Haddon Robinson, after hearing a sermon as a young boy, thought,He preached for an hour, and it seemed like 20 minutes; others preach for 20 minutes and it seems like an hour. I wonder what the difference is? Great question.
What makes the difference? Alongside the work of the Holy Spirit, it has a lot to do with knowing what you are trying to say, and, of course, the source of the ideas you are saying.
If a sermon is archery, you want the arrow to hit the bull’s-eye. If golf, you want to hit it straight down the fairway, onto the green, and near the pin. A good sermon hits the mark.
A good sermon has a big idea. Robinson was fond of saying, “A mist in the pulpit creates a fog in the pew.”
Every good communication has a central idea. Movies do. Poems, songs, and plays do. Every well-written piece of literature is trying to communicate some specific idea. Good sermons are no exception.
A good sermon simply unfolds the big ideas of Scripture, for every scriptural passage is saying something specific. When Paul writes a letter, he is communicating ideas. David’s Psalms, the Gospel witnesses, and the Israelite prophets do the same. Biblical writers wrote every unique part of Scripture with a big idea in mind.
Bible-based preaching discovers these biblical big ideas and uses the sermon to deliver them. As a biblical preacher, you do not preach your ideas, but ideas straightfrom the biblical text. When you hear a great biblical sermon, the preacher is inviting youinside and guiding you through a biblical text. Years later, it is okay if you forgot the name of the preacher as long as you remember (and live) the idea of the text.
Before we discuss the big ideas of the scriptural text, let me discuss the nature of ideas and how we form them in daily life. Everyday ideas follow four steps.... Read more
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