Expository Preaching and Improving Your Preaching

I’m always looking for ways I can improve my sermon preparation so that I can better “rightly divide the Word,” especially when it comes to expository preaching. I’ve come across a couple of good resources that help me to do that, and I thought I’d share them with you. Take a look below.

EFFECTIVE EPISTLE EXPOSITION

The website Biblical Preaching always has good timely blog posts for preachers and pastors. Recently they posted a three part series “12 Pointers for Effective Epistle Exposition.” These 12 pointers are a good guide for preparing expository sermons from the New Testament epistles. Here’s a few of the tips:

2. Learn the background. Not just the specific occasion of the epistle, but whatever background understanding would help you. For instance, how much do you really know about slavery in the Roman Empire?

5. Master the whole. Don’t just preach chunk by chunk through the epistle without getting to grips with the flow of the whole. You cannot accurately preach a portion of an epistle without a good grasp of how the whole is working together.

11. Preach the text. The church has a full history of preaching messages from texts, but instead preach the message of the text. There is a world of difference. God inspired the Bible as it stands…

There’s some really good tips in these three blog posts. Take a look at them when you get a chance. Here’s the link to 12 Pointers for Effective Epistle Exposition: http://biblicalpreaching.net/2015/05/25/12-pointers-for-effective-epistle-exposition/

15 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR PREACHING OR TEACHING

Over on Thom Rainer’s website, he’s posted an article by Check Lawless called “15 Ways to Improve Your Preaching or Teaching.” Some of those 15 ways are:

1. Assume you need to improve. If you genuinely believe you have no room for improvement, ask others until you find someone who’s honest enough to help you…

3. Read the Bible and pray every day. This suggestion is basic, but it matters. Preachers and teachers who read the Scriptures only to prepare a lesson have reduced the Bible to a textbook for others.

8. Listen to other preachers. If you think you preach or teach too long, listen to someone who is more concise. Learn the value of stories and illustrations by considering what you remember from a sermon.

Bro. Lawless knows preaching and he’s given us some good pointers in this article. You can read the entire article at: http://thomrainer.com/2015/06/15-ways-to-improve-your-preaching-or-teaching/

We can never learn too much when it comes to sermon preparation and preaching the Word. I hope these two resources help you advance your ability to preach the Word of God.

(Edited 12-10-2018)