I’m going to be talking about, “Tools Of The Trade,” but at the same time we’re going to be talking about stages of the development of the expository message. Again, if you have your notes, Haddon Robinson says, “It is difficult to think. It is more difficult to think about thinking. It is most difficult to talk about thinking about thinking. Yet that stands as the basic task of homiletics. Homileticians observe how preachers work and attempt to get inside their heads to discover what goes on there as they prepare to preach. Then they must describe the process clearly enough to make sense to a student. The assignment borders on impossible.” We’re laughing about this, but this again, you’re taking what I’m saying, you’re taking what John’s saying, you’re taking what Art’s saying, you’re going to take what Tim’s saying; and over the years God has worked with us, God has taught us how to do it, and so you’ve got to find your way in which you can do it, but these principles don’t change. We have to locate the theme or the thought of the passage. We have to, okay? So those are basic things. How we go about it, again, it’s going to come through reading, through prayer, through study. It’s going to come, and you’re going to be able to do it. I promise you, you can do it.
Haddon Robinson says, “How do we evaluate the assortment of approaches or explain the apparent effectiveness of sermons that appear to have behind them no method at all. More to the point, how do we derive procedures from all of this that others may follow.” So, our methods and our approach will change. How I prepare my messages since ’85 until now is light years difference. It just is. Just as I mentioned, the question was asked to me, “How long have you been doing the 18-words?” 2017. I’m being honest. I wish I could say longer, but it was my second time through the book, I finally got it. That’s when I can faithfully say that. I did try to get the thought, but I never presented to the congregation the thought of the passage. I tried to be faithful in the outlines that I would use, but now that’s totally changed. Now I’m focused on that, and that is what I do.
There’s two conclusions emerge from the fact that expositors go about their work in different ways. First, detailed instruction about how to think may sometimes get in the way of the process. This joke, I love this joke that he tells. It’s so good. The story of a lawyer and a physician who regularly played golf together, they were eventually matched and enjoyed a keen sense of rivalry. Then, one spring the lawyer’s gain improved so much that the doctor was losing regularly. The doctor’s attempt to better his own game were unsuccessful, but then he came up with an idea. At a bookstore, he bought three how-to-play golf manuals and sent them to the lawyer for a birthday present. It wasn’t long before they were evenly matched again.
There are more books today on marriage in the history on our planet. Are marriages any better? No. There’s a lot of books on preaching, too, all sorts of material on this. It’s something that we have to personally take to heart, we personally have to work through.
So, secondly is thinking is a dynamic process. Effective biblical preaching requires insight, imagination, and spiritual sensitivity—none of which comes from merely following directions. That’s why we’re talking about the difference, like John’s walk with the Lord many, many years; I’ve walked with the Lord for a number of years; and then our faithfulness to the Lord of following the Lord, our faithfulness in reading the Bible, our faithfulness in prayer, our faithfulness in following God, all that comes into play when we’re studying. The Holy Spirit can’t bring up what’s not been taken in, so that’s that process. It can’t be done through a textbook.
Now, a textbook can tell us the procedures and so forth, but the individual that is made in God’s image, in God’s likeness, in God’s calling, it’s just going to be different. It has to be different. So, throughout the discussion on how to develop an expository sermon therefore it should be kept in mind that while the stages for preparation are treated in sequence, they sometimes mix. For example, the logical time to prepare an introduction comes when the development of the entire sermon has become clear. Experienced preachers, though sometimes stumble across a workable lead for an introduction early in their preparation, they then take it whenever they can get it, and though they may wait until near the end of their work to put it into the sermon.
For instance, I just mentioned this a few moments ago, on Sunday morning I’d been working my way through Genesis, and I was having a hard time illustrating Genesis 47. The theme of Genesis 47, as I mentioned, is bless you. I went into that file where I keep illustrations, and listen to the illustration that happened to be there. It was by Dr. Warren Wiersbe, “God doesn’t bless us just to make us happy, He blesses us to make us a blessing.” That’s Genesis 47. Now, had I not dropped that in the folder, I wouldn’t have had it when I needed it. That’s why I’m saying, get a folder, go on your computer. If you’re a paper guy, then get another manila folder, however you want to do it; and as you come across something that really touches you, that you really like, put it aside. I guarantee, you’ll use it. I have all sorts of quotes from John Stott and Wiersbe, I just have all of these quotes. I think I’m up to like 120 pages of quotes that I keep on my computer; and every once in a while, when I’m having a hard time, I just read through them, and it’s always amazing how those quotes are so good. They’re so usable. That’s a good thing to do.
What then are the stages in the preparation of expository sermons? Stage 1, real basic, choose the passage to be preached. The obvious first question confronting us, “What shall I talk about? From what passage of Scripture should I draw my sermon?” Plan ahead. John talked about this a little bit ago. Our minds, as a pastor, twenty-four hours a day we’re thinking, Where am I going? Where am I going to go after this book? What am I going to say this Sunday? It is. It’s like we have nightmares. You wake up in the middle of the night, Genesis 48. You, just waking up in the middle of the night, Acts 5, just waking up in the middle of the night. You’re constantly thinking. I think as long as we’re doing that and we take the time to jot things down—introductions we come across, quotes that we come across, a thought that we come across—in the long run it will save your neck. It just will. Inevitably, you’re going to use it. You’re going to say, “Praise God I saved that thought!” and it comes into play.
It doesn’t have to be that way. I know for me, a lot of times it’s when I’m preparing for this Sunday, I’m already thinking of the next Sunday, and generally on Monday I start crystallizing how far I’m going to cover, how much of the passage I’m going to cover, that’s always a thought that I have. We don’t always have to face it on that Monday, we don’t always have to face it a few days before.
While all Scripture is profitable, not every Scripture possesses equal profit for a congregation at a particular time. So, thought units, often we will work our way chapter by chapter, and verse by verse, through different books of the Bible. That’s why expository sermons are so wonderful. For some of you that are just going to speak periodically, I feel sorry for you, but you could do this. One of our pastors, when I get him to teach for me, he has been for years going through Samuel, so wherever he left off, when I say, “Can you fill in for me,” he just goes to the next chapter in Samuel. That works for him. He’s studied it, he knows it, so he just continues. He doesn’t have to say, “Hey, when I taught a year ago, when I was able to teach on a Wednesday night, I’m doing this,” he just teaches, and it’s consistent. He’s literally going through the entire book of 1 Samuel. So, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, for us that are going through Genesis, you’re going through the book of Acts, there’s no question as to where we’re going, we already know where we’re going, we don’t know how much we’re going to cover yet, but we know where we’re going. That’s always there. But for those that have to fill in periodically, that can be a challenge. That can be a real challenge.
We think in units, so let’s open our Bible to Matthew 5, for instance, and we’re talking about expository preaching and how we preach in units. Generally, I look at chapter 5 right now at verses 1-12 and I see the Beatitudes. That is one chapter, right? But there’s eight Beatitudes, that’s eight weeks right there. It actually could be nine weeks because the first and second verses in and of itself is important because it gives us the audience and who Jesus is speaking to—He’s speaking to disciples, which really should be spoken about. Then, He goes in and gives the eight qualities or the character of a disciple of Jesus. That’s one paragraph. That literally could be taught, it’s a lot, I mean it’s just so much information in those eight Beatitudes. Then, following that in verse 13, He then talks about the disciples or the influence of the disciple. Again, I would think that all the way through to verse 16 it should stop. You could teach verses 13-16. I think starting in verse 17 He starts to talk about the righteousness of the Christian. He didn’t come to abolish righteousness, He came to fulfill it, and He did it through internal righteousness, not really external righteousness.
By the way, John Stott’s book on the Sermon on the Mount is an absolute masterpiece. I have it over here. It is an absolute masterpiece. This outline for the Sermon on the Mount is masterful—the attitudes or the character of the believer, the influence, the righteousness, the devotion. It just goes on and on. You’ll memorize this outline, and you’ll have it the rest of your life. It is the most wonderful…well, it’s the greatest sermon ever preached. That is a wonderful, wonderful…this book right here, you should get this book, if you’re going to teach through the Sermon on the Mount. You spend fifty-something weeks going through these three chapters. It is just a wonderful, wonderful, book. So, there’s that.
You can kind of see the chapters here, and you can see what’s here. There’s a section with the righteousness. You can break down each example that he has of righteousness—external righteousness, but the righteousness of the believer is internal—so you can look at that and kind of see the chapters, and you can kind of look at them, and then you can look at the material that’s in it, depending on how much time you have. I mean, you could basically teach the Beatitudes in one sitting. You could do that. I mean it is a lot, but you can talk about the influence of the Christian, the light of the world, and you can do that. You can talk about our righteousness and you can do all of that. So, that’s there.
Example: the church’s first sermon in Acts 2:14-41; the Spirit-filled church in Acts 2:42-47, and the way of the cross. There are some examples that you can look to. We’re not going to look at them now, we don’t have time, but you could look at those chunks of Scripture and just look at them and say, “Could that not be a message? Is that thought that begins to end, is it contained there?” And, it is. I mean those are good breaks; those are good sections that could be taught. Acts 27, I think the entire chapter, the God of the storm, you can talk about Paul in that storm, I mean that whole chapter is just a wonderful chapter.
Then there’s poetic literature such as the Psalms, a paragraph roughly equals a stanza or a strophe of a poem. In selecting passages for the expository sermon, therefore, a general principle to follow is base the sermon on a literary unit of biblical thought, generally—notice the word—a paragraph is what it is. That’s basically what it is. But keep in mind when you’re looking at the Psalms and so forth, you’re looking at poetry. You have to kind of keep that in mind. I know that we’ll talk about this in a moment. Again, we need to talk about hermeneutical principles. You have to understand the difference between a narrative, you’re talking about poetry, and you have to know the difference between those. You can’t treat them alike, you just can’t, so you have to kind of keep that in mind when you’re doing that.
The topical expositions—some sermons preached at Easter and at Christmas—require special topical treatment. In addition, we may preach on theological topics such as the Trinity, reconciliation, worship, marriage, and divorce. We just heard John who just did that whole series, and what a challenge that is because you’re taking a verse and you have to make sure you cover all the verses on that so you’re not proof texting and teaching what you want to teach, so that is a challenge to do that because you’re having to cover all those verses that say that; because, if not, then you’re really not teaching what it is. You’re basically teaching what you want it to teach, so it has to cover all of it. To teach topically is a challenge. It’s a lot of work, if you do it correctly because you have to give a full account for those verses that speak about that subject. You can’t just proof text and teach what you want to teach.
How do we find a passage or passages to preach? If we have a broad knowledge of Scripture, we will be aware of passages that deal with people with problems such as named. This right here, John already used my book. This is a good book. This book right here, you can go to any verse and there are gobs and gobs of passages relating to that subject. This is a priceless book right here, and I can’t remember who it was, was it Wiersbe? I can’t remember. There was one of them that said they always had it on their desk. This was the book that they always turned to, so this is by R.A. Torrey. You can easily buy it.
I’ll just mention it now, there is a website I want to give to you. It hurts me to give it to you, but I’m going to give it to you. It’s called abebooks.com. You can request a book—you can put in “hardback,” you can put in “first edition,” you can do whatever you want—and what it will do is when you’re searching for a book like this book, which you cannot buy, I paid $1 for it. I think the shipping was $3. I can’t remember where, it came from England or something. I don’t even know. This particular website is hooked up to all bookstores all over the world. You’ll get books from East Africa. It will start with the cheapest book, and it will go down. You put “hardback,” it’ll put “hardback,” it’ll put “softback,” and then you can look at the prices. Sometimes the shipping is more than the book, and it’s fun.
When I find a book I don’t have, I am so happy because now I get to try to find it, and it’s fun looking for it. There’s something about finding it, so abebooks.com, and you can put it in there, they’ll notify you, “Hey, we found your book back in Springfield, Missouri, and then you can purchase the book, and you set up an account. It is fun to get books. I have gotten some of the most wonderful books through abebooks.com. It’s a wonderful, wonderful website.
Topical exposition faces two problems. Notice I’m using not just topical but topical exposition. Topical we are considering may be dealt with in several passages of Scripture. Now, that’s where the problem comes in because that’s a lot of work if you do it correctly, because you’re going to cover, or at least look up, all of those verses and make sure that it’s consistently what you’re going to say it says is what you’re going to do. Secondly, the problem with topical exposition is that we may read something into the scriptural account in order to read something significant out of it. We can use texts of Scripture that we feel support what we want to say without considering the intent of the biblical author or the context of the verse. Those who want to address the heartfelt needs of their people are to be commended for their desire to be relevant, at the same time there is a greater betrayal of our calling than when we put words into God’s mouth. We’re saying what the Bible doesn’t say. Though we may want to bring comfort to people and encourage people, we do a great disservice to the Lord by saying what the Bible doesn’t say.
However we select the passage, we must allow it to speak for itself. Often a passage will not say what we expect it to say, we resort to proof texts. I want us to notice the difference between a topical message versus a topical exposition because exposition is taking a larger portion of Scripture is what it’s doing, it’s not just grabbing a topic and bouncing all over is what it’s doing. You’re taking a section of Scripture, which is quite different.
We now speak about the sermon length. Another factor we must consider in choosing what to preach is time. We must preach our sermons in a limited number of minutes. We must tailor our sermons to our time, and the cutting should be done in the study rather than in the pulpit. We need to stick to the time. Don’t steal.
I don’t know about you, do you know what I hate when a pastor says, “In closing,” and they go for twenty more minutes. I hate that. I want to stand up and say, “Liar. You promised me you were going to quit, and you haven’t, and you’re still going.” This is a funny one. A preacher came to the breakfast table with a cut on his cheek, and his wife asked, “What happened?” He said, “Well, I was concentrating on my sermon while shaving and I cut my face.” She said, “Well, maybe you should concentrate on shaving and cut your sermon.”
You are limited, of course, in the length of the passage you can present and deal with which you develop it. You will be limited, perhaps, to the major idea of the section, and in a few strokes, show the congregation how that idea comes from the passage and applies to life. Even if you are allowed 45 minutes for your sermons, you must still make choices. You can seldom tell your people all that you have discovered about it. We’ve been talking about that, right? Our problem is, where do I get the material? No, our problem is, we have too much material. I sometimes have 14 pages. I think right now, I just started on Monday, I think I have 11 pages. That’s way too much, but I’m not done adding to it either. I’m going to keep going. I’m going to add to it, and then will come out the hatchet. I’m going to start cutting and hacking, or maybe the machete, I’m going to start cutting.
Stage 1, choose the passage to be preached. Stage 2, study your passage and gather your notes. Our task begins with studying the passage and the recording our findings. There are several things we should consider. This is real important, the context. The context comes from two Latin words “with” or “together” and “to weave,” so it’s something woven together. Having selected the passage, we must first examine it in its context. The passage does not exist in isolation. As individual verses rest within a paragraph, the paragraphs are part of a chapter, and the chapters are part of the book.
When I start a new sermon every Sunday, I write in parentheses in yellow, I highlight it yellow, and I write “context.” Wherever I left off the previous week, I bring the context into where I’m at and I explain where it fits. That’s important to do. You can’t expect them to remember, so we remind them of what we said. We did say it, so we’re going to remind them of what we said, okay? At the very least, you would want to read the whole chapter to discover how this one paragraph fits within the larger section. If you really want to understand your paragraph, you should also ask questions about how the chapter that contains your paragraph fits within the entire book. The old saw still has a sharp edge—the text without the context is a pretext, which is a made up excuse. For this reason, we begin our study of a biblical passage by relating it to the broader literary unit of which it is a part. Usually this demands that we read the book several times and in different translations. Even if we have skills in reading Hebrew and Greek, we usually find it easier to map out the broad development of the author’s thought by reading it in English.
Different translations or different versions of the Bible, this is so helpful. This is a parallel Bible. This has four translations of the Bible. It’s got King James, the New American Standard, Williams, and Beck. You’d be surprised by reading that verse in four different translations, how you can get the gist of that verse. You’d be amazed at just reading the Bible, without looking at commentaries, without looking at anything, just simply that. I know something that I’ve been doing, it seems like almost every week, whether Wednesday or Thursday, I have been quoting from the New Living Translation. I love the New Living Translation. I use the New American Standard 1995, that’s the one I use, and I’ve been using it. The Apostle Paul used it, I use it. I feel like it’s good enough. I just use it. I like it. As a literary, sometimes people say, “Well, I don’t like it.” They kind of miss the point and then they say, “This is what the verse should say,” and there it is in the New American Standard. That’s just the way it is. I like that translation, I just like it. I got saved in ’75. I used that version, and I’ve been using it ever since, so I like it.
I think a parallel Bible, and there’s lots and lots of different parallel Bibles, and I think that it’s not a bad thing. You don’t have to have a parallel Bible. You can just have multiple Bibles. If you’ve got the room to lay them out, or if you’ve got Logos, you can put them on Logos and you can look at those. The New American Standard stays close to the original. Sometimes it’s a little wooden when read in public. The New King James some believe is closer to the original text. Others who like to be faithful to the past use the King James. It’s funny. When they use the King James, they translate it as they read it. They take out the “thee’s” and “thou’s” and all that other stuff. If that’s the Bible you use, that’s your book, then that’s your Bible. That’s your book.
Paraphrase Bibles, you have Eugene Peterson’s book—oh my gosh—The Message. I never quote from that. J.B. Phillips’ paraphrase is a great, great paraphrase of the Bible. The Living Bible and Good News For Modern Man. Those are all different paraphrase Bibles that you can check out, you can read. The New Living Translation, I love that. I just think it’s wonderful. Then, of course, the NIV, the nearly inspired version, is right there. I’ll say this right from the start, and there’s probably no guessing it, I will take physical books over digital books. I’m just going to say it. I have several hundred dollars in Logos. I have books that I have not read in Logos. I was telling Dennis that sometimes I go to the doctors, I’m supposed to be there for 15 minutes, it turns into two hours. Thank God for Logos because I didn’t bring other books, I maybe brought one book. I figured, “Ah! I’ll be there 15 minutes. I’ll bring this commentary with me. I’ll bring my computer, and as I’m reading, I’ll just kind of work through this book,” and then, “Oh, the doctor’s been delayed. It’ll be an hour and forty-five minutes.” Praise God for Logos! I turn to Logos. I’ve got hundreds and hundreds of dollars in books there. I can study away.
One of the things that Don McClure said, and some of you may have heard him, years ago that when he would travel he would photocopy his commentaries and then bring the photocopies with him. Now, something that I’ve done a few times when I’ve been traveling is I take my iPad Pro, and take pictures of the pages, and then I just keep it on the iPad. The beauty of the iPad is you can make it as big as you want, especially if it’s a split column, you can just make it one column. So, you have all the books, and I’m going through 21 books, and I’m carrying a backpack with 21 books, I just carry the iPad and everything’s on it. I’ve even used it on the airplane. I pull out the iPad and I’ve got everything right there and just start working on it while you’re just sitting on a five-hour flight, you can certainly use it.
I personally, at the end of the day, I will take a book, a physical book over a digital book. I know some of you hate me right now because you don’t believe that and that’s not what you’re…but that’s just…and I think John would do the same thing. You’d take a physical book, right? Yeah. When the electricity goes out, I’ve got my book. When the computer crashes, I’ve still got my book. I know some of you are saying, “Well, I’ve got other iPads,” okay.
Introductions to the Old and New Testament, Talk Thru The Bible, we talked about this already a couple of times, I would get this book. I would absolutely buy this book. You’re going to start a book, I would just use it. It’s like six pages. It’s a wonderful, wonderful book. It’s simple. It’s easy. You can get the gist of a book by just taking the time to just get this. This is a great book. So, you’ve got Talk Thru The Bible, there you go, right there. That’s a great way to go.
You’ve got…here’s a good one, With The Word, Warren Wiersbe. He covers every chapter of the Bible. Check it out. I would go abebooks, get this in hardback because it’s a reference book. Softback is what, front to cover five times falls apart, hardback 50 times, I would go hardback. Go in and get this. You will love this. You could use this devotionally. If you want to read a couple of chapters, read a couple chapters out of this. You could use this. This is a great thing.
You’ve got the, Believer’s Bible Commentary, this is good; all in one volume. It’s really big.
Oh, here’s a great one, Robert Gromacki. John talked about him. This guy is unbelievable. So, you’ve got Robert Gromacki, and this is an overview of the Bible. This is really good. Here’s another one, F.B. Meyer, the entire Bible in one book. This would be a great one, and he goes through. You can just check each chapter out. This has two volumes, I only brought one because I could only carry so much and I was overflowing anyway. This is Old Testament Wiersbe. He outlines the entire Old Testament, and then there’s another volume, he outlines the entire New Testament, so two-volume, Old and New Testament, Dr. Warren Wiersbe. It’s really good for overviewing. You can read that one, that’s good.
William Barclay, an interesting individual, he is the most liberal guy. I mean, he didn’t believe in miracles. I think he’s fun to read because when it comes to the miracles, he explains them away. It’s fun to watch how he tries to do it. It’s kind of funny. When he reads the feeding of the five thousand, he says, “Jesus kind of moved His hands and kind of did this thing.” As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been reading people I don’t like, and I’ve got to tell you, Barclay is wonderful. I think his Letters To The Seven Churches are amazing. He talks about Laodicea had two sources of water—they had a hot water source, by the time it got there it was lukewarm; it had a cold source, by the time it got there it was lukewarm. He said, “I wish that you were hot nor cold.” That’s William Barclay. “I will make you a pillar in the house of my God,” they were on a fault. They were constantly tottering, having earthquakes. People would run out. He said, “You won’t run in or run out anymore. I’m going to make you stable.” That’s Barclay. William Barclay, when he does his historical parts are just absolutely wonderful.
Not only should our passage be placed within the broader unity of the book, but it must also be related to its immediate context. For instance, if you’re teaching 1 Corinthians 13, do you think it would be important to mention chapter 12, the misuse of the gifts, because chapter 13 is saying, “The problem is that love is lacking in your spiritual gifts.” Then you can go into chapter 14. That would be an in-your-face example why you want to give the context of it because you could just say, “Oh, he’s just talking about love.” Well, he’s talking about love because there’s a lack of love in the church.
As you read the passage in different translations, do so with a pen in hand. Write out as precisely as possible the problems you have in understanding the passage. Write them all down, make yourself state them. I used to write them out on a pad of paper, but since then I’ve gone to the computer, and I love cutting and pasting. I just love it. It’s so simple. You could rearrange everything, and it’s easy to delete things and so forth. When I first started, I was doing Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday on one pad of paper, each message. I was figuring, that’s three a week! My brain started to think, After a year, that’s a lot. That’d be 150-160+ tablets. I don’t have enough book shelves for all these, and I started to think it through. That’s when I made that transition, and I started to do the computer thing, and I like it a lot. I just think it’s easy, and of course, every time there’s an update it creates problems, but you deal with it.
Remember that you’re looking for the author’s idea. Begin by stating in rough fashion what you think the author is talking about, that is his subject. Then, try to determine what major assertions the biblical writer is making about the subject, that is, the complements. If you cannot state a subject at this point, what is hindering you from doing so? Here are some suggestions: Is there a verse that doesn’t seem to fit? Is it that you can’t figure out how this paragraph relates to what precedes or follows it? Is there an image the author uses that you don’t understand? Uncovering the questions you have and writing them down can help you to get at the author’s subject.
Having placed the passage within its context, you must now examine it in detail. In the epistles, and in parts of the gospel, this means examining vocabulary and grammatical structure of the passage. Let’s look at an example. This is an example. Our unity, Ephesians 4:4-6. We start in verse 1, and it says, “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, 3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Look at verse 4, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.”
In that passage, seven times he uses the word “one.” We’re looking for a key verse, we just found it. Our key word, there it is, seven times the word “one.” Look at the word “all” is used four times. So, an accurate title for this section could be our unity, right? Because he is talking about oneness and he is talking about “all,” so you could be safe in saying, “Hey, I think I’m going to entitle this, “Our Unity,” or “Our Unity in Christ.”
The narrative passages you will look for statements by the author that explain what is taking place. For example, in 2 Samuel 11, the historian reports on the sin of David without judgment. Only at the end of the chapter does the comment that what David did displeased the Lord. Where there are no editorial comments, you must ask the question like, “Why did the biblical author include this episode? Are there details in the passage that at first seem extraneous?” Again, we want to say, “Why was it there? Why did he put this here?” Sometimes it’s like that. You say, “Why in the world did he say this?”
Right now I’m going through Genesis 48, and as he’s talking about the Lord’s blessings in his life, and then all of the sudden he mentions, “ . . . and my wife Rachel died and I had to bury her.” Here’s a person, 147 years old, and he’s remembering the death of his wife, how much it hurt him; but at the same time he remembers how God carried him and how God was with him.
You need not be an expert in the Hebrew and Greek languages to use them with benefit, and almost anyone can use some of the available linguistic tools. Let’s talk about lexicons. A lexicon serves as a kind of dictionary for the original languages. Through using a lexicon we can find definitions of a word as it is used in Hebrew and Greek, but it’s more than a dictionary. Along with the definition of the word, it gives us the root meanings, identifications of some grammatical forms, and lists the passages as well.
I’ve got to say this. I am using Logos exclusively for word studies. I have a lot of books, a lot of lexicons. I’ve got lots of word studies, but I have found that Logos is so simple. All you do is go to the word in Logos, right click and highlight the word, and click “word study.” Wow, and a word study comes up on that word. It’s so simple to use. I mean, when I used to get out the lexicons, you have a big desk, like what you guys have, and you’re laying books all over. I just go into the computer, I just highlight that word that I want to look up, and I right click on that word. This is a Berry’s interlinear, and you can look at it. It’s a Greek one. What he does is he has the English, he gave his translation of the English above the Greek. I used to use this all the time, but now that you’ve got Logos, you don’t really need to use that.
Concordance to the Bible, of course, online you have that. You can look up the word “love,” and see how many times the word is used. It’ll give you the number. You can look up the word “Jehovah,” or “Elohim” and you can look at how many times that you can look at the first mention of when it’s used. You can use that.
There’s grammar books, grammar of the Hebrew and Greek. Words must be understood as they are used in phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs. You’ve got word study books. Again, this is where Wuest, I love this, this is a great set, Wuest’s Word Studies in the New Testament. This is a great book. Here’s another one by Vincent. Aren’t they both right around five volumes each, right around there. These are wonderful. You can come up and check them out. He goes into great detail. He’ll take a word and go on for a paragraph explaining the word. It’s a tremendous help. It goes into great, great detail. I believe some of those might even be on Logos. I’m not really sure if it is.
Oh, I love this one, “I only read the Bible. I don’t read commentaries. Do you know what I do, Pastor? I stick to the Bible.” Oh, I love that one. That’s one of my favorite ones. Then, I’ll say, “Well, I stick to the Bible, but I read other stuff, too.” Ephesians 4:11 says, “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body Christ.” Some of the saints I’m reading are dead, but I still read them and it’s their books. The Bible says we need teachers. I need teachers. All of us in this room need teachers. I will humble myself and say, “I need to be taught.” I love when I get a Sunday off and I get to travel to a different church and listen to someone else so I could be fed. I want to hear what they have to say. That’s right to do that. All we’re doing is receiving a teacher through printed form. Why would we reject that when the Bible says that He has given them to the church?
In 2 Timothy 4:13, “When you come,”—Paul’s imprisonment—“bring the cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments.” Here’s Paul on his deathbed about to give his head, and he’s asking for Timothy to bring books, books probably papyrus, possibly scrolls of the Old Testament. The “parchments” would be writings. We don’t know what those writings are. But Paul was a scholar, so Paul wanted not only the Scriptures, but he also wanted the “parchments” and the books. So, I absolutely love books, and as I’ve said, over the years I’ve begun to read people that I didn’t like before, and some them have a reform spin on them. They do, like Arthur Pink.
If you read a lot of Arthur Pink, you’ll get pink eye. I remember one time I was reading him, and all of the sudden he launches into a two-page on infant baptism. I’m going, “What in the world was that? That must’ve been in ‘fleshalonians’ or something. Where did that come from?” He’s talking about infant baptism. These reformed guys, a lot of them are real good scholars. It’s kind of like chicken gumbo. I wouldn’t give chicken gumbo to a 1-1/2 or a 2-year old. Do you know why? They can’t differentiate between the bones and the meat, and they’re liable to choke.
I don’t recommend from the pulpit John MacArthur because John MacArthur has some reform, especially limited atonement and some of this other stuff that he got into in his latter days. I think John is fantastic. I think he’s a wonderful teacher, but I won’t recommend him because we got folks that will choke on John MacArthur. I’ve seen people get a John MacArthur Bible and they became like John MacArthur. So, though I’ll mention someone like William Barclay, I’ll preface it with, “He didn’t believe in miracles and all this other stuff, but I want to give credit for what he said here. This is an incredible statement that William Barclay made.” I will do that.
Over the years I’m reading people that I would never have read before, and I’m able to differentiate between what they’re saying and so forth, and I don’t necessarily choke on them. So, here’s a general rule. A general rule is it’s wiser and cheaper to select the best volumes by individual Bible books than by buying series. Now, I’ll make some exceptions to this. I think Warren Wiersbe’s BE Series, you should buy that—Old and New Testament. What is it, a total of six volumes, I think? It’s six volumes, Old and New Testament. You should buy that. You will never regret buying the BE Series of the Old and New Testament. You will never, ever, ever regret it. He does well in every book. I love, again, Dr. Wiersbe. He is wonderful. You could never go wrong with him. He is one that I can say, “Just buy his book.”
Let’s talk about critical, analytical, exegetical commentaries. This one is called Lange’s. I have this, Old and New Testament. It’s almost like interpreting an Orange County phone book. I kid you not. I mean, this is detail, detail, detail. You can come up and look at the parts of the words and everything. I mean, it is insane. You may have a five, six verses that may go on for eight pages, and you can look at the size of the text. I mean, you want information? Guess what, you got it. So, you’ve got Lange’s, really, a lot of information.
John talked about Gromacki. We talked about it, he is phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. His 2 Corinthians, oh my gosh. His Philippians, oh my gosh. Every book, oh my gosh. It’s wonderful. I love this. He’s unbelievable.
I really appreciate Lenski. I used him when I went through the gospel of Luke, and I tell you, his insights. Alright, he’s a Lutheran, he’s reformed background, but oh my gosh, I just love this guy. I was just so touched when I went through it. Here’s The Pulpit Commentary, Old and New Testament. I forget how many volumes. What is it, like 26 or something? It’s big. Again, it’s critical, you have different authors’ take on the passage, you’ve got the words in Hebrew and Greek, and it just goes on and on and on. I’m looking here, almost a full page on just one verse. Again, this is critical. You want to get into the words, you want to get technical, this is your book right here. You can certainly do that.
Then, of course, William Hendriksen, another reformed guy. This is a good book. You’ve just got to learn to pick through it. You’ve just got to figure it out.
Then, you have homiletical/devotional commentaries like J. Vernon McGee. You’ve got Dr. Warren Wiersbe would fall under there, Dr. Harry Ironside. R. Kent Hughes, his Preach The Word series, that’s a great series. It’s great. Along with that, John’s mentioned James Montgomery Boice, using him for Genesis, three volumes on Genesis. Ray Steadman, Roy Laurin. Roy Laurin, of course, was Billy Graham says, “I have every book Roy Laurin wrote.” John Philips can outline an Orange County phonebook. I’ve never seen anybody that can alliterate and he can do an 8-point message all beginning with A. I don’t know how he does it. I don’t even know if some of the words he uses are words, but he does it. He is the master of alliterating an outline. I mean, there’s no one like John Phillips.
Jerry Vines is phenomenal. G. Campbell Morgan, he is wonderful. W. Criswell, Graham Scroggie, Griffith Thomas, Alexander Maclaren. Now, this was one that I got at Archives. I got this set. I had a set that was inferior so I replaced it with this set. This is a great set. Warren Wiersbe says, “If I read him first, I’ll preach it.” So, Maclaren’s going to be good. Here’s the John Phillips set.
Expositional Commentaries, I like this set. I have this set. I want to say it’s like 30+ volumes, this set right here, and I’ve been using it. What I like about it is, let me just go to a page and I’ll show you. The original meaning he starts with the context, the original meaning. Okay, and then you come over to here and he has “bridging the context,” and then you come over here and he has “contemporary significance, how it relates today,” and then he has “application thoughts.” This is pretty good. I like this one.
Then, of course, this one is very similar, this Holman Commentary set. This is another set. This is pretty much close to this. On Luke 12, dedicated and dependent and then it’s real good. It gives a quote, he gives supporting idea. Sometimes the idea of the text, the central idea of the text, he does a pretty good job because actually he’ll give a thought of that passage. Sometimes I look at it and see what he says, and sometimes it’s something that’s good. But here he has for Luke 12:1-12, supporting idea, “Fear need not control your life, if you’re willing to rely on the Holy Spirit.” That’s the thought with those first twelve verses, so you have that.
You have bibliographies, of course, Cyril J. Barber. It’s a two volume, and of course John I think has put out one. John has one. I like John. John has that bibliography on books that you should buy, that is excellent. All the books that I’m mentioning are actually on there. He has Gromacki, all of those. That is really good.
Then, I kind of gave a list of just some books that we might consider. One of the books that I use when I…I’ve been to India probably like 25 times. When I used to go to India, because you’re limited in what you can bring, I would bring the Life Application Bible, and let me tell you why. Sometimes you were called upon to say something, the Life Application Bible is really good. It gives an outline before each book. It gives the key verse. It does a lot of the stuff that Talk Thru The Bible does but much more limited. That’s pretty good. Unger’s Bible Dictionary, Halley’s. Chuck Smith said, “Every believer should have this, Halley’s Bible Handbook.” You should have that. Webster’s Dictionary, Warren Wiersbe, Be Series, Old and New Testament, Halley’s Bible Handbook, and Talk thru The Bible.
Bible software, Logos. I already mentioned it. There’s E-Sword. You might consider E-Sword, and then Olive Tree Bible. I think Logos, of course, is like the standard. That’s like the book. That’s the series. I mean, that’s the software that you want.
So, stage 1, you choose the passage to be preached. Stage 2, you study your passage and gather your notes. Stage 3, as you study the passage, relate the parts to each other to determine the exegetical idea and development. The subject, the initial statement of a subject will often be too broad. To narrow it, try testing your subject with a series of definitive questions. A bit of verse tells us what these questions are. Here they are. I had six faithful friends, they taught me all I know, their names are How, What, Why, When, Where, and Who. You know, those are great, aren’t they? I mean, they really are. You read an article and apply those to the author or the writer of the article and even answer the basic questions.
Hermeneutics is the science of biblical interpretation, the branch of theology that deals with the principles of biblical exegesis. While the letters, epistles, in the New Testament make fundamental contributions to Christian theology, they constitute only one of many literary forms found in the Bible. The Scriptures contain many types of literature such as parables, poetry, proverbs, prayers, speeches, allegories, history, law, contracts, biography, drama, apocalypse and stories. When working in an narrative literature we seldom have to work through a maze of complex grammatical relationships, but instead we derive the author’s meaning from a broad study of several paragraphs.
Much of the Old Testament is poetic in form, and I like this. I think this is good. One device you may find helpful is to paraphrase the passage in your own words. Be exact in thought, and carefully state the relationships you see within the text whether the biblical writer explicitly states them or not. As you write, you may have to alter the statement of your exegetical idea to fit the parts of the passage. Don’t bend the passage to fit your statement of the idea.
The summary, at this point, as a result our study, we should be able to do two things: 1) state the idea of the passage in a single sentence that combines your subject and your complement. Again, the complement is your outline. It’s explaining your thought. 2) To state how the parts of the passage relate to the idea. Okay, let’s pray.
