If it didn’t, we would simply read the Bible aloud and sit down. There conception gets at part of the story–there is a gulf between the text in its historical setting and its proclamation today. The Bible is a book of facts, or perhaps only slightly better, truths, which need to be unearthed and then made relevant so that we know something about the Christian life today. By and large, preaching has been described, to borrow an image from homiletician Thomas Long, as a “two-step waltz.” First, you uncover what the text meant in the past, and then you tell us what it means today–a largely cognitive conception. Recognizing the power of words provides perhaps the central key in making that critical jump from text to sermon. The words of Scripture mediate an encounter with the God we know in Jesus and through this encounter we are changed. To move from biblical text to biblical sermon, focus first on the power of Scripture to move beyond telling us about God to actually prompt an encounter with God. How do we take words penned two and three thousand years ago and open them up for today? How do we use our words to speak forth the living Word of God? One of the central challenges is making the move from the biblical text to a biblical sermon. The good sermon is, in many ways, a mystery: like the seed that is the kingdom of God, it seems to grow on its own, and even those of us who “harvest” sermons for a living are hard pressed to say, exactly, how they come to happen.Īnd yet happen they do, and our efforts, while certainly not guaranteeing that those who hear will understand or those who understand will believe, nevertheless do make a difference.
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