indeed, what was written to Israel only applies to the new co-
venant church as it’s mediated through Christ. David Helm’s gra-
phic in Expositional Preaching and used in all the Simeon Trust
workshops is particularly helpful on this point.45

44 John 17:20ff might be one of a handful of passages that directly apply to the Christian today.
45 David Helm, Expositional Preaching: How We Speak God’s Word Today (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014), 67.

131
The textual horizon leads you from “Text” to “Them/Then.” The
epochal horizon takes you from “Them/Then” to Christ (his per-
son and his work). And yet, more than just a straight, horizontal
line, the epochal horizon follows a series of covenants. These se-
ven different covenants include:

1. Adamic Covenant
2. Noahic Covenant
3. Abrahamic Covenant
4. Mosaic Covenant
5. Davidic Covenant
6. New Covenant of Peace46

In the progression of covenantal history, these covenants or-

ganize the Bible and explain various promises and stipulations
for the people of God. Faithful interpreters of any passage will be
aware of these covenants and how they relate to a given passage of
Scripture. Without this awareness, we’ll unavoidably make errors
in application.

THE CANONICAL / CHRISTOLOGICAL HORIZON

From the first promise of salvation in Genesis 3:15 to its full con-
summation in Revelation 21–22, all creation is moving toward
Christ (see Eph. 1:10). Figuratively speaking, Scripture is written
in italics. The Old Testament slants forward towards the Son who
is to come. Similarly, some parts of the New Testament slant bac-
kward to the finished work of Christ, while others slant forward
to his return. As Jesus taught his disciples, all Scripture points
to him (John 5:39; cf. Luke 24:27). Faithful interpretation of any
portion of the Bible must see how any passage stands in relations-
46  The point here is not to distinguish between covenantal systems, but to recognize the major covenants in
Scripture, however they are understood.

132
hip to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This Christ-centered approach to interpretation shows how
66 different books find their unity in the gospel of Jesus Christ.47
Paul himself says the gospel was preached beforehand to Abra-
ham (Gal. 3:8), and Peter says that the Spirit of Christ was lea-
ding the prophets to speak of Christ’s sufferings and glory (1 Pet.
1:10–12).
The Bible is unified, therefore, not only because it comes from
the same God, but because it all points to the same God-man,
Jesus Christ. Jesus is not only a mediator between God and man
in salvation (1 Tim. 2:5), but as the goal of creation and revelation
(Eph. 1:10), he is also the mediator between human readers and
God’s inspired Word. Paul’s words to the church in 1 Corinthians
10:11 make sense because the church is in Christ. And those who
are in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, now have authorization to
call the Hebrew Scriptures their own.
With respect to interpretation, every text has a place in the Bi-
ble’s covenantal framework. Every text is organically related to
the covenantal history that leads to Christ. In other words, every
text has Christ as its final goal. He’s not anachronistically trans-
ported back into the time of Israel or imported into texts that are
foreign to him. Finding Jesus in obscure parts of the Old Testa-
ment is worlds apart from finding Jesus in Harry Potter. Rather,
as he has told us on many occasions, all the Law, the Prophets,
and the Writings are about him. So we have justification to look
for Jesus in all parts of the Old Testament. No interpretation is
complete until it comes to Christ.
Certainly, this approach is not neutral but biased—biased
by Christian belief. The alternative is an approach to reading
the Bible agnostically, where there’s uncertainty about seeing
47  Such misapplication has led some evangelicals to reject the approach I am advocating here. In response, I
would merely say that those who separate passages in the Old Testament into categories of “about Christ” and “not
about Christ” have not considered fully the implications this has on the unity of the Bible and how every passage in
the Bible contributes to a book that is intended to say something about God in Christ.

133
Christ—uncertainty until all doubts have been erased by human
examination. This approach may try to “honor the text,” but it’s
inconsistent with the main point of Scripture: to see the Incar-
nate Word in all of God’s Word. This is what the Christological
horizon does, as it stands upon the observations of the textual
and epochal horizon.

READING THE BIBLE CHRISTIANLY

I’m persuaded that unless we learn how to read Scripture along
these three horizons—textual, epochal, canonical—we’ll miss the
power and wisdom of Christ that’s found in the whole counsel of
God. When we see Christ from all parts of the Bible, we’ll become
more like him in all parts of our lives. After all, this is the goal
of all biblical interpretation: to become three-dimensional ima-
ge-bearers whose likeness to Christ is produced by the Word and
the Spirit.
This approach to reading Scripture doesn’t mean we’ll perfectly
understand or apply God’s Word. Scripture is perfect; interpreters
aren’t. There are many pitfalls in moving from the text through
the covenants to Christ, but to cite David Helm again, the “long
way around is the safest way home.”48

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Schrock is the pastor for preaching and theology at Occo-
quan Bible Church in Woodbridge, Virginia. You can find him on
Twitter @DavidSchrock.

48  Spoken at a recent Simeon Trust event.

134
Must You Share the
Gospel in Every Sermon?
Invitation Without the
Altar Call

Aaron Menikoff

I
’ll never forget the first time I heard the gospel preached. On
one hand, I was mesmerized—he spoke straight to me, as if I
was the only person in the room. On the other hand, I thought
it must be a trick. Perhaps seminary trained him to preach in such
a way that everyone felt singled out, like the eyes of the Mona Lisa
following each person who walks by.
Eventually, I realized the gospel had gripped me. His ser-
mons were neither expositional nor rich doctrinally. But the
preacher knew God saves by grace alone through faith alone
in Christ alone, and he made that clear every time he spoke.
Week after week, he preached that simple message, and even-

135
tually I believed it. Like Lydia by the riverside, God used his
gospel to open my heart.
Now I’m the preacher. I do work through books of the Bible.
I labor to feed God’s sheep sound doctrine. We regularly have
non-Christians in attendance, and I desperately want them to hear
the gospel that saved me so many years ago. I also recognize it’s not
just non-Christians who need the gospel—it’s Christians, too.
We should preach the gospel in every sermon because no prea-
cher can do better than the Apostle Paul who said to the church
in Corinth: “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus
Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). We should call listeners to
repentance and faith in every sermon because the Day is coming
quickly, “the appointed time has grown very short” (1 Cor. 7:29).
But how do we thoughtfully deliver the message of a crucified
and risen Savior along with the call to repentance and faith from
every text we handle? In many churches, the answer is simple: an
altar call. Regardless of the text, the pastor ends his sermon by
urging the audience to make a physical response. He calls for a
decision and then exhorts them to respond by walking an aisle,
raising a hand, or even being baptized on-the-spot. I’ve explai-
ned before why I think altar calls do more harm than good, but
even in churches with no altar calls, sometimes the gospel invi-
tation seems forced or wooden. Carl Trueman pointed out the
hokeyness of such messages, calling them “contrived contortions
of passages to produce the answer ‘Jesus’ every week. It doesn’t
matter what the text is; the sermon is always the same.”49
How can we preach the Bible faithfully, keeping Christ and his
gospel front-and-center? How can we deliver the main point of
the sermon and call sinners to repentance and faith? Over the
years, I’ve sought to heed the counsel of the Welsh minister quo-
ted by C. H. Spurgeon:
49  Carl R. Trueman, The Wages of Spin: Critical Writings on Historic and Contemporary Evangelicalism
(Christian Focus, 2004), 172.

136
 I have never yet found a text that had not got a road to Christ
in it, and if I ever do find one that has not a road to Christ in it,
I will make one; I will go over hedge and ditch but I would get at
my Master, for the sermon cannot do any good unless there is a
savour of Christ in it.50
The gospel should be in every sermon, but the road will often
look different. Here are some examples of how I walked “the road
to Christ” in passages where the way might be unclear. Here are
some ways I invited men and women to come to Christ without
an altar call.

ACTS 16:6–10, “MAKE MUCH OF CHRIST”

In this passage, Luke recounts Paul bumping around modern-day
Turkey looking for a city to evangelize. God’s Spirit surprisingly
stopped him from going to Asia and Bithynia before finally ma-
king it clear he needed to cross the Aegean Sea. Most astonishing
is the vision God gave Paul of a man pleading with him to come
to Macedonia.
This is a great passage to talk about the Holy Spirit, visions,
how God guides today, and why believers don’t receive the same,
clear-cut direction as did Paul and his team. But to focus simply
on God’s guidance and decision-making would be to miss the fo-
rest through the trees. The overarching point of this passage is
that the Spirit sent Paul and his team to the Macedonians in order
“to preach the gospel to them” (Acts 16:10). The Spirit is at work
ensuring the gospel of Jesus is proclaimed.
Admittedly, the road to Christ is pretty clear-cut. How might a
preacher bring the gospel to bear in this sermon? Perhaps like this:
None of us are apostles and few of us are pastors, but we’re all ca-
lled to make much of Christ. To be a Christian is to exalt Christ in
50  C. H. Spurgeon, “Christ Precious to Believers” (13 May 1859). Found at https://archive.spurgeon.org/
sermons/0242.php.

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word and deed—in the office, the cafeteria, and the classroom. How
do you know the Holy Spirit is guiding you? You’ve given your life
to this gospel—to this message of the Lord who died on the cross
and rose from the dead in order to bring forgiveness. Make much of
him! We live in a world full of people who like to say that are “spi-
ritual but not religious.” Remember, you are not truly “spiritual”
unless you have turned from your sins and trusted in Christ—this
is Exhibit A of the Spirit’s influence in your life.

PSALM 77, “HE HAS DELIVERED US”

It’s not always obvious how to preach the gospel from the Psalms.
Some paths to Christ are certainly clearer than others. For exam-
ple, Psalm 2 is cited in Acts 4 and applied to the crucifixion of
Christ. Psalm 110 is quoted by Peter in Acts 2 and applied to the
resurrection. The road to Christ in these Psalms is a mile wide!
But what about Psalm 77? The psalmist despairs; at times he’s
too disturbed to speak (77:4). God seems distant (77:7). And yet,
amidst his sorrow he looks back and remembers “the deeds of
the LORD.” He recalls the day God saved Israel from bondage to
Egypt. God went to war for his people. His “way was through the
sea” and “his path through the great waters” (77:19)—clearly a
reference to the Exodus.
Now the road to Christ stands out. God still rescues; he still
redeems! Describing a new exodus, Paul writes of the LORD, “He
has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us
to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption,
the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13–14). The hope in Psalm 77 is not
to blandly trust in God; it’s to exercise vibrant faith in a crucified
and risen Savior. Perhaps you could tell the congregation:
Christian, God didn’t free you from Egypt. He freed you from
something far worse. He freed you from the domain of darkness.
From slavery to your sin. And it’s not like God simply took the
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chains off and told you to run for your life. No, God did it all. He
fought for you, he released you, he forgave you entirely. And how
did he do it? Through the God-man Jesus. Here’s what you need
to believe: he lived, he died, he rose for sinners. You deserve the
wrath of God. Christ is your only hope. Turn to him now. He will
save you.

1 KINGS 12:25–14:20, “HEARTS THAT SEEK THE LORD”

Sometimes it’s wise to preach long texts because it helps Chris-
tians see the Bible’s big picture. This lengthy passage is about the
judgment that comes upon Jeroboam for leading Israel into ido-
latry. Jeroboam made golden calves thinking it would keep his
people from turning back to Rehoboam, the king of Judah.
This passage is also about a deceitful prophet from Israel who
tempted the prophet from Judah to doubt God’s Word. God told
the prophet from Judah to deliver his message to the northern
kingdom and return home—no pit stops! But the prophet from Is-
rael sinfully convinced him to stay. In fact, we are told, “he lied to
him” (1 Ki. 13:18). Still, the prophet from Judah knew better. He
had God’s Word but he denied it, giving into the false prophet’s lie.
Not every insertion of the gospel into a sermon is a call to sal-
vation. For example, at this point, seeing the foolishness of the
prophet from Judah, a preacher might tell his church:
Like that prophet from Judah, we’re tempted to doubt God’s
Word. His sin should remind us of Paul’s warning in Galatians
1:8, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to
you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be
accursed.” Let’s preserve and protect the gospel. It’s the most pre-
cious news ever delivered! Don’t be like that prophet from Judah
who gave into the lie. Protect the Good News of the Savior from
Bethlehem who lived the life we should have lived and died the
death we deserved to die.
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 This, of course, isn’t the main idea of 1 Kings 12:25–14:20, and
it’s not even the best path to the gospel. That’s found in 1 Kings 14,
when God’s judgment falls on Jeroboam. The king is told by the
LORD, “You have not been like my servant David, who kept my
commandments and followed me with all his heart” (1 Ki. 14:8).
How did Jeroboam rebel? Many ways, but in a parallel passage in
2 Chronicles we’re told Jeroboam kicked all the faithful priests
out of the northern kingdom. These priests weren’t like Jeroboam.
They “set their hearts to seek the LORD” and in so doing they
“strengthened the kingdom of Judah” (11:16, 17).
The road to Christ has now been cracked wide open. You can
tell your congregation:
We all need hearts set to seek the Lord. Such hearts won’t come
as we try to build our own kingdom the way Jeroboam did. There
is only one source of true heart change: faith in the redeeming
blood of Christ. What those faithful priests looked forward to,
we look backward to—a Savior, as Peter said, who “bore our sins
in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live for righ-
teousness” (1 Pet. 2:24). Put your faith in him today!
No altar call shouldn’t mean no call to repentance and faith.
No altar call shouldn’t mean no gospel. But to preach the gospel
faithfully requires careful Bible study and prayer. Sometimes the
road to Christ is wider, and sometimes it’s narrower. But it’s always
there, and the faithful preacher will call believers and unbelievers
alike to repentance and faith whenever the Book is opened.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aaron Menikoff is the senior pastor of Mt. Vernon Baptist Church
in Sandy Springs, Georgia.

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Gospel-Centered
Preaching in
Hard Places

Andy Prime

I
’ve been in ministry for about ten years. The first half of that
decade I preached largely in chinos, a v-neck sweater, and boat
shoes. The second half of that decade I’ve preached largely in
tracksuit-bottoms, t-shirts, and trainers. That’s not down to a
change in personal stylist, but due to a change in ministry con-
text. I’ve moved from being on staff at a large, city-center church,
to a small, local church in a housing scheme. The context change
has led to a wardrobe change.
Being asked to write this article’s forced me to scrutinize what
else has changed about my preaching ministry other than my ou-
tfit. It forced me to re-watch some of the videos from those first
five years. And as many of you know, listening to your own voice
is always misery. But listening back to sermons from your first
five years in ministry? That’s absolute torture. If I believed in pur-

141
gatory, I think my purifying recompense would be to have to lis-
ten to my entire back-catalogue.
But here’s what some of this suffering yielded: in some core
ways there’s not that much difference.

WHAT’S THE SAME

Image of God
After all, every single human being—regardless of race, gender,
class, health, age—is created in the image of God. Far more unites
us than divides us. Fallen humanity has a perverted inclination to
draw lines, create divisions, form cliques, and build walls in order
to keep those who are different from us away from us. But God’s
design in creation and redemption delights in togetherness. Gos-
pel-centered preaching to image-bearing humans will hold the
same rough shape regardless of context.

Clarity of Scripture
Because of my belief in the clarity of Scripture, my preaching
in the last five years hasn’t been dumbed down. Preaching in a
hard place is still Word ministry. The clarity of Scripture isn’t mu-
ddied by context, and the command to preach is not gagged by
context. I’ve heard some churches in areas like ours describe their
services as “short and fun,” as if “long and serious” was beyond
people here. Let’s be clear: a hard place doesn’t equal a stupid pla-
ce. I know stupid rich people, and I know intelligent poor people.
But if being a Christian in a hard place is going to be hard, then
shallow, superficial stuff on a Sunday won’t cut it. To go hard in a
hard place, we’ll need to go deep in preaching.

Gospel Centrality
Our conviction on the centrality of the gospel itself means that
the content of my preaching has been the same over the last ten
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years. I’ve moved to a setting where there are a lot more social
needs. But more social problems don’t require a social gospel. The
greatest need of every single person I’ve met in the last ten years
has been salvation from their sins. And the only hope for every
person I’ve met in the last ten years has been the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, regardless of context, we proclaim him. And we proclaim him
from all the Scriptures.
Give me a football anywhere in the world. I’ll find some pla-
yers, we’ll know the rules, and we’ll play the same game. The same
thing’s true of preaching. It doesn’t matter where you plunk down
a pulpit; I’ll preach to fellow image-bearers, I’ll do it from the
Scriptures, and it will be about salvation in Jesus. Doesn’t matter
where in the world you play it, it’s still the same beautiful game.
Doesn’t matter where in the world you preach it, it’s still the same
urgent ministry.
So the silhouette’s the same. Some of the details, however, are
definitely different. No doubt—some of that’s simply due to my
growth as a preacher. If your preaching hasn’t progressed over the
course of a decade, then you’re probably an appalling preacher.
Other changes, however, are specific to preaching the gospel in a
hard place.

WHAT’S CHANGED
Here’s why: fundamental to any communication is the princi-
ple that who you’re speaking to impacts how you speak to them.
Dialogue between different people differs. I speak differently to
a toddler than I do to a colleague. I speak differently to a native
English speaker than I do to someone who’s just learning English.
I speak differently to my mates than I speak to a judge in court.
Language changes. Tone changes. Speed changes. Words change.
Sometimes, it may happen naturally. Other times, it’s painstakin-
gly hard. But at all times it’s necessary.
143
 Although most preaching is entirely monologue, good preaching
feels like dialogue. Your preaching prep must be bi-focal. And so
because whom I’m now speaking to has changed, my preaching has
necessarily changed. If it didn’t, I’d be preaching in vain.
As preachers, we’re often quick to speak and slow to listen. But
the key to being a preacher people will listen to in a hard place is
being a preacher who listens to them about what makes life hard.
So here are the two unbelievably basic things that have chan-
ged my preaching over the last five years:

1. Listening to people’s stories

I’m from a culture where questions are a normal and critical
part of any communication. In my current culture, however, too
many questions make you sound like a police officer or a social
worker. Instead, conversation revolves around stories being shared;
the story-teller remains in control of how much they self-reveal, ra-
ther than questions assaulting them into unconsented revelation.
This impacts how you preach. My tendency in preaching
would be reduce everything in Scripture—from narrative to
poetry—into a stereotypical, three-point, logic-driven, question-
and-answer style sermon. That’s probably not helpful (or faith-
ful!) preaching in any context, but least of all mine. It’s taught me
to respect the genre, preserve the tone, and unfold the stories in
a way that’s faithful to whatever text I’m preaching rather than
what’s just natural to how I’ve been trained to think and commu-
nicate in my culture.
But beyond the story-telling culture at large, the story of both
my community and individuals in my church have impacted how
I preach. What do I mean? Well, here’s a few examples.

• Story after story revealed a matriarchal culture. This impac-

ted how I preached through what the Bible says about heads-
hip, submission, and women in ministry.
144
 • Story after story revealed a suspicion of people in authority.
This impacted how I preached through what the Bible says
about eldership and church governance.
• Story after story revealed that a large percentage of the com-
munity have suffered as victims of abuse. This impacted how
I explained that all humanity are guilty rebels facing the pu-
nishment of a holy God.
• Story after story revealed fathers who were either absent or
abusive. This impacted how I preached on the Fatherhood of
God
• Story after story revealed endless relapses in the life of a
Christian addict. This impacted how I preached on repen-
tance and Christ’s victory over sin.

I didn’t hear stories like these in my first five years. But upon
hearing them, if they don’t impact how I preach, I’m giving my
community the impression that God’s not really for them. But he
is. And thankfully, in the Bible, you don’t have to look far to find
families and churches that fall into the same mistakes we do, and
need the same powerful, saving grace we need.
Hear me right. I’m not saying the stories in our community
change what we believe or what we teach. Instead, they shape how
we approach these truths pastorally so that we can apply them
sensitively in our preaching.
It also means the majority of my illustrations come from wi-
thin the community rather than outside of it. It means the emo-
tional range of my preaching tries to match the emotional range
of my community. It means my level of vulnerability seeks to re-
flect how much credibility the culture places on transparency and
openness.
I also endeavor to scrutinize my sermon notes to ensure that
every word is in the vernacular of my community. At the heart
of the Reformation was a zealous drive to get the Word of God
145
and the preaching in the pulpits translated from Latin into the
language of the people. Strangely, many people today who love
the Reformation still seem to go about quoting Latin phrases (I’ll
resist from ending this article with a “SDG”). But you don’t have
to speak in Latin to be incomprehensible. You can speak a dialect
of Christian jargon in English and you might as well be speaking
Latin. The people I’ve come to know through the stories I’ve lis-
tened to are those who need to hear the gospel in a way they can
understand. I’m called to preach for the people in my community
that aren’t in the room yet, but if they were to walk in they’d un-
derstand every single word.

2. Listening to people’s questions

The lecturer at seminary who taught our preaching class tau-
ght us what have become two of the most important questions
in my preaching prep: “What’s the biggest objection a Christian
would have to this text?” and “What’s the biggest objection an
unbeliever would have to this text?” The usefulness of these ques-
tions lie at the heart of why good preaching feels like dialogue,
even though it’s largely a monologue. As you study a text, you try
to discern what your hearers’ strongest objections to the text will
be. Good preaching raises such questions, tackles them head-on,
and then answers them.
A change in context often means a change in questions. In my
first five years, in coming to a text like the Passover in Exodus
11–12, the predominant question in my head would probably have
been something like, “How can God harden Pharaoh’s heart and
still hold him accountable for his wickedness?” That’s a legitimate
question, and one you’ll probably have to answer. But an unbe-
liever probably has more basic questions, like “How can you love
a God who kills babies?” You might even get asked, “What’s an
Exodus?” and “Who’s Moses?” We forget that people don’t know
what we already know.
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 The questions people are asking in Gracemount are different to
the questions I had to answer before. I was used to the theoretical,
apologetic questions that largely came from an atheistic and skep-
tical point of view. In Gracemount, I’ve never had to convince
someone of God’s existence or the reality of the afterlife. Instead,
almost every question I’ve been asked has come from trauma ra-
ther than theory.
I remember caring for a mum whose son died. Her first two
questions to me: “Is he in hell because he hadn’t been baptized?”
and “If I commit suicide, will I go to hell too?” They reveal not
only a supernatural worldview, but also cultural Catholicism.
What about the lad who’s reading the Bible with me? He asks
questions like, “If I become a Christian, will I have to forgive my
dad for all the ways he abused me?” Or the hyper-vigilant, para-
noid addict whose main questions when we’re preaching through
Exodus are about the conspiracies surrounding aliens being the
builders of the pyramids. Or the Christian who questions whe-
ther or not their mental-health struggles caused by drug-use pre-
vent them from usefulness in the church. Or the daughter who
wants me to confirm that what the local Spiritualist medium told
her about her Catholic mum being in heaven is true.
If I fail to address these questions, or if I somehow communi-
cate that they’re “weird,” I’m giving my community the impres-
sion that God’s not really for them. But he is. And so they’re the
questions I must dialogue with in my preaching.
Here’s my task as a preacher in a hard place: to preach the gos-
pel of the Lord Jesus Christ to those asking these questions, and
living these stories. So my preaching in my hard place may not
even work in your pulpit in your hard place, because the stories
and how they’re told will be different, and the questions and why
they’re asked will be different. Sermons preached in hard places
will probably be sermons whose usefulness is limited to their
postcode.
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 See, it’s not my job merely to preach the gospel. The task of a
preacher isn’t simply to place raw ingredients in front of his hea-
rers and expect them to cook the meal from scratch. It’s to provi-
de a fully cooked meal for the hearers to feast. A sermon devoid
of application is like the church at Sardis in Revelation 3. It gives
the appearance of life, but it’s dead.
Many people in our community feel forgotten by those in au-
thority. They feel like the government is miles out of touch. They
feel like no-one listens to them. The feel like no decisions made in
parliament are ever going to make any difference where they are.
That attitude filters its way into the church, which I partly unders-
tand. Many churches have abandoned our communities, and so it
does seem like that.

PRACTICAL ADVICE
So here’s some practical ways that we as elders have sought to en-
sure that our preaching lands on our hearers.

Service Structure
We’ve adopted an order of service where the preaching ha-
ppens near the beginning. We have a call to worship. We sing.
We pray. And then we preach. Part of the reason for that is that
we want people to feel in the weekly rhythm of our gathering that
God is God, and as such he has the authority and right to speak
first. And then everything we do is in response to that. We think
that’s a helpful model for our people to then mimic in their daily
devotions: hear God speak in the pages of the Bible first, and then
worship and pray in response to that.
But the other reason for front-loading the sermon is to model
and further explain how these truths are then applied. We don’t
want to just preach, sing, and then leave. We want to preach, dwe-
ll, and further apply. So following the sermon we sing songs that
148
directly respond to what’s been preached. Following the songs,
we read from another passage of Scripture that draws out specific
applications. Following the reading we usually have some kind
of related corporate response to read together; that may be the
Lord’s Prayer, the Apostle’s Creed, the Ten Commandments, or a
confession of sin. Following this, we’ll pray through these appli-
cations of the sermon. The revelation of God in the preaching di-
rects and schools our prayers, and so models, especially to new
believers, how we ought to pray.
This is just another way of saying that the liturgy of our Sunday
gatherings all aims at dialoguing with our own specific congrega-
tion about how the specific text we’ve looked at today answers our
specific questions and can transform our specific stories. So we
preach first, in order to allow time to show how God’s authority is
not only for our good, but it’s for us personally.

Weekly Devotions
We provide a handout for our sermons each Sunday, which on
one side simply has some of the main headlines from the sermon
to aid engagement and memory. On the reverse side, we list de-
votions for Monday to Saturday that again flow from the sermon.
There may be other passages to read and pray through, or songs to
sing and reflect on, or verses to memorize and employ, or prompts
to encourage other members, or specific items of local or inter-
national interest to pray for. But they all relate to the sermon. We
want to help people drill deep into the Scriptures and meditate
on their relevance to their everyday lives. And there’s not many
off-the-shelf devotional materials written for our context. So we
write them ourselves.
We encourage those in our congregation who are in one-to-
one discipling relationships to use these devotions when they
meet. We’ve started using our mid-week Bible studies to continue
to study the passages and truths preached on Sunday.
149
 The purpose of a sermon isn’t complete until its truths are be-
lieved and applied. And so the job of the preacher isn’t complete
when he shuts his Bible and steps out of the pulpit.
So, if I had to say all this in a tweet: Make your sermon mono-
logues feel like dialogues, by listening hard to people’s stories and
questions, and then laboring hard to connect the living Word to
your specific hard place.

ADDENDUM
If I could recommend one book for you to read, I’d check out
Charles Spurgeon’s Practical Wisdom [or Plain Advice for Plain
People] published by the Banner of Truth. In the preface Spur-
geon writes, “I have written for ploughmen and common people.
Hence refined taste and dainty words have been disregarded for
strong proverbial expressions and homely phrases. I have aimed
my blows at the vices of the many, and tried to inculcate those
moral virtues without which men are degraded. Much that needs
to be said to the toiling masses would not well suit the pulpit and
the Sabbath; these lowly pages may teach thrift and industry all
the days of the week in the cottage and the workshop; and if some
learn these lessons I shall not repent the adoption of a rustic style.”
We need more present-day pastors and authors to adapt their
style for those in the hardest places. And if I can disagree with
Spurgeon for a second, we need it in the pulpit and on the Sabbath
as well.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andy Prime is a church planter with 20 Schemes in Gracemount,
Edinburgh.

150
Preaching to Different
Kinds of Hearers

Jonathan Leeman

T
he preacher’s task is to hold up reality as the Bible presents
it, and to ask how it compares to what his hearers have been
calling reality. He asks if all the promises that sin has been
making to them have turned out to be true. He shows them that
the Bible is, in fact, a better interpreter of their experience. And
then he points them to the warnings and promises that it perso-
nally makes to them.
Doing this well, of course, means the preacher must unders-
tand what his hearers believe—the warp and woof of their false
worlds. His goal is to confront those beliefs precisely. Here are
three categories that influence every person and which the prea-
cher must confront:
First, worldviews. Often a person’s response to Scripture is dic-
tated by worldview presuppositions that he or she is not even awa-
re of. Philippians tells us to look to the interests of others (2:3–5),

151
but to what extent does our materialism limit how sacrificially
we’re willing to do this? Hebrews 13:17 tells us to submit to our
leaders, but does our individualism and radical egalitarianism
hinder our ability to heed such a command? Jesus tells us to take
up our crosses (Luke 9:23–25), but are we too loaded down with
entitlements to hear Him? A preacher does not need to use words
like “consumerism,” “relativism,” “naturalism,” and “emotivism.”
But he should know how to expose and disarm them.
Second, spiritual state. I assume that every listener, at some le-
vel, struggles with idolatry, self-justification, and the love of the
world. A preacher should always do battle with these enemies. At
the same time, preachers must preach to people in different spiri-
tual states. Paul identifies the idle, the timid, and the weak, each
of whom require slightly different challenges (1 Thess. 5:12–14).
When I’m planning my sermons or Bible study lessons, I also
try to think through three sets of pairs. I want to address both
Christians and non-Christians. I want to address both the com-
placent and needy. And I want to address both the legalistic and
hedonistic. Each of these categories requires a different kind of
challenge. The complacent need to hear God’s warnings, while
the needy need to hear his promises. The legalistic need to hear
about grace, while the licentious may need to be challenged by
imperatives. The difficulty, of course, is to challenge one side of
the pair while not causing the other side to stumble.
I might have erred too far in one direction in a recent devotion
that I gave. I offered a challenge which was intended (in my mind)
for the complacent crowd. But after the sermon one helpful bro-
ther observed that my challenge might have caused undue grief
among those who are especially guilt-prone. If I ever give that
particular devotion again, I may offer the same challenge, but I’ll
qualify it more carefully.
Third, social state. In preparing a sermon, a preacher should
consider how to aim the burden of the text at different kinds of
152
people: What does the text mean for men or for women? For chil-
dren and adults? For people moving toward retirement? For peo-
ple who make a lot of money? For people who struggle to pay the
bills? For employers and employees? For singles, marrieds, and
widowed? For members of a minority ethnicity and the majori-
ty ethnicity? For foreigners? For parents? People encounter the
Word differently depending on their station or season of life. A
good teacher wants to help them wherever they are.

EDITOR’S NOTE
This has been adapted from Jonathan’s book Word-Centered
Church. Reprinted with permission.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jonathan Leeman is the Editorial Director of 9Marks, and an el-
der at Cheverly Baptist Church in Cheverly, Maryland. You can
find him on Twitter at @JonathanLeeman.

153
Discipling and
Developing Leaders
Through a Sermon
Application Team

Mark Vroegop

“W
hat do you think went well with Sunday’s ser-
mon? What could have been better?”
This is how I begin every Sermon Application
Team meeting.
Over the last five years, I’ve probably asked these questions a
thousand times with a small group of both lay and staff leaders.
This weekly gathering is one of the most productive venues for
discipleship and developing leaders.
It gives me a window into the life of our church, enables me to
identify future leaders, creates a unique teaching environment,
connects me to lay and staff leaders, and (frankly) helps me preach
better sermons.
I can’t imagine sermon preparation without it.
154
THE IDEA
Sermon Application Team wasn’t my idea. Like most of the crea-
tive things in ministry, it’s a combination of what I’ve seen others
model. During a sabbatical, I attended the Weekender at Capitol
Hill Baptist Church. Mark Dever invited me to attend his Satur-
day Sermon Application Team meeting, and I marveled at the
simplicity and impact of a small group of lay leaders studying the
text together. I watched with wonder as they studied a passage,
debated its meaning, and shared applications. The Weekender
also featured a service review meeting on Sunday nights where
pastors and interns shared affirmations and critiques from the
services earlier in the day.
Inspired by my experience, I considered how to implement the-
se ideas in my context. For a number of reasons, a Saturday lunch
and a late-night Sunday evening meeting were not feasible. So, I
combined the best of both meetings into a late Tuesday afternoon
meeting that fit my weekly study rhythm and our church cadence.

THE BASICS
Our sermon application team usually includes six people. A pas-
toral resident serves as the administrator. Two non-pastoral staff
members and three lay people are part of the team. Sometimes,
we have a guest or a visiting pastor who are curious enough to
join us for a meeting or two.
We meet for 75 minutes, long enough for a good conversation
but short enough that people long for more. Each participant ser-
ves on the team for eight weeks which allows me to intentionally
invest in at least 25 leaders a year.
Our meetings follow a particular rhythm (each section lasting
15 minutes):

155
 1. Review the Previous Week’s Sermon
During this first section, we discuss the sermon I preached the
previous Sunday. We start with affirmations, and I ask each per-
son to share one or two things that they found helpful. I’ve found
this to be fairly easy for most people. They enjoy reflecting on how
the Lord spoke to them.
However, things get a little interesting when I ask for construc-
tive criticism. I often have to coax people into sharing because
they’re unaccustomed to tell their pastor—to his face—what was
wrong with the sermon. Sometimes I have to explain that every
sermon can be better in some way, and I know the sermon could
be improved.
It’s remarkable how helpful affirmations and godly criticism
of the sermon can be. At one level, it’s instructive to hear how
my words were received, understand what was meaningful, and
wrestle with what was misunderstood or unclear. Even if I don’t
fully agree with the affirmation or the critique, it’s a great oppor-
tunity to see how my people are processing my sermons. Addi-
tionally, it models how to respond to godly criticism and makes
future leaders more open to critique as well.
Being vulnerable about the most personal aspect of my minis-
try—the sermon—has created a healthier culture of feedback in
our church.

2. Study the Text Together

The second step in our journey is to examine next week’s text
together. We provide a print-out of the text with plenty of space for
notes. We spend time quietly examining the passage on our own.
For about 7–8 minutes, we circle important words, look for patter-
ns, underline essential statements, and identify questions. The goal
is simply to make as many observations as we can on our own.
Then it’s time to share. We move around the table identifying short
observations. The goal is not long soliloquies. Even if the participants
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have researched the text prior to coming (something I encourage but
don’t require), our goal is simple and clear observations. Sometimes
we pause to talk about a critical issue, or I ask a Pastoral Resident to
explain the background behind a particular topic in the text.
As we make our way through the passage, I’m not only getting
a good sense of their spiritual competency for handling the Word,
but I’m also teaching people how to study the Bible. It’s a beautiful
discipleship and leadership development opportunity.

3. Create a Teaching Outline

The third step can be intimidating. We take additional perso-
nal time to create a teaching or homiletical outline. Since this is
usually unfamiliar, I encourage them that this will be their grea-
test area of personal growth during our time together.
Going around the table, I ask each participant to share their
outline. Sometimes we talk about how they determined each
point. At other times, we compare the similarities and differen-
ces. I share my outline at the end, and I invite their feedback.
It might surprise you to know that nearly every week my first
outline is not reflected in my final sermon. The thoughts and pers-
pectives of the Sermon Application Team usually shape the structu-
re. Sometimes I prefer their outline over mine, and I use it instead.

4. Identify Applications
The final step during our meeting is to consider the various
ways the points in the text could be applied. Mark Dever created a
very helpful application grid that you can use. Sometimes, we use
this grid or a variation of it.
At other times we discuss how the text would apply to three
groups: non-believer, believer, fake-believer. Given the nature of
a particular text, I’ve also found it helpful to discuss how the text
would apply to people in varying stages of life: child, teenager,
single adult, married, and a senior citizen.
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 The goal of this step is to creatively make the connection be-
tween the text and life, especially in the lives of the people around
the table.
By the time we’ve completed our meeting, we’ve thoughtfully
reviewed the sermon, shared observations on a particular text,
developed a teaching outline, and discussed applications. It’s a
discipleship-rich environment.

THE BENEFITS
Creating a sermon application team takes time, patience, and hu-
mility. But the benefits are incredible.
It creates a venue for life-on-life discipleship and personal leaders-
hip development as you study the text together. It promotes a culture
of teachability as the Teaching Pastor willingly invites critique and
suggestions. It keeps a pastor connected to questions and challenges
of lay people. People have told me that they notice a difference in the
sharpness and relevancy of my applications. I do, too.
It’s also a great place to identify future leaders. When we’re
considering a person for leadership, I’m often asked about their
participation in a team. Eight weeks of studying the Bible and
talking about sermons give you a window into a person’s soul.
Sundays come every week. Sermons need to be written. Appli-
cations must be considered. And I’ve found great delight and lots
of fruit from studying every week with a group of leaders.
I can’t think of a better venue for discipleship and leadership
development than a weekly Sermon Application Team. And after
five years, I can’t imagine writing a sermon without them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark Vroegop is the Lead Pastor of College Park Church in In-
dianapolis, Indiana. He blogs at markvroegop.com.

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How Long Should a
Sermon Be?

Jonathan Leeman

H
ow long should you preach on Sunday?
Pew Research Center recently analyzed 50,000 ser-
mons preached between April 7 and June 1, 2019, in or-
der to determine the median sermon length in the United States.
Their answer? 37 minutes.
In response, I asked a few pastors how long they thought a
sermon should be. Timothy Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer
Presbyterian, remarked, “In general I think for most Sunday con-
gregations the sermon should be under 30 minutes. That’s safest.
If you are a solid preacher but not very eloquent or interesting it
should also be shorter.”
Mark Vroegop, pastor of College Park Church in Indianapolis,
IN, thinks pastors should go a bit longer: “35 to 40 minutes. I
think that is long enough to adequately explain the texts and sen-
sitive to the shortened listening ability of most people.”

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 Pushing the envelope, Adam Sinnett, who pastors a young and
vibrant congregation in Seattle, argues, “The sermon should be as
long as needed to clearly communicate the point of the passage,
apply it to the hearts of God’s people, while removing potential
obstacles, and delivering with passionate persuasion. That typica-
lly takes 40 to 50 minutes, depending on the size of the passage.” 
And then there is Mark Dever, who rarely preaches for less than
sixty minutes at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. His
counsel is shorter than his sermons: “A sermon should be as long as a
preacher can well preach and a congregation can well listen.”

CONTEXT MATTERS
Interestingly, the Pew survey also noticed that differences show
up across Christian traditions. The median sermon length for

• historically black Protestants was 54 minutes;

• evangelicals: 39 minutes;
• mainline Protestants: 25 minutes;
• and Roman Catholics: 14 minutes.

Different social settings come with different expectations. Peo-

ple walking into a Roman Catholic parish generally expect a ho-
mily that’s three times shorter than what a member of a black
church expects of their sermon.
Keller observes, “I’ve seen people in Asia sit and listen to an ad-
dress—without anyone fidgeting or getting up—for two hours. In
other times and centuries, a two to three hour address would not
have been thought of as too long. I think our culture in general is
habituating people for shorter presentations.”
And if expectations change from context to context, doesn’t
that suggest pastors might work to change cultural expectations
rather than treating them as fixed?
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FIVE PRINCIPLES
As you navigate how long a sermon should be for your context, let
me offer five principles:
1. Do justice to the text.
If the wisdom of God gives life to the dead, not the wisdom of
man, the most important thing we do in any sermon is to adequa-
tely explain and apply the text.
“A sermon should be long enough to explain, prove, and apply
the main point of the passage,” said my own pastor John Joseph,
“in such a way that the hearer is able to understand, appreciate,
and begin digesting what God is saying to them.”
Duke Kwon, pastor of Grace DC, Meridian Hill Church in
Washington, DC, remarked, “A good sermon, like a healthy meal,
should be nutritious, which is to say, it allows for ample time to do
faithful exposition and application of the text.”
H. B. Charles, pastor of Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church
in Jacksonville, Florida, also remarked, “The goal should be to
preach long enough to faithfully treat the text and short enough
to effectively communicate to the congregation.”
Kevin DeYoung, pastor of Christ Covenant in Charlotte, NC,
said something similar: “A sermon should be long enough to ade-
quately exegete and apply the main point of the passage, but short
enough to leave mature Christians willing to listen a few minutes
longer.”

2. Know your audience.

Yet it’s not enough to say we must do justice to a text. If I asked
you to summarize a two-hour movie for me, you could do that in
one minute or in twenty. So with any passage of Scripture, a ser-
mon must be nutritious, said Kwon. He clarified: “By this I don’t
mean  long,  as  some of our best preaching will be the poignant
one-pointer that cuts to the heart.”

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 A second principle must therefore be to know our audience.
Just as we teach 5-year-olds differently than 25-year-olds, so diffe-
rent churches might be prepared for different lengths of sermons.
The Pew survey reveals as much.
“Any time range will be culturally conditioned,” said DeYoung.
Putting these first two points together, therefore, DeYoung aims
for 40 minutes: “I would say that consistently being limited to
fewer than 25 minutes makes robust exegesis difficult, while nor-
mally preaching longer than 45-50 minutes should be reserved for
the most mature congregations and the most experienced expo-
sitors. In most contexts I’ve been a part of, I’d say 40 minutes for
regular congregational preaching is a good sweet spot.”
Kwon argues that adjusting your length to your audience is a
requirement of love: “a good sermon will also be preached in light
of cultural oratory norms, which is not to say  captive  to cultu-
ral norms (sound bite preaching), nor do I mean this in substi-
tute of homiletical nutrition (see above). It’s simply a matter of
loving our actual, rather than theoretical, flock—that is, you are
not preaching to Jonathan Edwards’ flock, you are preaching to
your beloved smartphone-addicted flock. Love the ‘weaker bro-
ther’ and his/her (your!) shorter attention span.” For Kwon, this
means preaching 25 to 35 minutes.

3. Know yourself.
Kwon also wisely encourages preachers to know themselves: “A
sermon should also be attuned to the preacher’s giftedness. One
of my preaching professors once said, ‘Some preach for forty-five
minutes and it feels like fifteen; others preach for fifteen minutes
and it feels like forty-five.’”
One time, I attended Charles Swindoll’s church in Frisco,
Texas, and found myself absorbed in the sermon. I looked down
at my watch in the middle and was shocked to discover that fifty
minutes had gone by. I wouldn’t encourage preachers to preach
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like he did that day. It wasn’t a clear exposition of a text—just a lot
of stories. Yet it occurred to me that a gifted communicator can
talk for an hour, and people don’t mind.
Yet most of us aren’t so gifted. Keller observes, “It is certain-
ly possible to regularly preach 40+ minutes if (a) you train the
congregation’s expectations . . . and (b) if you are a good enough
speaker to maintain people’s interest.”

4. Aim for concision.

Let me model this point: most of your sermons could use an
editor. Trust me. I’m an editor. I know. So many extraneous words
and sentences could be cut, and nothing would be lost.
Kwon again: “It still takes a singular sort of self-awareness and
a humble embrace of limits for a preacher to acknowledge that
he’d be more effective when preaching more concisely.”

5. Push your audience because more is more.

Few pastors or books on preaching mention this point, yet I
would like to press on it for just a bit. We need to be sensitive to
cultural realities, yes, but there’s also a place to slowly push on
our congregation’s time horizons. To ask for more. To strengthen
their powers of listening. To risk callousing their backsides. I’ve
seen it done.
You’ve heard a brazen Reformed guy say it before, but to be
that guy: They sit in movies for two hours. They watch baseball
for three. Why not teach them to expect the Word of God for at
least one?
For the last sixty years, churches have done the opposite. Since
at least the days of Robert Schuller, we’ve trained church goers to
expect humor, entertainment, and punch from the pulpit. We’ve
not trained them to expect good exegesis. Instead, a good prea-
cher is one part smiley news anchor, one part late-night talk show
host, and one part Sunday School teacher.
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 Yet imagine an alternative world, where every gospel preacher
offered sixty minutes of beefy exegesis and application. Whe-
re people expected that from churches just like they expected
60-minute lectures from a high school classroom. I dare say, they
would become more capable of learning about the Bible and its
applications to our lives.
And might they be stronger for it? After all, more Bible is, well,
more Bible.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jonathan Leeman is the Editorial Director of 9Marks, and an el-
der at Cheverly Baptist Church in Cheverly, Maryland. You can
find him on Twitter at @JonathanLeeman.

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