In "The Body of a Textual Sermon, Part 2," Pastor Albert N. Martin outlines the practical steps for preparing the main argument of a textual sermon. He emphasizes the critical role of prayer, diligent textual analysis, and careful structuring of sermon divisions, drawing on insights from Murray, Shedd, Lloyd-Jones, and Ryle. Martin provides concrete advice on using linguistic aids, organizing notes, and crafting clear, well-worded divisions, while also stressing the importance of incorporating illustrations and specific applications tailored to the congregation. The sermon concludes with miscellaneous suggestions for ongoing improvement, including exposure to good preaching models and judiciously receiving criticism.
“I do not say that in your desperation you fall back on the Holy Spirit. I urge that in all your researches you realize your complete dependence upon Him for light and understanding...”
“So, brethren, the initial step, as with the body of a topical sermon, so with the body of a textual sermon, earnest prayer for the present assistance of the Holy Spirit.”
“I'm prepared to go frustrated with a very poor outline into the pulpit if the moment of truth comes, rather than knowingly distort the word of God in order to have a nice, neat little outline.”
“Much easier to go to your bed with a sense that you were aesthetically poor than to go to your bed haunted that you distorted the word of God for the sake of appearing homiletically neat and clever.”
“You had something more than your lexicons and your commentaries, and something more than your Rodale synonym finder. You had your people in your heart.”
“The longer I live and the more I try to understand preaching, the more I'm convinced that whatever else it is it is an acquired imitated spiritual art form.”
“Let's go to our graves striving for optimum usefulness in the proclamation of the word.”
“Quit while they're still asking for more from the table.”
Applications
All listeners
Earnestly pray for the present assistance of the Holy Spirit when preparing a discourse.
Engage in attentive and repeated reading of the text in its native setting to gain a general acquaintance with its overall pattern of thought.
Conduct a careful analysis of the text itself, examining grammatical construction and key words, using linguistic aids.
Use an exegesis sheet, a homiletical sheet, and a miscellaneous thoughts/application sheet to organize your studies and capture insights.
Prioritize faithfulness to the mind of God in the text over having a neat outline, even if it means preaching with a 'poor outline'.
Reduce the sermon materials to their natural divisions, letting the text determine the structure rather than imposing artificial divisions.
Wisely arrange the sermon divisions, understanding that the order may be altered for pastoral or evangelistic reasons without distorting the text.
Carefully word the sermon divisions, using parallel verbal constructions to help the audience follow the sermon's track.
Work in necessary illustrations to clarify opaque or obscure parts of the sermon and to reinforce its force.
Work in specific applications by thinking the sermon through from the perspective of your people, answering the 'so what?' question for various life situations.
Make it evident in your application that your people were in your heart during sermon preparation.
Work in clear connections and transitions between sermon points to guide the audience's minds smoothly.
Construct the sermon introduction at the end of the preparation process, once the entire sermon is clear.
Seek to expose yourself to a variety of good models of textual preaching to develop effective skills.
Continually read authors who have written on the subject of textual preaching, always seeking to learn and improve.
Do not file away sermons and preach them the same way; go back to the text and strive to improve your handling of it each time.
Welcome and judiciously receive criticism from competent critics, including discerning saints, to improve your preaching efforts.
Do not preach too long in your early years; develop the skills to carry people comfortably for a shorter duration before attempting longer sermons.
Quit preaching while the audience is still asking for more, rather than sending them home with mental and spiritual agony.
A full transcript is available on the
tab. 85 paragraphs, roughly 41 minutes.
Machine transcription
Initial Steps: Prayer and Textual Engagement
All right, gentlemen, having considered what is the main bulk of the material for this morning in articulating the goal envisioned in the body or the argument of a textual sermon, now let's come in the second place to consider the means or the steps necessary to attain this goal. And as with the former lecture, we'll break down the material into three sections. The initial steps, the intermediate, and the concluding steps.
Now, the initial steps are, and here we start exactly where we did with the topical sermon, earnest prayer for the present assistance of the Holy Spirit.
Earnest prayer for the present assistance of the Holy Spirit.
When we actually come to our desks to do the work of preparing a specific discourse upon a specific text with reference to a... a specific opportunity of ministry, it is essential that the mind of the Spirit be given to us and that our own minds and spirits be brought into an elevated frame for this task.
There is a marvelous statement on this very principle in Professor Murray's Collected Writings, Volume 3, pages 212 and 213. I won't read the entire section. But it's a sermon on the ministry of the Holy Spirit and with reference to what I'm underscoring here. Listen to the old professor.
We may not suppress the distinctive way in which the disciples were partakers of the Holy Spirit, but there is a continuous function of the Holy Spirit for our appropriation. The greatest task of a teacher of the Word of God is to understand the Scriptures. There can be no communication without understanding. There will be in the discharge of your tasks blood, sweat, toil, and tears.
The mass of Christian literature is yours to aid you in understanding, but I suspect that as a faithful steward of the mysteries of God, the mass of interpretation will sometime, if not oftentimes, be your embarrassment rather than your escape. Oh, I would plead this great doctrine of the Holy Spirit and particularly this prerogative of the Holy Spirit as His glory to lead into all truth. I do not say that in your desperation you fall back on the Holy Spirit. I urge that in all your researches you realize your complete dependence upon Him for light and understanding, and that in connection, you may know the sealing witness of the Holy Spirit and the empowering of His demonstration and the delivery, so that the faith of men, the full assurance of understanding, will not rest upon the wisdom of men, but upon the power of God. Now that's no wild-eyed Pentecostal writing. That's the good old professor from the Highlands.
Page 212 and 213 of Volume 3, Collected Writings. Page 212 and 213 of Volume 3, Collected Writings. Page 212 and 213 of Volume 3, Collected Writings. Every sermon true to the Word is the voice of the Spirit, but may there be not only the voice, but the power of the Spirit.
And I think the statement most significant in that whole section is, I do not say that in your desperation you fall back upon the Spirit. When you've used all your aids and exhausted all your ability, oh Lord, please help. But on the front end, in the initial step, earnest prayer for the assistance of the Holy Spirit, remembering that some of the worst errors ever let loose upon the Church were let loose upon the Church by good and earnest men.
All right?
And listen to Shedd, whose whole approach to homiletics at many points I have faulted as being too much influenced by classic rhetoric, yet on this point we can say amen to the good doctor. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Probably therefore page 115 of his book on pastoral theology and homiletics, no better advice can be given to the preacher in respect of which we are speaking than that very same advice which he gives to the common Christian when he asks for the best means and methods of quickening his religious affections. It has been said by one of the most profound and devout minds of English literature that, quote, quote, quote, the power of solitude passed in sincere and earnest prayer or the conflict with and conquest over a single passion or a subtle bosom sin will teach us more of thought and more effectually awaken the faculty and form the habit of reflection than a year's study in the schools without them, end quote. If prayer and Christian self-discipline do this for the habits of thought, most certainly will they do the same for the habits of feeling. If an hour of serious self-examination and self-mortification
or an hour of devout meditation and earnest prayer does not set the affections of the preacher into a glow, probably nothing in the way of means can do it. The greatest preachers have consequently been in the habit of preparing for the composition of their sermons by a season of prayer and meditation. And then he goes on to quote Luther and others, and his point is that unless we come to our task with a mind and a spirit heightened in their sensitivity to the word of God, we may well miss, if not an accurate understanding of the passage, we'll miss its burden. And we will be bypassed in terms of a felt interaction with the mind of God contained in that passage of the word of God. So, brethren, the initial step, as with the body of a topical sermon, so with the body of a textual sermon, earnest prayer for the present assistance of the Holy Spirit. Second initial step, attentive and repeated reading of the text in its native setting. Attentive and repeated reading of the text in its native setting.
There is no substitute for the general acquaintance with the overall pattern of thought that comes in the wake of repeated reading of the text in its native setting. This will enable you to make your dealing with the context both accurate and artful. And also it will keep you from anything that would be a problem for you. It will keep you from anything that would be a problem for you.
It will keep you from anything that would be somebody that would be sinfully novel in your handling of the text itself. So the second initial step that I recommend is attentive and repeated reading of the text in its native setting. Third initial step, careful analysis of the text itself.
Detailed Textual Analysis and Note-Taking
Careful analysis of the text itself. What is its grammatical instruction? I'm sorry. What are the main finite verbs?
What are the parting words? disciples. Here's where you will find that the torture and the agony of having to get a working acquaintance with your original languages will become a means of great delight when you're seeking to have confidence that what you're going to convey is the word of God. And when you can deal first hand with your helps at your elbow, but with some degree of confidence that you are seeing the mind of the spirit in its own native setting in the original language, you are examining the grammatical construction. You are noting secondly the key words. And this will lead you then into some of your word studies.
Some of you who were here a few weeks ago remember how I confessed in my own setting forth of the exposition of the entry into Jerusalem, how I was struck with the paragraph in its preoccupation with the donkey. Well, that was just by repeated reading of the passage and saying Lord, help me to feel the weight of what's here in the passage, and everything centered in a donkey. And that question began to haunt me at my desk. Why everything centering in a donkey?
Why a donkey? Why a donkey? Why a donkey? Why a donkey?
Well, you were here. No, the significance of that came to its climax at the end of the sermon when we turn to Zechariah 9 in verse 9. Well, it's at that stage in the careful analysis of the text itself, not only its grammatical construction but its key words. And it's at this point that you will use your linguistic aids, your concordances, your lexicons. You'll use your subtuagent here if you're doing New Testament preaching, your grammatical aids, your technical commentaries. And while you do this, may I suggest, brethren, that you have several sheets before you on the desk. I told you we would be practical because I'm not talking to you as someone who's really got a theory of this.
I keep before me at the beginning, at this stage, an exegesis sheet.
And when I'm doing what I'm urging you to do, analyzing the grammatical construction of the key words, I just put them by verse. Verse 11 and then any words, any thoughts that I need to write down from my lexicons or more critically verse 12. And then as many pages as I need, I have the fruit of that more technical study on this sheet. And then number one, and sometimes that gets backed up with two or three.
Then I have another one called my homiletical sheet. And I call this any outline that begins to suggest itself from the passage. Jot it down. Sometimes it will come as the grammatical construction breaks open and immediately the outline becomes pink.
Well, capture it while it's fresh in your mind. And then I call this my miscellaneous thoughts, application sheet. And then any thoughts that come in any of this process, I just write them down randomly. Things that begin to flow out of this more intense exposure to the text.
Observations, applications, illustrations. And you can never predict. It's amazing how sometimes on the very front end of your more technical studies, you may get some of your richest thoughts in terms of the burden of the passage. Capture that and put it down. Sometimes you may be all through this, have it out, and you still haven't got a sermon. And you've got to wait and go back to your knees and leave your desk. And as I've often told people, I've got a sermon, but I've got no message. I've got a sermon, but I've got no message. I have something that is a literary production, but something that has not yet become to me, the burden of the Lord for that given situation. There are some times when from here, there'll be much there. And this is what will make you wonder if there ain't an easier way to make a living. You'll say, I understand what the words say.
I see the structure, but I don't know how to get this beast stood up on its four legs. I just can't. And you'll be frustrated here. And it's totally unpredictable. It really is.
At least in my experience, and I'm sure these men who've been in the ministry for years would say amen to that. And that's part of both the mystery, as well as the burden and the agony of preparing to preach from the conviction that I have no right for the sake of convenience to distort what the mind of God is in a given text, simply because I've come up with a nice, neat little outline, and I'm determined that I'm going to force the text into that little outline. I'm prepared to go frustrated with a very poor outline into the pulpit if the moment of truth comes, rather than knowingly distort the word of God in order to have a nice, neat little outline.
You can go to bed with a pretty good conscience saying, Lord, give the sloppy way I handled your word in trying to lay it out, but Lord, to the best of my knowledge, I gave him your word, not my own fluff. See? Much easier to go to your bed with a sense that you were aesthetically poor than to go to your bed haunted that you distorted the word of God for the sake of appearing homiletically neat and clever. If it's either or, you know which choice you're going to make. So a careful analysis of the text itself, all right? Those are the initial steps. Earnest prayer, attentive reading, careful analysis of the text. Now, the intermediate steps.
Intermediate Steps: Structuring Sermon Divisions
Number one, you must reduce the materials to their natural divisions. Now, here's where you've got to start concentrating on this. Reducing the materials to their natural divisions.
If I may use the analogy, all the building materials are dumped in the backyard. You've got to sort out the foundational materials, the framing materials, and the finishing materials.
And, if you're preaching textually in a biblical way, you're going to let the text determine the divisions. You're not going to impose artificial divisions upon the text. You're going to let the text determine those divisions. And I remind you of that humorous incident recorded by Dr. Lloyd-Jones on pages 207 and 208 of Preaching and Preachers. You who were here the last semester will remember it about that preacher who always had to have his three heads, and he was preaching on Balaam rose early and saddled his ass, and his first heading was that here was a good trait in a bad man. He rose early. Second head was that saddlery was an ancient trade.
He saddled his ass, and because he always preached with three headings, his third heading was some miscellaneous thoughts concerning the woman of Samaria.
The doctor swears that he actually heard that sermon. And I re-read the incident to make sure I wasn't distorting him, but he says, well, here was a man, you see, he had so locked himself up into the notion that he had to have three heads, that where it wasn't in the text, he was going to import it out of John chapter 4. Well, I've heard some things almost as ludicrous, but reduce the materials to their natural divisions. And there again, there's an element of artistry and no one can say, was it right for me to preach Isaiah 53.6 under three headings, or right to preach it under two? Well, I hope it was right to preach it under both ways. Because there was honesty, there was integrity in handling the text. I would say now, my more reflection is, there was more precision in preaching it under two headings. Because the
first two statements had to do with us, all we, like sheep have gone astray, we have turned, we are in focus in the first two statements. Now the focus shifts, and the Lord. So what we are, and what God has done against the backdrop of what we are, is the more natural division of the text. So I've made a refinement from three to two heads. But there was nothing artificial.
It may have not been the most refined and polished way to present them. So don't be uptight about whether or not, oh, will I five years from now think that, no, so long as the divisions are natural, don't trouble yourself as to whether or not they are the most refined and accurate way the materials could be handled. Your skill in doing this, your sensitivity, your aesthetic sense, here's where the element again comes in, of the aesthetics involved in symmetry and outlining and all of the rest. Those skills will grow. Don't burden yourself with an unrealistic standard on the front end of your ministry, but constantly strive for improvement. Don't ever get satisfied with your present level. To reduce the materials to their natural divisions. Then secondly, wisely arrange the divisions.
You must not only reduce the materials to their natural divisions, but wisely arrange the divisions. Here you may alter the order in which they appear in the text. And we dealt with that in the lecture on form and structure.
For pastoral reasons, for evangelistic reasons, you may wish to alter the order in which they actually appear in the text and in no way do injustice to the language of the text.
Careful Wording of Divisions and Parallelism
Here is again the creative and artistic element and pastoral element in preaching. And then thirdly, you must carefully word the divisions. Having reduced the materials to their natural divisions, having wisely arranged the divisions, now you must carefully word the divisions. And wherever possible, use parallel verbal constructions.
Now notice I didn't say use alliteration. If alliteration comes naturally, it's not forced, it's not ludicrous, it's not artificial, well, there's nothing wrong with it. Who says thou shalt not use alliteration? But listening to some preachers, you'd think there was a commandment somewhere, tucked away somewhere in the Bible that said thou shalt always use alliterated headings.
And the alliterated becomes the ludicrous in the way they handle it. But carefully word the divisions. Remember, you've labored with this passage for hours. You have its head and its tail and everything in between in your mind and hopefully in your heart as you come into the pulpit. But your people are coming to it cold.
And if your headings do not have some kind of verbal symmetry, it's hard for them to follow your track as you move along with nothing visual before them. They are seeking to grasp this solely with the hands of their mind. You even have your paper in front of you to make sure you don't drop the thing. They don't have that.
So, try to help them to get a handle on it by carefully wording the divisions. And this is where I recommend highly Rodale Synonym Finder. Are we carrying that, Rob? We can. Good.
We have it. Not in the past. Rodale Synonym Finder. Rarely do I construct a sermon without using Rodale Synonym Finder in giving me help in carefully wording the divisions. And I think as I look back over my notes, it's accurate to say I have more crossed out words on my worksheets at this point than in any other point in sermon preparation, is trying carefully to word the divisions so that there is parallel linguistic structure. Not necessarily alliterated, not necessarily the same length, but some kind of parallelism as we go through in the listing of our headings. So those are the intermediate steps. Then what are the concluding steps?
Concluding Steps: Illustrations and Applications
Well, exactly the same as under the topical sermon in the body of the sermon. Work in necessary illustrations. Go back over the sermon and say, what parts will probably be opaque? Unless illustrated.
Obscure, unless analogy is brought in. What part will not have the force it ought to, unless it is reinforced by illustration? And as we've often said, I say again, illustrations should not simply be used as filler, but must serve the end of making clear the truth that we are expounding and applying. Work in the illustrations. Analyze the sermon as one who has not heard it at all. Sitting there, ask yourself, at what point would my mind begin to feel it needs a bit of relief from just this constant pressure of explanation and needs to have a hole punched in that solid, reinforced, concrete wall of good explanation of the meaning of the words and it needs the light of illustration. Or imagery, or analogy to shine upon it. Secondly, in the concluding step, work in the specific applications.
As we said last week, so I say again, don't tempt God by trusting to the moment that all the relevant applications will simply come flooding into your mind. Think the sermon through to your people. Think from your people back to the sermon. Put yourself in the place of the young mother with three kids, all under five years old, and she's given her mind to you for 45 minutes and she's followed the track of your mind as you've opened up the text, and now she says, but pastor, so what?
Well, answer her question in your application.
In application, you're answering the question of that distraught, harassed young mother, so what? What does the text say to me in my world? That earnest Christian teenager, feeling the peer pressure to go in a hundred directions contrary to godliness and sanity in the music he listens to, the fads and styles of clothes that he wears, in the patterns of his ethical behavior, and he sits there and he's followed you. Now he says, so what?
Well, you're to answer that question in your application. That old saint who's getting near the river and is weary with the journey and in a sense, his or her heart has already crossed the river. What does it say to him, to her? Work in the applications. You answer the question, so what? And demonstrate that your people were with you at your desk. You had something more than your lexicons and your commentaries, and something more than your Rodale synonym finder. You had your people in your heart.
As Paul says, you were in my heart. Well, make it evident in your application that they were in your heart at that desk. And as you stand now before them on the Lord's day, as you open your heart in the declaration of the word, it's evident that they've been inside there all along. And then thirdly, in the concluding steps, work in the connections and transitions.
Concluding Steps: Connections, Transitions, and Introduction
Don't again assume they'll come very naturally and smoothly simply because on your paper, you see a movement from Roman numeral one to Roman numeral two. That's very nice, but now, how do you get people's minds to know you're going from here to there? The transition's easy for you. You just move your eyes down a third of an inch.
Very good. But now they don't have that in front of them. So what are they going to do? You must ease them out of this and into this. And be very careful in working through the connections and transitions. Don't put your sermons together with invisible glue or transparent mortar. That's what I have written down.
Don't put your sermons together with invisible glue. Tell your people, now having considered together what the text says by way of this striking imagery of the whole human race like a vast flock of sheep having gone away from its shepherd, let us now consider what it says about the whole human race and its clenched fist in the face of Almighty God. Alright, you've made your transition. We have turned every one of us to His own way. And often just a well-constructed sentence makes a very easy transition from one heading to another, from one subheading to another. But work in those connections and transitions.
Then, of course, at this point you must then construct your introduction remembering the factors that the main purposes are to gain attention, to warm affections, or to direct the intellect. We assume you already have secure their goodwill. And as we said in the lecture on the introduction, don't seek to construct it at the beginning but at the end. When the whole is then before you and it's much easier then to determine how you will ease people into the whole in order to bring them where under God you seek to bring them in their thinking throughout the sermon. Now then, very quickly, some miscellaneous suggestions. Roman numeral three. The goal envisioned, the steps, the beginning, the intermediate, the concluding steps. Now some miscellaneous
Miscellaneous Suggestions: Models and Continuous Learning
suggestions concerning the construction or the construction of the discussion or argument of a textual sermon. And this first one is fundamental. Seek to expose yourself to a variety of good models of textual preaching. Most of the preaching you men will do during your days of preparation will be textual or topical preaching.
You won't have opportunity except some of you throughout the summer to do any consecutive expository preaching.
And if you develop good skills in textual preaching you will be most likely to make an effective transition into consecutive expository preaching. But if you get into bad habits of textual preaching they will dog your steps when you attempt consecutive expository preaching.
The longer I live and the more I try to understand preaching, the more I'm convinced that whatever else it is it is an acquired imitated spiritual art form. That's what preaching is. It is an acquired imitated spiritual art form. Now it's many other things but it is that.
And as with any other art one must observe the masters of the art or the craft as they work. I'm reading a biography now of Placido Domingo. Now he'll mean nothing to some of you. But if you had a little culture he'd mean something to you.
Many would consider him, I say that tongue in cheek, the outstanding living tenor in the operatic field in our day. And he wrote a book My First Forty Years. One of the things that has struck me in that book is this very principle of how he writes again and again both with regard to increasing his skills as a singer and as a conductor. He's done, sometimes he's conducted an opera and then gone backstage put on his costume and sung a role in the next opera. Amazing abilities does Placido Domingo possess. But I've been struck in reading that biography in recent days of this tremendous principle that whenever he's in a singing situation with masters of the craft he's always listening and observing and absorbing the principles that make for the best and the highest form of singing. And likewise with conducting when he analyzes certain conductors. It's made me sensitive now the few times I get to see a concert or go to an opera. There are a lot more things I'm going to look
at now after reading that book. The things that he observes in conductors in order to learn that craft and to increase his own efficiency. Well the same is true with preaching. Though it is much more than that. It does involve this dimension. And as we observe impressions are made. Critical comparisons are undertaken and skills are observed in their application to that given art form. And some of those skills or the ability to cultivate those skills are assimilated as we expose our redeemed humanity to those who have to some degree mastered the that ability. Now who
are such models? Well I put Spurgeon at the front rank of them.
McShane. We don't have much of what McShane preached in terms of printed sermons but what is there is very helpful as a good model of textual preaching. I've recently been looking through some of the sermons of Griffin and it's amazing. He was never bound by one way of approaching a text. And these are all textual sermons on the life and sermons of Griffin. Two volumes. But some good stuff in here. Some excellent stuff.
For a model that is utterly unique and most of us don't have the breadth of mind to do it the way he did but just to keep you from making artificial rules you ought to read the sermons of Shedd. Those sermons to the natural man and sermons to the spiritual man are excellent textual sermons and then some of Ryle's stuff is first rate. For example some of his sermons in the upper room listen to this one titled the sermon is Athens Acts 17 16 and 17. Here's his text. Now while Paul waited for them at Athens his spirit was stirred in him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews and with devout persons and in the market daily with them that met him. Then he gives in his introduction a beautiful beautiful lead in to the text on the Athens and then his three heads are this. What St. Paul saw at Athens while Paul waited for them his spirit was stirred when he saw secondly what St. Paul
felt at Athens. Now while Paul waited for them his spirit was stirred thirdly what St. Paul did at Athens. What he saw what he felt what he did why that's so simple. A ten year old could go out with the outline and go to that passage and give it back to his mummy or his daddy at supper. Beautiful beautiful example of simplicity and when he's done he's opened up the passage. Another one this is to me a striking sermon calls it portraits and he preached this at St. Mary's Oxford before the university and at the Chapel Royal St. James London so he didn't preach this before a bunch of Sunday school kids and he his text is Acts 26 24 to 29 in which you have Festus King Agrippa and Paul so his heads are let us look first at Festus the Roman governor and then he becomes the prototype of a certain type of individual. Let us turn to a different picture. Let us look at King Agrippa and then Agrippa becomes the prototype of another kind of person. Now let us turn to the last picture of the three. Let us
look at the man whom Festus thought beside himself and by whom Agrippa was almost persuaded to be a Christian. Let us look at St. Paul and then he just opens it up. Paul was altogether convinced of the truths of the fact of Christianity. Goes to the text. He was convinced of the truth of the doctrines of Christianity. He was convinced that he himself had been changed by the power of the Holy Spirit and he was altogether convinced of the reality of a world to come. Opens up the whole text beautifully.
Good example. Well you see as you read these sermons, as you see how men handle them, you are developing a sense as to how it can be done by men who did it. See when you read some of the experts, it all floats by in abstraction. But when you read the sermons, there is an absorption of this. At certain points, Manton is a good example. For example, volume 17 where he has a series of sermons. Page 191 following. The outlines would be a little complex for the average audience in our day, but not necessarily.
Sermons on Mark 3-5. Jesus looked round about on them with anger being grieved for the hardness of their heart. And then he gives out his heads. Open the terms. It's going to explain the meaning of the words. Two, show you the nature of this evil frame of heart. Thirdly, the kinds of it. Fourthly, the cause of it. Fifth, the heinousness of it. Six, some observations concerning this spiritual malady. And he opens up that passage. Well, there are many others, but I give these as specific ones and commend them to you. And then second, miscellaneous suggestion. Not only seek to expose yourself to a variety of good models of textual preaching, but continually read those authors who have written on the subject of textual preaching. There's always something more to learn about how to do it. Don't ever assume you've peaked and can't improve.
Let our text constantly be 1 Timothy 4-15. Give thyself wholly to them that thy progress may be manifested unto all. And when you preach the textual sermon this summer, don't file it away and preach it the same way the next time. Go back to that text like you hadn't preached it before.
See if you can improve the way you handle it. And if you come up with the same thing, well and good. But don't ever coast. Let's go to our graves striving for optimum usefulness in the proclamation of the word.
Miscellaneous Suggestions: Receiving Criticism
And thirdly, and this will be most difficult for you in your younger years, and then if you attain to any usefulness most difficult in your later years,
welcome and judiciously receive the criticism of competent critics concerning your efforts. Welcome and judiciously receive,
not just blindly, but judiciously receive the criticism of competent critics on your efforts. As a master singer can point out flaws in a fledgling's spelling, so in preaching. But not all the best critics are those who can give a technical analysis of the areas of need. Discerning saints who know when a sermon goes down well may have a lot to teach you. They may not use one word you heard in the academy, but they've got a lot to tell you.
They just say, now dear sister, how was the preaching last Sunday? Well, pastor, to be honest with you, I couldn't sort out the head from the tail from the foot.
In other words, I wasn't clear. Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you. That's right. You weren't clear. Oh, so you sit down with the old saint and say, well, this is what I was trying to say. How do you think I could have said that a little better? She might give you a wonderful lesson in old lady's homiletics.
That's right. She might have a lot of good practical sense. Listen to her. Don't be so insecure that you've got to protect your dignity. I'm the professional.
Well, big deal. If you can't capture old sister Sally's ears, then something's wrong with you. She's coming hungry and eager and she's got a mind disciplined to think. But that confused mess of homiletical hash that you've served up, she just couldn't sort out the pieces, brethren.
So listen to her. So your best critics may not necessarily be the bank president and somebody else. It may be that dear old sister with a discerning heart and a discerning ear. And you need to be constantly, judiciously open to receive criticism of competent critics on your efforts. Especially, especially, especially if in your early years, godly, good, spiritually hungry, spiritually alert people say you preach too long. You probably are preaching too long.
Now, if the people that know God and love His Word and are walking in holiness are saying to you, Pastor, you could have gone on for another ten minutes and it wouldn't bother me. Well, don't let that go to your head and go on another ten minutes. Just accept it as encouragement. Okay? Don't take them literally.
Or in five weeks, that, they'll turn around and tell you, I'm sorry I ever said it. Right?
But one of the main criticisms of men who get a high biblical standard of preaching in their early years is that they preach too long in their early efforts. And it's not that people are unspiritual, it's that you've not yet developed the skills to carry a people comfortably for an hour.
So don't try to do it. So you develop those skills, carry them comfortably for 45 minutes and let them down and let them go home happy. And then they'll think, you're great. In the right sense.
But if you're trying to carry them for an hour when all you can do is carry them for 45 minutes, that last 15 minutes is mental and spiritual agony. Because they're tortured and listening and then they've got all kinds of guilt feelings. Well, I shouldn't feel this way. He's a man of God. I'm a child of God. I should love the Word of God. And instead of sending your people home blessed, you send them home all torn up with guilt. Don't do that to them. If you love God's people, don't punish them that way. Quit while they're still asking for more from the table.
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Texts Expounded
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Martin uses this passage as an example to illustrate how he refined his sermon divisions from three points to two, focusing on 'what we are' and 'what God has done'.
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Martin quotes Ryle's sermon on Athens, using it as an example of a simple yet profound textual sermon structure based on 'what St. Paul saw, felt, and did'.
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Martin references Ryle's sermon on 'Portraits' from this passage, highlighting its effective use of characters (Festus, Agrippa, Paul) as prototypes for sermon divisions.
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Martin cites Manton's sermon on this passage as an example of a detailed textual exposition, noting its complex but thorough outline.