3 Important Tips for Preaching Narrative
I was recently asked by my Pastor to preach for evening service. Even though I know the difficulties of preaching narrative, I decided to preach on Numbers 14.
One of the difficulties with preaching and studying the Bible is the variety of literary types it contains.
You can’t preach Exodus like you would Paul.
Psalms is very different from Revelation.
This fact is compounded because you can have different types of literature in the same book.
That being said, I think narrative is particular challenging for preaching. I think we all have heard a sermon from Old Testament (OT) narrative or the Gospels which left us thinking “Where on earth did the preacher get that point from?”
Nevertheless, there is a lot of narrative in scripture, and God wants it preached. So, as I personally prepare a sermon on OT narrative, here are a few of my thoughts on preaching narrative:
1. Understand where your text fits into the flow of the book
The best way to preach through narrative is to simply preach through the whole book. Context always matters and there is nothing so dangerous as ripping a “story” out of its flow.
As soon as the preacher loses the narrative’s context, you can pretty much use any story in scripture to make any point you want.
You never want to lose the author’s purpose in recording a historical moment or a specific parable.
To preach my text, which comes in the middle of Numbers, I need to understand not only my immediate text. I also need to understand what comes before and what comes after.
View your text as a piece of a larger puzzle. Not as a complete painting on its own.
What is the overall purpose of the book as a whole? Where does your text fit into the narrative?
What important events came before? What important passages come after? How does your text uniquely contribute to the overall point the author is making?
The old saying “don’t miss the forest for the trees” rings true when preaching narrative. Don’t start with your particular text.
Spend as much time understanding the book before you dig into any passage in particular.
When actually preaching the sermon itself, you must verbally fit your passage into the narrative. You don’t have time to describe the whole book, but you should be able to connect your passage to what comes before and after in a couple sentences.
How I plan on doing this for my sermon is simple. Spend a couple sentences describing how Exodus and Leviticus lead up to Numbers. Then spend a couple sentences talking about the flow of Numbers up to my text.
Additionally, towards the end of the sermon, one of my final points is connecting the narrative to what comes ahead in Numbers.
Don’t make your listeners think your text is an island. Give them a survey of the surrounding terrain first and frequently remind them.
I would contend most abuse of Biblical narrative comes from neglecting this rule. For New Testament (NT) Epistles, you can get away with isolating arguments. You can specifically key in on certain prophecies.
But narrative is all about context. Each story is selected for a purpose. If you haven’t found the narrative’s purpose yet, study the whole book before you study your passage.
2. Give your sermons some backbone
How you structure a sermon is always important. There are so many styles to preaching and so many ways of outlining a specific passage.
Do you walk through the text and give commentary? Do you distill the text down to a central point? Do you take a text and show how its truth is developed in the rest of scripture?
Regardless of how you preach other texts, I recommend organizing your sermon on biblical narrative by extracting several main points/observations.
Narrative has a lot of detail.
Setting.
Main “characters”.
Plot.
Dialogue.
If you just went through and commented on each detail, the sermon would be very long and very ineffective.
Sermons of biblical narrative can easily become meandering and generalized. The solution?
After completing your study of the passage, consider the three most important things in the passage.
You can key on the most important people. You can key in on three important textual observations you made. You can key in on three different plot points that drive the narrative forward.
Of course, you don’t have to use “three”. But the less central points you make, the easier it will be for your listeners to follow you.
After getting the three most important things in your passage, organize the rest of your points and applications under those headings.
I will use the example of my Numbers sermon. The chapter contains an incredible amount of information.
Israel is afraid. Joshua and Caleb rebuke them. God expresses anger. Moses mediates. God forgives. God declares punishment. Etc. etc.
After doing my in depth study, I have to ask myself “what is the most effective way to preach this information?”
Your goal should be clarity. Make God’s truth manifestly clear to your listeners.
There are a couple ways I thought to present the information. But I think I will structure my sermon based around the three main “characters” and how they relate to God: Israel, Joshua/Caleb, and Moses.
Giving your sermon on Biblical narrative a clear structure helps organize the details of the passage to your listeners.
If I were to instead try to comment on the entire passage as I read it, the risk of complicating the passage rather than clarifying it.
Clarify, don’t complicate.
Now, you might object by saying my choice to structure my sermon was arbitrary. After all, the book of Numbers isn’t organized by “character.”
But preaching is different from reading. If I were simply reading the text or even writing a commentary on it, I might not organize the information this way.
But preaching involves interpretation. And your interpretation of the text is clearest when it is presented clearly.
Structuring your sermon around what you think is most important in the narrative will aid you as you lead your congregation to the central truths the author is making in this passage.
Remember: only do this step after you have already understood the context of your passage. If you simply rip a chunk of the narrative out of context, your organization of its contents might be completely wrong.
Don’t let your listeners get confused and bogged down by the narrative. Show them where to look and what to see.
3. Let the application naturally rise from the text. Don’t rush it
Preaching narrative can often lead to misapplication. You compare you listeners to David. You think the point of Esther is to be a woman of faith.
The danger of misapplication is everywhere in the Bible, but narrative can sometimes hold the most danger.
As a rule be incredibly patient drawing out application from narrative.
Sometimes proper and valid application takes more time with narrative than other passages. After all, when Jesus simply says “Love your enemies” or when Paul says “pray at all times” at the very least you know an imperative is given.
Often, narrative does not present application in the form of commands. Thus you must ask good questions and meditate on the text and its place in scripture before giving application in the form of commands to the congregation.
I designed a tool to help you ask yourself good questions after listening to a sermon. Use some of the questions as you consider what the passage is calling its readers to do.
But beware of quick and simplistic application with narrative. Make sure they come from scripture and not your own “first take” on the text.
Here the first rule is again revealed as important: unless you understand your passage as a piece in the rest of the narrative, you are in danger of misapplication.
For example, let us say when coming up with applications for my Number sermon, I did not read further on in the book of Numbers.
My passage ends with Israel getting kicked out of the promised land because they try to enter it without the Lord.
If I stop there, I miss the fact that at the start of Numbers 15, God again repeats that Israel will in fact make it into the promised land.
I would also miss God causing Balaam to bless Israel later in the book.
In short, without the overall flow of Numbers, I would fail to focus in on the faithfulness of God. How “when we are faithless, He is faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”
That truth is encouraging. Practical. It highlights God’s covenant love.
And it is not the application I would immediately jump to from reading the text.
If an application is forced, it will seem forced to your listeners. You don’t make the Bible impactful. It already is.
Therefore, when preaching narrative be sure to mediate deeply on your passage in its biblical context. The richest applications in biblical narrative take time and patience.
Oftentimes, you need the right tools to do this well. One of my favorite sets of application questions comes from Mark Dever. Use this “application matrix” to get your mind and heart meditating on the text.
But remember: your application will only go as deep as your knowledge and internalization of the text.
Rushed study leads to rushed application which leads to your listeners minds rushing out the door.
Don’t just tell them how the text applies. Show them how the applications of the text naturally rise from the passage.
In the end, preaching narrative takes a lot of thought and work. But with a lot of prayer, patience, and applying the above tips, you can display the glory of God’s narratives to your listeners.
Click here to listen to my Numbers 14 sermon or here if you want to start reading through it. Want to contact me to share your thoughts or comments? Reach out here.