In This Book
Art & Craft of Biblical Preaching
A Comprehensive Resource for Today’s Communicators
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The High Call of Preaching
- 1 Core Convictions of Biblical Preaching
- 2 A Definition of Biblical Preaching
- 3 A Weekly Dose of Compressed Dignity
- 4 Overfed, Underchallenged
- 5 Theology of Powerful Preaching
- 6 Preaching That Raises Our Sights
- 7 Leading and Feeding: How Preaching and Leadership Intersect
- 8 John 3:16 in the Key of C
- 9 Spiritual Formation through Preaching
- 10 Preaching Life into the Church
- 11 My Theory of Homiletics
- 12 Staying on the Line
- 13 History of Preaching
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The Spiritual Life of a Preacher
- 14 A Cup Running Over
- 15 The Patented Preacher
- 16 I Prayed for My Preaching
- 17 How Does Unction Function?
- 18 Squeaky Clean
- 19 Required Reading
- 20 Rightly Dividing the Preaching Load
- 21 Preaching Through Personal Pain
- 22 A Prophet among You
- 23 Burning Clean Fuel
- 24 Backdraft Preaching
- 25 Why I Pace Before I Preach
- 26 Preaching to Convulse the Demons
- 27 Holy Expectation
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Considering Hearers
- 28 Preaching to Everyone in Particular
- 29 The Power of Simplicity
- 30 View from the Pew
- 31 Preaching to Ordinary People
- 32 Why Serious Preachers Use Humor
- 33 Connect Hearers through Dialogue
- 34 Self-Disclosure That Glorifies Christ
- 35 How to Be Heard
- 36 Opening the Closed American Mind
- 37 Turning an Audience into the Church
- 38 Preaching to Change the Heart
- 39 Preaching Truth, Justice, and the American Way
- 40 Preaching Morality in an Amoral Age
- 41 The Intentional Bridge Builder
- 42 Connecting with Postmoderns
- 43 Preaching Amid Pluralism
- 44 Connecting with Non-Christians
- 45 How to Translate Male Sermons to Women
- 46 He Said, She Heard
- 47 Connecting with Men
- 48 Creating a Singles-Friendly Sermon
- 49 Preaching to Preschoolers
- 50 Hispanic American Preaching
- 51 African American Preaching
- 52 Asian American Preaching
- 53 Work Wins?
- 54 One Sermon, Two Messages
- 55 The Playful Preacher
- 56 What Authority Do We Have Anymore?
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Interpretation and Application
- 57 Why the Sermon?
- 58 Getting the Gold from the Text
- 59 Faithful First
- 60 God’s Letter of Intent
- 61 Five Bird-dogging Questions for Biblical Exposition
- 62 The Rules of the Game
- 63 Why All the Best Preachers Are–What a Concept!–Theological
- 64 Letting the Listeners Make the Discoveries
- 65 Conviction and Compassion
- 66 The Inadequacy of “Yes” Theology
- 67 What Great Coaches and Preachers Know
- 68 Preaching That Opens Ears and Hearts
- 69 Fundamentals of Genre
- 70 From B.C. to 11 a.m.
- 71 The Big Idea of Narrative Preaching
- 72 Apply Within
- 73 Application Without Moralism
- 74 Blending Bible Content and Life Application
- 75 Showing Promise
- 76 Helping Hearers Practice What We Preach
- 77 The Heresy of Application
- 78 Preaching for True Holiness
- 79 Less Joe, More Jesus
- 80 Preaching That Promotes Self-Centeredness
- 81 The Danger of Practical Preaching
- 82 Grace: A license to Wander?
- 83 The Rich Sound of Grace and Holiness
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Structure
- 84 Set Free from the Cookie Cutter
- 85 Say and Do
- 86 Connecting Biblical Content with Contemporary Audiences
- 87 Clearly
- 88 Skills of Oral Clarity
- 89 Questions That Put Muscle on Bones
- 90 Better Big Ideas
- 91 The Power of Sequence
- 92 Outlines That Work for You, Not against You
- 93 The Tension Between Clarity and Suspense
- 94 Lifeblood of Preaching
- 95 Alliteration Downfalls
- 96 Modulating Tension
- 97 The Purpose-Driven Title
- 98 Why Should I Listen to You?
- 99 Satisfying Conclusions
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Style
- 100 Determining Your Strengths and Weaknesses
- 101 Interesting Preaching
- 102 Crafting an Experience
- 103 Seven Habits of Highly Effective Preachers
- 104 The Sermon’s Mood
- 105 Teaching the Whole Bible
- 106 Dramatic Expository Preaching
- 107 Verse-by-Verse Sermons That Really Preach
- 108 What Makes Textual Preaching Unique?
- 109 Can Topical Preaching Be Expository?
- 110 Topical Preaching Can Be Truly Biblical
- 111 Topical Preaching on Bible Characters
- 112 Topical Preaching on Contemporary Issues
- 113 Topical Preaching on Theological Themes
- 114 Making the Most of Biblical Paradoxes
- 115 Getting the Most from the Sermon Series
- 116 The Next Big Thing
- 117 The Compelling Series
- 118 First Person Narrative Sermons
- 119 Biblical Preaching Is about Life Change, Not Sermon Style
- 120 Seven Timeless Principles for Reaching Lost People
- 121 Evangelistic Preaching in the Local Church
- 122 Felt-Needs Preaching
- 123 How to Preach Boldly in a “Whatever” Culture
- 124 Preaching with a Leader’s Heart
- 125 Critique of the New Homiletic
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Preparation
- 142 Why I Pat the Bible on My Nightstand
- 143 Busting Out of Sermon Block
- 144 Centered
- 145 A Long, Rich Conversation with God
- 146 A Mysterious Impulse to Pray
- 147 Preparing the Messenger
- 148 The Hard Work of Illumination
- 149 Heart-to-Heart Preaching
- 150 Imagination: The Preacher’s Neglected Ally
- 151 Preaching That Magnifies God
- 152 When Is a Sermon Good Enough?
- 153 How to Build a First-Rate Library
- 154 What Makes a Sermon Deep?
- 155 Before You Preach
- 156 Inspiration Points
- 157 Simplify
- 158 Using Someone Else’s Sermon
- 159 Planning for a Richer, Deeper Sermon Series
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Delivery
- 160 The Source of Passion
- 161 Place of Pathos in Preaching
- 162 Preaching with Intensity
- 163 No Notes, Lots of Notes, Brief Notes
- 164 In the Eye of the Hearer
- 165 No Voice, No Preach
- 166 Eliminating My Um, Um, Annoying Pulpit Mannerisms
- 167 Reading Scripture in Public
- 168 The Importance of Being Urgent
- 169 The Day I Lost My Nerve
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Special Topics
- 170 When You Don’t Look Forward to Special Days
- 171 Preaching the Terrors
- 172 Preparing People to Suffer
- 173 Preaching Hell in a Tolerant Age
- 174 Speaking into Crisis
- 175 When the News Intrudes
- 176 Redemptive Sermons for Weddings and Funerals
- 177 The Landmark Sermon
- 178 You Had to Bring It Up
- 179 Preaching on Contemporary Issues
- 180 Preaching Sex with Compassion and Conviction
- 181 The Ever-More-Difficult Marriage Sermon
- 182 When the Sermon Goes to Work
- 183 Bridging the Marketplace Gap
- 184 Sermons on Giving That People Actually Like!
PreachingToday.com: Some preachers avoid expository preaching because they think it's less dramatic. Do you feel that's a valid conclusion?
Haddon Robinson: There are folks who think of expository preaching as a dull, plodding through the text that gives out information nobody wants and answers questions nobody's asking. There's nothing dramatic about it because there's no tension. If that's what people mean by expository preaching, I can understand why they walk away from it.
All drama consists of conflict.
But that's a wrong definition. Expository preaching is more of a philosophy than a method. It's the answer to the question Do you bend your thought to the text, or do you bend the text to your thought?
Preaching that takes the text seriously can be dramatic. The Bible is filled with drama. Paul didn't sit down one day and say, "Well, I haven't written to the folks at Galatia in a while. Let's see. What will I write about? Oh, I'll write about legalism. I haven't covered that topic." No, he was upset when he wrote. He saw them giving up the gospel. That's why he begins without any introduction and just says "if anyone preaches any other gospel, either me or an angel from heaven, let him be damned." That's dramatic. He's concerned about what's happening to those people.
If you can pick up the spirit of Paul, it will not be a pedantic plodding through the text, sentence after sentence as though there were no great issues at stake.
What is it about nonexpository sermons that may make them seem easier to preach dramatically?
You don't have to bother with the text. You can take your own stories and fashion them and handle the text any way you want that has dramatic flare.
The problem with that is if we take seriously our calling as preachers, we haven't been called to entertain people, haven't been called to tickle their ears, to get them to say, "Wasn't that a magnificent sermon! Wasn't that dramatic!" We are called to proclaim the Word of God. And so there may be an easier route to being more dramatic, that is, ignoring the text, but ultimately it causes us to be unfaithful to God. If it's not expository and not solidly biblical, I don't care how wonderful the sermon is, I don't care how people line up at the door to tell you it's a great message, and I don't care how many people break down in tears as they listen—if it's not faithful to the Scriptures forget about it. You're not called to be an actor; you're called to be a preacher.
What approach to expository preaching can cause it to be more cerebral and less moving?
The more cerebral sermon says the main object of preaching is to inform people. But the main object of preaching is to change people's lives through the use of the Scriptures.
If I think of the sermon as an information dump, it moves me away from being dramatic, and it moves me away from the mood of the text. A good expository sermon is true to the text, its basic idea, its general development, its tensions—and also its mood. If you capture the mood of that text, that can be moving.
How much time can we spend talking about the words of the text and still keep the dramatic level high?
It strikes me that most sermons don't spend that much time in the text. I have not heard many sermons in which I thought this passage of Scripture is opening up in front of me. But it is possible to spend too much time in the text if you spend all your time in the content and don't think at all about the audience.
There are two basic parts of preparation. The first part is to ask what the text is saying, what the purpose of the author is, and what the biblical writer was saying to the biblical readers. The second part of preparation is to discover what this text says to people today. How can I get this text across to people in the twenty-first century in a way that grips them?
When I do that, I will move towards drama because all drama consists of conflict. A TV movie starts off, somebody is shot, and they can't explain the murder. The police are called in, and they try to unravel the crime. You work all the way through that program until at the end they discover the murderer was the maid and not the butler.
Sermons can be that way. They start off by raising an issue important to the audience. I am not teaching people the Bible; I'm talking to people about them from the Bible. And so I want to talk about issues they have that are reflected by the issues in the biblical text.
If we can put sermons together with a sense of conflict, with problems that need to be solved, questions that need to be answered, needs that must be satisfied from the Scriptures, then we will have a dramatic sermon.
