HOW DO I STUDY AND WRITE A SERMON OR TEACH A BIBLE LESSON?
As I have said for 30 years I am what I read. My preaching and teaching is what I read. I give credit for what I know to those who I read. Some of those whom I read have been dead for 500 years, some have been dead for 200 years, and then there are those who are alive today. Originality! I am sure from time to time I do say things that are original. Usually what comes out of my mind is what I have learned by reading, with my point of view added.
I can sit down and write thoughts that are coming out of my mind, but I would say the ideas are coming from what I have read.
In one sermon I have read as many as two dozen books and many articles and other sermons. In my later manuscripts (when I found out what that was) I would footnote where I got the quotes or ideas.
When I first started preaching at 16, I didn’t have any training on how to write a sermon. Write a sermon, are you kidding, you were just to get up and preach. NOTES!
Well, I had different ideas. One time I read the book “IN HIS STEPS.” So I asked Dad if I could preach. And the sermon
was about what I had read in that book, “What Would Jesus Do?”
I was asked to preach in my Dad’s friends’ church in Hildebran NC, So I read one of Charles Surgeon’s sermon, and used it. That is how I got into the habit of reading my sermons.
Speaking of reading most of my sermons: (which I have done since I have been preaching/teaching) my wife Charity has always said I could preach better if I wouldn’t do that. (Charity has said that now for 41 years.) It’s a habit, what can I say!
Well, let me say this, I can read my manuscript in about 20 minutes. But my sermons usually are 45 minutes, so I must not read all my manuscript only.
As I have written before, if I were to give credit to everyone one that I have used, my sermon would be filled with a few dozen people. And sometimes I don’t remember where I got the idea from.
I have just really never tried to be totally original. Even though some of my thoughts would make you believe that. I am mostly over stating this point. Because I do take a thought and go with it.
As I have said, early in my preaching, preachers I knew gave the impression what they said was totally original in their minds.
They would always say this message was from the Lord. They would say they just needed the KJV and a Webster’s dictionary. Of course most of their preaching was not explaining the text but telling people what they believed the text was telling them to do.
Then most of the preaching was trying to get people saved. Most of the message was illustrations trying to get them saved. Then some preachers would use outlines that they found. Then some preachers would have topic sermons, some illustrated sermons, and storytelling sermons, and the list goes on.
We often joked; when better sermons are printed we will preach them. Well, since I now for over forty years teach the Bible book by book, this process takes on a new method of learning.
Yet, this process as I have said, takes me to dozens of reference materials that help explain the meaning of the text. Then how I will approach the text is often from those who I am reading. It is interesting how one passage of scripture will be approached differently by a number of preachers. John MacArthur, John Piper, Martin Lloyd Jones, Charles Spurgeon, George Whitefield, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Puritan Writers, Charles Swindoll, Charles Stanley, John Rice, Oliver B. Green, George Norris, Wayne Martin, Raymond Barber, they all will approach the text in a different manner. Of course they approach preaching differently as well. THEY ALL have a different intent as to how they approach preaching as well.
Some preachers approach preaching with the idea of presenting a message on how a person can be saved. Some approach preaching trying to get people to live right. Some approach preaching to see how many they can get to come to the altar. Every preacher has his idea of how they are going to approach their preaching. What is it that they are trying to accomplish when they are finished preaching. Some are totally evangelistic. Some will get the gospel out of every verse they preach. Some are Christ-centered in every passage they preach. Some will spiritualize every passage in the Bible. Some will take a topic they want to present and put verses to it.
