Before you are ready to preach a sermon, you should edit and polish your sermon. One of the few articles that address sermon polishing is Henry Mitchell’s. He has written a in the John McClure edited book Best Advice for Preaching. I generally speak of editing and polishing a sermon in terms of 3 edits. You might look at each of these edits as a different dimension of a comprehensive edit of the sermon manuscript.
Author: Sherman Haywood Cox II
Vanderbilt Trained Minister (MDiv), Univ. of Alabama Trained Software Developer (MS), Author, Blogger (https://soulpreaching.com), Husband, Son, Brother, Father.
Need a Sermon? – When God Sends You To Hell Outline
Introduction: This sermon short is basically a pointer to help someone think about a text and turn it into a sermon. It is not meant to be preached now, but needs some beefing up. I have included some helpful pointers in how to preach it in the text of the sermon.
Tell the Story
Sources of Bible Preaching – Imagination
The final source of Biblical Preaching is imagination. Charles Koller notes that imagination alone can turn a dull sermon into one that comes alive. Imagination helps you create connections between the past and the present in interesting ways.
Sources of Bible Preaching – Experience
Charles Koller in the book How To Preach Without Notes writes: “Preaching at its best is the sharing of profound personal experience.” He backs up this claim by appealing to the apostles who simply told the story of their interaction with Jesus Christ (Acts 4:20).
Audio #15 – Three Points and a Poem Sermonic Form
What is the Three Points and a Poem Sermonic form? How can I use it in my preaching? Pastor Cox describes a method for doing just that in this Audio post.
Sources of Bible Preaching – Other Literature
Another one of the sources of Biblical Preaching is literature of all kinds. The preacher should have a knowledge found only in reading a wide variety of literature. This would include “devotional readings, some bibliography, poetry, fiction, archeology, studies in arts and sciences, and other general reading.”
Sources of Bible Preaching – History
After having looked at Scripture, one can find help in preaching the Biblical message from the next source for Biblical Preaching is History. This includes both an understanding of the history of the empires and people who interacted with the Biblical characters.
Sources of Bible Preaching – Scripture
Charles Koller’s book How to Preach Without Notes is a goldmine of homiletical insight in a short amount of space. Not only does it attempt to teach how to preach without notes, but it also provides information on how to preach any kind of sermon.
Unearthing a Sermon
When one expands the outline of the sermon, one normally uses some processes naturally. Charles Koller in his little work How To Preach Without notes attempts to explicitly show them so that preachers can make better use of them.
Is Your Daily Devotions Continuing?
The Expository Thoughts Website has an article that graphs the Daily Devotions of to the ESV devotions site. We see that there is, as you might expect, a spike in January and then a drop that only goes up at another huge spike in December.
How Can We Influence Greater Devotions in Others?
Biblical Preaching – Appeal to Reason
The appeal to reason is the final appeal that Charles Koller writes of in his book How To Preach Without Notes. Koller notes that Samuel “reasoned with his people.” (1 Samuel 12:7). In addition Isaiah says, “Come now and let us reason together.” (Isaiah 1:18).
Biblical Preaching – Appeal to Love
Charles Koller’s next appeal is the appeal to love. Koller notes that all appeals can be reduced down to one of three possible appeals to love: “love of self, love of others, or love of God.”
All three are implicated in the great commandment, Love God….others…thyself. (Luke 10:27)
Biblical Preaching – Appeal to Fear
Charles Koller’s next appeal that he finds in scripture is the appeal to fear. Koller notes that this appeal has been greatly neglected. I would concur and say that among many it is no longer heard at all.
Audio #14 – Telling the Story – Preaching with Stories
Learn to preach with stories. Pastor Cox describes a method for preaching stories in this Audio post.