Clarity of Form & Structure in Preaching, Part 2

In this part of the sermon: Before defining perspicuity, Martin lays out two foundational principles: legitimate diversity of organizational inclination among preachers (illustrated by arranging rooms) and…

Two women arrange identical furniture in identical rooms, both achieving neat, symmetrical, and aesthetically pleasing results, but with diverse arrangements. This illustrates that there exists legitimate diversity in organizational inclination among preachers, and there are no 'wooden rules' for sermon structure.

Now perhaps I can best convey the meaning of my words by the use of a simple analogy or an extended illustration. Imagine if you will, please, that you have been ushered in by the teaching of the Holy Spirit into a house in which there are two rooms exactly the same size, they are twelve by twenty, they have been painted the same color, and as you look into these two rooms separated by a wall with no window or opening so that you can see from one into the other, you notice that stacked in the middle of each room is a sofa, two large chairs, three tables, two pillow pillows, two planters, and f...

3:21 - 4:32 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not absolutize with respect to the subject of form and structure, recognizing legitimate diversity in organizational inclination.

Adam was given liberty to express his aesthetic inclinations in dressing and keeping the garden, and would have consulted Eve. This further supports the idea of legitimate diversity in organizational inclination, even within God's created order, and provides a lesson on biblical headship.

Or why could there be? Two different arrangements, and yet both have those qualities which we've described under neatness and symmetry, etc. Well I would suggest that it goes right back to the whole principle woven into the fabric of man at creation. When God gave Adam the task to dress the garden and to keep it, there's no indication that he gave him a blueprint in which he was told to place this shrub here and to cultivate this flower here and this plant over here.

6:09 - 6:43 Read in full sermon

The point: If you have more native gift in organization, excel in this discipline, be humble, cultivate it to its highest reaches, and help others of lesser ability.

A third woman, given the same task as the first two, fails to organize her room, leaving it in disarray. This illustrates that there are varying degrees of native organizational ability among preachers, and some may lack the fundamental skill required for ministry.

We find a poor soul running around the room, tearing her hair out, everything in total disarray. She has moved the sofa 13 times. She's moved the chairs 24 times. The walls are falling apart. She's moved the chairs 24 times. The walls are falling apart. She's moved the chairs 24 times. The walls are falling apart. She's moved the chairs 24 times. The walls are full of holes where she's banged in the picture hangers and shaking them out. And the poor soul is just in a frazzle. After two hours, she's not been able to do anything to organize that room. Now then, going back to all three, what is t...

12:56 - 13:39 Read in full sermon

The point: Ensure there is order in your preaching and at the level of your preparation, distinguishing it from chaos.

An army with various units (infantry, tanks, howitzers) must have independent identity for each unit but also an orderly arrangement for all to contribute to the single goal of winning the battle. This illustrates the need for 'order' in a sermon, where distinct thoughts contribute to one great end.

We go back to the analogy used by many of the writers on homiletics. That of an army. The army that has its foot soldiers, its infantry. It has its tanks and its bazooka operators and those who fire the howitzers and those who fire the larger guns.

21:41 - 22:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Ensure there is order in your preaching and at the level of your preparation, distinguishing it from chaos.

God's work of creation, bringing order out of waste and void, is likened to sermon production. The preacher must bring forth a 'cosmos of thought' from raw exegetical materials, separating ideas for clarity, just as God separated light from darkness.

there must be. And anyone who doesn't know the difference between order and chaos has no business being in the ministry. Now, it's one thing to assert, as I have done, that we cannot absolutize with respect to what constitutes order that makes preaching clear. But certainly each of us knows there is a difference between order and chaos. And we know the difference, when we hear it, between an orderly and a jumbled up sermon. So there must then, in our preaching and at the level of our preparation, if there is to be, perspicuity of form and structure, there must be order. And here I see the anal...

23:25 - 24:29 Read in full sermon

The point: Ensure there is order in your preaching and at the level of your preparation, distinguishing it from chaos.

Cecil's illustration of a maid forgetting purchases from an unordered list but remembering them when given a chronologically ordered list (for washing day and entertaining) demonstrates how 'order' and 'natural classification' relieve the difficulty of recollection for the hearer.

from one another that need to be separated, if there is to be clarity of expression. Speaking to this matter says, and I quote from page 131, In speaking you address to your hearers a series of thoughts which he is to remember. Now, do you not see that every trait of natural order in the ranking of these thoughts diminishes his labor? The memory takes them up with ease, because their connection with each other presents them to her ready grasp. The more exact, the more exact, the more exact, the more exactly they are arranged under their several proper heads, and the more correctly their sequen...

25:23 - 26:40 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not force the text or add to it, and do not become a slave to mechanical notions of sermon structure.

Dr. Lloyd-Jones' anecdote about a preacher whose sermon on 'Balaam arose early and saddled his ass' included a third point, 'a few remarks concerning the woman of Samaria,' humorously illustrates the complete lack of 'unity' in discourse.

Our sermons and lessons should, in a sense, be reflective, of the greatest mystery of being, and that is, of course, the triune God. There is unity in diversity, and there is diversity in unity. There is oneness in plurality, and there is plurality in oneness. And as we are not Unitarians in our theology, but neither are we polytheists, we do not want to be Unitarians or polytheists in our preaching. There must be unity of difference. Discourse, so that the various parts of the sermon are indeed parts of one whole. Now, Dr. Lloyd-Jones, who now sees face to face the things he so powerfully pre...

30:32 - 31:39 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not force the text or add to it, and do not become a slave to mechanical notions of sermon structure.

Broadus describes sermons with incongruous divisions as a caricature of a creature with a human head, horse's neck, body parts from all directions, and a fish's tail. This vividly illustrates the lack of 'unity' and organic relationship between sermon parts.

become a slave to these mechanical notions. Thirdly and lastly, a few thoughts concerning the woman of Samaria. Now, the kindest thing we can say about that poor character is that he had no sense of the unity of discourse essential to preaching. What relationship the woman of Samaria had to the art of saddlery or to this virtue in a bad man eludes me, and I'm sure it eluded the preacher and everyone who heard him. And on this point, and I'm going to give more quotes on this point than any of the other, all of the writers who themselves were preachers and were known to be able preachers speak w...

33:25 - 34:40 Read in full sermon

The point: See the end from the beginning in every sermon, knowing exactly what truth you are driving home and defining it clearly.

Dickens' initial hazy outlines for Pickwick, with early installments released before a plot was conceived, is contrasted with the preacher's imperative to 'see the end from the beginning' for sermon 'unity' and effectiveness.

What is the truth this sermon is to convey? Can I concentrate that into a single sentence? It is true, no doubt, that when Dickens first invented Pickwick, there were only the haziest outlines of an idea in the author's mind what to do with the character he had created. True, that the early installments of the story were launched upon the world in serial numbers before any course had been charted or any plot conceived. But for the preacher, it is true that the author's mind is not the author's mind. It is true that the author's mind is not the author's mind. It is true that the author's mind i...

38:43 - 39:14 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The third element is 'proportion,' which means avoiding radically disproportionate elements in sermons unless textual fidelity demands it. Using the example of Romans 12:1 and a…

Asking someone to list major body components and having them include 'toenails' alongside head, torso, arms, and legs, illustrates a lack of 'proportion' by elevating a minor part to a major category, which appears grotesque and humorous.

But this matter of proportion. Now, some men seem to have, again, an innate inability to sense this. And so I've tried again to use grotesque illustrations that may help make the thing stand out in your mind. Suppose we were to ask a man, please describe the major components of the human body.

43:49 - 44:09 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The fourth element is 'simplicity,' defined as freedom from intricacy and complexity. Martin critiques excessive subdivisions, particularly in some Puritan works, and emphasizes…

Shedd's analogy of 'infinite divisibility of matter' (dividing a line endlessly) describes sermons with too many subdivisions that produce no conviction. This illustrates the problem of lacking 'simplicity' and becoming overly intricate.

They are good illustrations of the infinite divisibility of matter, but they produce no conviction in the popular mind because they employ the philosophical instead of the rhetorical mode of demonstration. You know what he means by the infinite divisibility of matter, don't you?

52:14 - 52:33 Read in full sermon

The point: Aim for two telling points rather than four or five subtly divided ones, making it easier for hearers to grasp the sermon's core.

Dabney's metaphor of a beautiful tree (with stem, branches, twigs, foliage) reduced to an 'unsightly heap of chips' illustrates how a discourse with too many divisions and subdivisions loses its natural beauty and 'simplicity'.

They cast an air of insufferable dryness over a discourse. It is as though the tree, beautiful in the proportions of its stem, its branches, its twigs, and its foliage, the natural constituent parts, were reduced to an unsightly heap of chips. You see what he's saying now? A discourse that is not what it would have.

54:46 - 55:06 Read in full sermon

The point: Ensure your sermon has completeness: a beginning, a destination, and a clear stopping point, leaving hearers with a complete thought.

An engineer designing a bridge that stops six feet short of the other side, or the actual 'Bridge to Nowhere' in Lancaster County, illustrates a sermon that lacks 'completeness' – it goes somewhere but doesn't arrive, leaving hearers midstream.

I don't like to pick on engineers, but for some reason they come to my mind in my illustrations. There may be an engineer who designs a bridge and it has order, unity, proportion, simplicity. Only one thing wrong with it. He stopped it six feet short of the other side of the river.

57:25 - 57:47 Read in full sermon

The point: Maintain the conviction that the edification and salvation of your hearers demands clarity and perspicuity of form and structure.

Rearranging the words of a simple sentence ('We must speak with simple words in the proper order') into nonsense demonstrates how the order and arrangement of words (and thoughts) are crucial for speech to be 'easy to be understood' and perspicuous.

I'm going to use a silly illustration.

63:18 - 63:20 Read in full sermon

The point: Practice self-denial by saying 'no' to leisure activities that would detract from the labor required for clear sermon preparation.

The mental and spiritual struggle of sermon preparation is likened to a woman's labor pains, with the 'exhilaration' of a clear, complete sermon being the 'abundant recompense' that makes all the pain worthwhile.

And with me, so often, the breakthrough will come when I'm out jogging. There's something about getting away from the desk and having the oxygen pumped into those far reaches of the brain when the cardiovascular system is working. I don't understand it, but then it is. It must feel something like what a woman feels when going through her labor pains.

82:17 - 82:36 Read in full sermon