Proclaimer Blog
The preacher’s new year’s resolutions #2
I will have been studying a passage before the week before the sermon
Pity the preacher who wakes up on Monday morning and this is the first time he’s ever looked at the text. I can’t understand that. Not least because every text has a context in which it is sited and that includes what comes before and what comes after. I don’t think what comes after should be particularly shaping the entirety of our sermons, but it must count for something. And how can you hope to present the message from a book faithfully if the whole book has not seeped into your bloodstream?
Different preachers do this different ways. I study a whole book before I preach it, perhaps six months before. That may or may not be your way. But the resolution still stands.
Resolved: I will have been studying a passage before the week before the sermon