Over the years I’ve taught preaching in university courses and mentored a number of preaching apprentices and preachers-in-training. This series summarizes some of the most basic yet most useful preaching points I’ve emphasized in these settings.
Preaching Point #5: Ask historical, literary, and theological questions of the text.
There are two basic skills required as a preacher sits prayerfully with a text that is the basis for a future sermon: the ability to ask God good questions of that text and the ability to listen to the answers God provides to those questions. I have found that the more questions I ask as I study a text, the more creative and fruitful my preaching becomes.
While there are many great questions to ask, I almost always ask three:
- Historical – what is happening historically behind this text?
- Literary – who are the main characters and what is the flow of the narrative?
- Theological – what does this text say about who God is or what God is doing?
Almost every text was written to address a historical circumstance in the lives of its recipients. Even Romans, once thought to simply be a summary of Paul’s deep doctrine, was written to correct specific problems in the lives of its recipients. Learning this context can be invaluable to grasping how the text may speak to listeners today.
In addition, biblical writers were exceedingly good storytellers. They crafted and shaped stories in very intentional ways. Understanding how they told their stories can inform the way we retell the story in a sermon. It can help us see what was truly important to the original author and thus what should be important as we preach the story.
Finally, the ultimate purpose of Scripture and preaching is to point people to God. Learning to ask the God-questions is essential if preaching is to fulfill this purpose. As I will share in a future preaching point, these theological questions are the most important questions to ask.
How about you? What questions do you typically ask of a text?
