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3 Philosophies of Sermon Application

By Adam Nesmith | March 22, 2022

Composing and preaching a faithful, Christ-exalting sermon is a difficult task. Oftentimes, especially if you are a lay-elder or have not had formal theological training, you might struggle with questions such as “how should I structure the sermon?” or “where should I stick to expositing the text directly and where should I apply the text to the congregation?” The former question I answered in a past post, so today I want to give you three philosophies of sermon application that I have seen and heard from different faithful preachers.

It is important to note that I don’t think any one of these is the perfect approach or automatically will make you a great preacher. As I have listened to and read great sermons by great preachers, each one deals with sermon application differently. Spurgeon does it differently than MacArthur who does it differently than J. C. Ryle who does it differently than John Flavel. These three sermon application philosophies are merely the common ways I have seen Pastors of the past and present use.

1. No explicit or structured application section

In this approach, you spend all your preaching time explaining what the text means. You go into detail, you explain it thoroughly but you don’t extract any (or many) specific applications for your particular congregation. Instead, you simply preach the text faithfully and trust that the Holy Spirit will apply the sermon to the individual hearts and specific life-circumstances of the congregation.

A variation of this approach is to sprinkle in occasional application points as you go. In this case, you are primarily focused on simply preaching the text, but if you come to a section of your exposition that warrants a specific word to the congregation, you give a brief direct application. But in both cases, this approach does not have a structured section or approach to sermon application. You simply focus on explaining the passage and leave only limited time for explicit application.

I would argue against using this approach very often because I think part of the job of a faithful preacher is not only to faithfully expound Scripture, but also to explicitly and directly call their congregation to live it out. But there are times when this approach to sermon application is useful. In general, if your text is direct in it’s application, then you can more likely use this sermon application philosophy effectively. For example, if you are preaching “let him who stole, steal no longer”, the application to your congregation is clear. You don’t need a whole “application section” of your sermon to show the text’s relevance to your Church. However, if you are preaching a text that does not have a clear application built in, you might need to use one of the following sermon application philosophies instead.

2. Apply the text as you go through each point

In this philosophy, after each point of exposition in your sermon, you apply that point to the congregation. Let’s say you had a three point sermon structure. You would apply each sermon point right after you teach that point, like you see below:

Point 1
1. Application of point 1
Point 2
1. Application of point 2
Point 3
1. Application of point 3

The advantage of this approach is you are able to give the congregation practical applications throughout the length of the sermon. Additionally, this clear flow helps the Church remember each sermon point and its corresponding application(s). A Church member does not have to wait until the end of the sermon to start hearing and meditating on what the passage implies for their life. Rather, they are given multiple applications throughout the sermon based on each of the main points.

This approach shines when you have a complicated passage with several different main points in your sermon outline. If you are teaching on a large block of narrative, for example, and you extract several main ideas from the text, then you probably want to use this approach. Anytime you find in your sermon outline that there are more than one “main point” you find in the text, then you should likely think of applications for each of the main points. The downside of this approach is you can only do a limited amount of applications on any one point before your sermon becomes too long.

3. Sermon application at the end of the exposition

This philosophy of sermon application you readily find in Puritan sermons. In this approach, you spend the final section of your sermon applying the text your just preached. This type of sermon clearly separates exposition from application in it’s structure. If you used the three point example above, the sermon structure would become something like:

Point 1
Point 2
Point 3
Application
1. Application of Point 1
2. Application of Point 2
3. Application of Point 3

You can see that in this philosophy of sermon application, the application is given as much weight as a single main sermon point. Additionally, the sermon application is the last thing your congregation hears since it is an extended final section of the sermon. Since you are applying all that you exposited in the sermon, you can apply not only your main points, but also apply combinations of those points.

This philosophy of sermon application allows you to spend the most time applying your text to your congregation. By spending the entire latter section of your sermon on application, you can approach text application from a lot of different angles and points of view. This method excels when you are expositing a shorter passage or a passage that has one overarching point to apply. If you can summarize the content of the passage in a single sentence without losing a lot of its nuance, then this sermon application method might be best. However, if you are dealing with a long, complicated, or multi-faceted passage, it might be best to use the “apply as you go” method

Summary of Sermon Application Philosophies

The table below summarizes the different philosophies of sermon application.

Type	Use when	Users of this philosophy
No structured application section	Text already has a clear application i.e. passages in epistles, Proverbs, Gospels, etc.	John MacArthur
Apply each point as you go	Text has multiple and distinct “main points” i.e. longer passages, narrative passages, complicated passages	Martin Lloyd-Jones, Charles Spurgeon
Application section at end of the sermon	Text can be effectively reduced to a single central point, when a text warrants extensive application i.e. shorter passages, simpler passages, 1-3 verse sections	J. C. Ryle, most every Puritan pastor

Summary Table of Sermon Application Philosophies

As I mentioned at the beginning, there is no “one size fits all” approach to how and were you apply the Biblical text in your sermon. Each of these philosophies excel in different contexts and Pastors should have each in their “tool box.” My recommendation is after spending time studying your text and outlining your sermon, look and see which of these sermon application methods makes the most sense for your particular sermon.

Clear and insightful application of a Biblical text is one of the marks of a good Preacher.

For more tools to help you prepare and preach a sermon, click here. For a post on how to structure your sermon, click here. If you found this post helpful, share on social media and subscribe below. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram to get more content.

An Alternative to Doctrinal Tiers

By Adam Nesmith | September 16, 2021

You have probably heard the phrase “doctrinal tiers” at some point if you have been involved at Church for any length of time. Each Church I have attended in both my childhood and adult life have either mentioned doctrinal tiers or explicitly included them on their Church website. Suffice to say, at some point in your life I have no doubt you will encounter doctrinal tiers if you attend a Bible-preaching Church.

But what are “doctrinal tiers?” Is it a helpful concept? Are there any problems with using it? And is there a better way to solve the same problems doctrinal tiers tries to solve? In this post, I want to answer each of these questions and, in particular, propose an alternative to doctrinal tiers which I call “doctrinal uncertainty.”

What are doctrinal tiers?

Doctrinal tiers are a means to categorize different Bible doctrines in order of importance, orthodoxy or necessity of belief. The number of tiers, what each tier contains, and how the tiers are used varies from person to person and from Church to Church. I have seen them formulated as a pyramid and as a target. Essentially, doctrinal tiers is a way to answer the question “what doctrines and biblical interpretations can Christians disagree on and yet still be considered orthodox in their theology?“

Knowing what Biblical doctrines are essential to be considered saved and orthodox and what doctrines are “secondary” is a vital and practical distinction to make. And that is really all the tiers are: a method of categorization. It is a way of saying “this set of biblical beliefs you must hold to in order to be considered Christian, but these other issues, while important, have varying valid, orthodox interpretations.”

Generally “first tier” issues are the foundational doctrines of the gospel:

Who Christ is
What the nature of Sin is
What is the gospel
How is one saved

And so on. In contrast, secondary or tertiary doctrines include:

Infant baptism vs. believers’ baptism
The various eschatological interpretations
Views on Church structure

And others. From these lists, it is clear the first set deals with doctrines essential for saving faith while the second list deals with different practical matters of Church life and the interpretation of difficult passages.

Now, the concept of doctrinal tiers is important and helpful to a degree. By knowing where the lines of orthodoxy are drawn, Christians can contend for “essential” issues and agree to disagree on other issues. However, there are several problems with the doctrinal tiers model.

Issues with doctrinal tiers

1. Who decides how many tiers should their be and why?

This is a common problem I see when I read about doctrinal tiers: there is no “standard” for how many tiers one creates. Many Churches I know of have either two or three tiers. If you have two tiers, you divide up doctrines between necessary for orthodoxy and doctrines which Christians can disagree on. The three tier model adds another category, typically on doctrines which affect Church practice.

But hypothetically, one need not stop at two or three tiers. Why not four? Five? Ten? At some point the categories end up losing their usefulness, but I think this highlights an issue with the doctrinal tiers model: there is no limit to which you can categorize doctrines by degree of importance. As soon as you open the door for “ranking” doctrines so to speak, there is no reason you have to stop at two or three levels. This can create a situation where some doctrines are seen as “unimportant” simply because they are in a lower tier. Eschatology is a great example: I have met many people who refuse to study the topic because it is “less important.”

2. Who or what decides what doctrine goes in what tier?

This becomes more of a problem the more tiers you add to your model. Who decides which doctrines are essential and which can be safely disagreed upon? For the most part, Christians agree doctrines related to Christ and the gospel are tier 1. But what about different view on God’s providence in salvation? For some people, this is closer to a tier 1 issue than to other people.

Additionally, many of the tier 2 or 3 doctrines in Scripture have a direct relation to tier 1 doctrines. For example, your understanding of the doctrine of baptism (tier 2+) is not independent from what you believe about the gospel (tier 1). And as mentioned above, your view of God’s sovereignty in salvation (most of the time tier 2+) is integral to what you believe about the work of Christ on the cross (tier 1).

The issue with doctrinal tiers is someone has to sort all this out in a way that is not arbitrary. But if you examine what different Churches put into different tiers, you will find enough variation to call into question the process of how the doctrinal tiers are developed. Not every Church agrees with what doctrines goes into what tiers. How then does one discern what the “right” tier is to put a doctrine into? Without some objective or explicitly Scriptural process to decide what doctrines go into what tier, the decision potentially becomes arbitrary.

3. Is there a strong textual basis for doctrinal tiers?

A final critique of the doctrinal tiers model is the Bible generally presents itself as a unity of truth. What I mean by this is Scripture does not label its own doctrines or order them from “most important” to “least important”. Rather, the Bible is presented as God’s revelation to man as a whole. Moreover, doctrines are developed from synthesizing a wide variety of Biblical literature: poetry, prophecy, narrative, epistles, etc. Very rarely does Scripture explicitly say a certain doctrine takes priority over a different doctrine, such as ecclesiology (doctrine of the Church) being in a “higher tier” than eschatology (doctrine of end times).

There are two potential exceptions to this general rule. The first is the Bible puts an enormous emphasis on God’s plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. All other doctrines throughout the different literature forms of Scripture build and point to this central reality. Therefore, one could say the doctrines of Christ & the gospel are in a tier or a class of their own.

The second exception is those portions of Scripture which seem to elevate certain moral commands over other commands. Examples of these would be when God says “I desire mercy not sacrifice” in the Old Testament or when Jesus says the Pharisees neglected the weightier matters of the law. This seems to imply a priority placed on the moral commands of Scripture over and against the ceremonial commands.

These two exceptions, however, are insufficient textual evidence for the doctrinal tiers system. Doctrinal tiers as a model does far more than merely emphasize the importance of the Gospel and it deals with whole Biblical doctrines rather than Biblical commands. Therefore, it could be said there is little internal evidence that one can form tiers of doctrines from the text of Scripture. In fact, the internal witness of Scripture seems to lead readers more towards trying to unify the doctrines of Scripture rather than categorize them in order of importance.

An alternative: doctrinal uncertainty

So, while doctrinal tiers is not a terrible or useless concept, it has its problems and the question must be asked if there is a better way forward. I think there is: rather than talking about doctrinal tiers, Christians should instead use a concept I will call “doctrinal uncertainty.” What do I mean by “doctrinal uncertainty?” There are certain doctrines in Scripture that are clearer and require less interpretation and synthesis than other doctrines. To use a previously referenced example, building out a doctrine of the Church is easier than synthesizing an entire eschatology.

The difference between doctrinal tiers and doctrinal uncertainty is how you group together different doctrines. With doctrinal tiers, you group doctrines by how important they are or how necessary they are to be considered orthodox. Doctrinal uncertainty, on the other hand, orders doctrines by how clear the Biblical text is on any given doctrine, how much interpretation is needed on the part of the theologian to synthesize a doctrine, and how likely it is for any given two people reading their Bible to come to the same conclusion on a doctrine.

Therefore, a doctrine such as the Gospel is less uncertain because the amount of times Scripture expounds/describes the Gospel and the clarity with which the text speaks about it. By contrast, a doctrine such as “gifts of the Spirit” has more uncertainty because there are less texts which address the topic, some of the texts are open for multiple interpretations, and the wide variety of interpretations which exist on the topic.

The doctrinal uncertainty model orders doctrines not by an arbitrary or semi-arbitrary selection by a pastor or theologian. Rather, it looks at where the doctrine came from, what texts are synthesized to reach a given conclusion, and asks “how clear and certain is this conclusion? or are there other other valid, orthodox interpretations?” Therefore, the question of infant baptism vs. believers baptism is framed not in terms of “this is a doctrine which is not essential to the faith” but “this is a doctrine with which there is uncertainty and therefore there are several valid conclusions.”

What are the sources of doctrinal uncertainty? Or to put it another way, why do different orthodox Christians come to different conclusions with the same text of Scripture? I think there are three main sources of doctrinal uncertainty.

Sources of doctrinal uncertainty

1. Different interpretations of specific texts

Certain texts have ambiguous language which lends itself to two or more valid interpretations. Of course, Scripture must be compared with Scripture to choose a single meaning, but any ambiguity in a text introduces uncertainty to your exposition. A good example of this is the beginning of John 3:16. Many English translations say “For God so loved the world…” Certain translations, however, say “God loved the world in this way.”

Why the different translations? Because the Greek word houtos can either refer to a degree or a means. The first translation “For God so loved the world” would therefore mean “God loved the world to this great degree.” The second translation would mean “The way or means in which God has shown love to the world is…” The point here is not to argue for one of these or the other; you can do that in your own study. The point here is the language used in the verse introduces uncertainty.

Different interpretations of language in certain texts is one source of doctrinal uncertainty. Oftentimes, when part of a doctrine is based primarily on a few verses, this uncertainty can become significant if any of these verses uses ambiguous language. When two different Christians choose two different interpretations of an ambiguous verse, they may come to different conclusions on a doctrine.

2. Different synthesis of the data

This is probably the most common source of doctrinal uncertainty. Maybe all the texts you are studying are crystal clear. However, building a doctrine involved synthesizing those texts into a coherent statement on whatever topic you are trying to study. Sometimes, it is uncertain how certain verses fit together. This uncertainty in synthesis leads to uncertainty in the doctrine itself.

This is one reason why eschatology is possibly the most uncertain of doctrines: Christians continue to disagree on the topic because synthesizing all the passages which discuss eschatology is incredibly difficult and lends itself to several valid interpretations. Additionally, many of the individual texts use ambiguous imagery. The reason Christians should not divide over eschatology isn’t because it is a “second level” doctrine per se. Rather, eschatology has so much uncertainty built into it that dividing over it would be foolish compared with dividing over a clearer doctrine such as Christ and the gospel.

A quick look at the different doctrines many people put into the “second or third tier” of the doctrinal tiers system shows that most of these non-first tier doctrines are the ones which have more uncertainty around their synthesis of the Biblical data. Examples are eschatology, Church government, covenant theology, and so on. They are not second tier in the sense of less important than other doctrines. Rather, they have more uncertainty when interpreting all the Biblical data on the topics.

3. Different historical conclusions of the Church

There are certain doctrines which the Church has generally agreed upon for hundreds of years. These doctrines generally have less uncertainty then other doctrines. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity was expressed so clearly in the early Church, that there has been little deviation in interpretation among Bible believing Christians since then. However, other doctrines have always been interpreted differently throughout the history of the Church. If you are dealing with one of these doctrines, you will find uncertainty among the historical conclusions of the Church.

Many “second tier” doctrines are those which the Church throughout history has disagreed upon. I think one of the reasons God’s sovereignty in salvation (i.e. Calvinism vs. Arminianism) is often delegated as “second tier” has nothing to do with it’s importance. Rather, it is an issue that has long been debated throughout the history of the Church. This historical uncertainty leads causes current Churches to adopt a “don’t divide over this issue” stance.

Conclusion: doctrinal tiers vs doctrinal uncertainty

Both the concept of doctrinal tiers and doctrinal uncertainty are useful for understanding and categorizing the Bible’s teaching. They can, in fact, both be used together; one does not need to exclusively use one or the other. Christians must understand what Scripture teaches clearly about salvation and the Gospel while realizing certain texts are more difficult to interpret. Both doctrinal tiers and uncertainty are methods to get at this distinction.

However, while tiers are helpful, I think doctrinal uncertainty is in many cases a better concept to highlight. Doctrinal uncertainty captures not just the difference in relative importance of doctrine, but also the difference between how clearly Scripture presents a doctrine. Doctrinal uncertainty is inherently more focused on the text of Scripture itself. In this way, doctrinal uncertainty is an attractive alternative to doctrinal tiers when dealing with the question of why Christians disagree on some interpretations of Scripture and which interpretations are within orthodoxy.

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How to Get More Out of Your Pastor’s Sermons

By Adam Nesmith | September 9, 2021

I always enjoy reading and recommending books on how to become a better Church member. There are many books on becoming a better preacher, counselor, or pastor but not as many focused on the average Church attender. Many believers don’t fully understand what their role is as a normal Church member. One outworking of this uncertainty is how people respond to their Pastor’s sermon. A question commonly asked is how to get more out of your pastor’s sermons?

One of my favorite books to recommend for instructing normal Church members is “Duties of Christian Fellowship” by John Owen. It is short, accessible, and intensely practical. If you have not read this book, I recommend you do so and then purchase a few dozen to give out at your Church. It truly is gold and I cannot possibly recommend it enough. Drop whatever you are currently reading and get through this book first; it is that important.

The first section of the book deals with the question of how to get more out of your pastor’s sermons. The quote below is worthy of consideration, particularly the last sentence.

The failure to consider these principles is the cause of all the negligence, carelessness, laziness, and indiscipline while hearing the world, which has taken hold of so many these days. Only a respect for the truth and authority of God in the preaching of his word will bring men to hear it soberly and profitably. It is also the case that men grow tired of hearing the word only after they have grown tired of putting it into practice.
“Duties of Christian Fellowship” by John Owen, emphasis added

What the quote means

“Duties of Christian Fellowship” is organized around “rules” for Church members. The first 7 deal with how Church members should interact with the Pastor and the second set of 15 focuses on how Church members should interact with each other. The quote given above comes after the very first rule Owen gives: Christians should regularly attend a local Church to listen to preaching and to partake in the ordinances.

But as in every era of Church history, not every person puts a high emphasis on the public preaching of God’s word. Owen’s answer is given in the quote: most of the time believers tire of hearing the word preached because they have long since stopped trying to apply the sermons they here. In other words:

If you fail to correct your life based on the sermons you hear, you will eventually become a passive listener.

What Owen does here is shift the focus of the question “how can you get more from your pastor’s sermons” from the pastor to the Church member in the pew. If you aren’t “getting anything” from the faithful preaching of God’s word, the first problem to examine is in the mirror, not the Pastor. What Owen writes is right in line with the first chapter of James:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
James 1:22-25 ESV, emphasis added

Why it is important

It is easy to approach Sunday morning as a consumer rather than as a worshiper. This means going to Church thinking to get some type of “product” whether that is a “good sermon” or “authentic worship”. If you are not pleased with what you get, then the consumer-mindset blames the Pastor or the worship leader or someone else. And there is no aspect of corporate worship in which it is easier to think as a consumer than preaching.

In today’s culture, congregants can often attend Church wanting entertainment, a “positive, inspiring message”, or a practical self-help type talk. When you come to service with any of these expectations and those expectations are not met, you naturally blame the Pastor. “That sermon wasn’t his best,” you might say or “It was alright, but I wish it was more relevant or practical.” Worst of all, you can give the Sunday sermon the epitaph of “I just didn’t get much out of it.”

What I love about this Owen quote is it directly challenges anyone who listens to a sermon as a consumer. There are only two questions for you to ask after listening to your Pastor’s sermon:

Did the sermon faithfully and clearly explain the truth of Scripture as God has communicated it?
If so, how does my life need to change based on what God has communicated to me through the pastor?

Owen says to the person who “didn’t get much out” of their Pastor’s sermon that the problem is most likely a passive, rather than an active mindset. A believer with an active mindset goes to Church to hear the Word preached so their lives can be confronted and conformed to Scripture. A passive mindset leads to a “eh, I’ll take it or leave it” response to preaching.

Your heart as you drive to Church on Sunday should be brimming with anticipation not because you expect some entertainment or life-changing emotional moment. Rather, you should be excited that God is going to teach you through your Pastor so that your life can change to better reflect Christ in the coming week.

Takeaways

1. Spend more time reflecting on the sermon than on critiquing it

If you want to get more out of your Pastor’s sermon, step one is humility: your job is not to be the resident “sermon reviewer”. Rather, your job is the mull over the Pastor’s exposition in your mind until you are gripped by the truth of the text. To get really practical, watch closely how you talk to other people about your Pastor’s sermon. If you find yourself saying things along the lines of “this is how well I think my Pastor preached” instead of “this is what God taught me through the Pastor”, you might be taking on the role of sermon critic.

Focus your energy on reflection rather than critique and you will begin to get more out of your Pastor’s sermons.

2. Set aside times during the week to remind yourself of what your Pastor preached on Sunday

One of the reasons I have spent time designing tools to help you reflect on your Pastor’s sermon is most of the time you forget what last Sunday’s sermon was about by the time you get to the next week. Humans are forgetful, especially when we don’t use the information we hear. So if you want to better remember what your Pastor preached on, start building in times throughout the week where you revisit the sermon text, your sermon notes, or even listen to the sermon itself a second time.

This is also a great action to take with others. If your Church has a small group, that is a great context to reflect on the previous Sunday’s sermon. Perhaps you meet up informally with Church members during the week. That is also a great time to reflect as a group on what God is teaching you corporately.

3. Prayerfully consider what God wants you to start doing, stop doing, or continue doing based on your Sunday sermon

There are dozens of sermon application questions out there to help you practically live out the truths you hear. But if you want three simple and memorable questions to ask after a sermon, look no further:

What do I need to start doing in light of the sermon?
What do I need to stop doing in light of the sermon?
What things should I continue to do in light of the sermon?

I love this list because it is so easy to remember and gets at three aspects of God’s word: it instructs us what we should do, it corrects our behavior when it is sinful, and it encourages us to persevere in doing what is right. By thinking in terms of “start, stop, continue”, you can figure out what God’s word is communicating to you each week. Like I discussed above, both the Epistle to James and John Owen make it clear if you stop trying to apply God’s word, you are going to forget what you heard or think there was “nothing in it for me”.

If you want to get more out of your Pastor’s sermons, come to your Sunday service ready for your life to change.

Don’t get tired of hearing sermons every week: even on your Pastor’s worst Sunday preaching there is some truth God is sovereignly ordaining you to hear. Let us be doers of the Word when we hear it for there is no greater stewardship then obediently responding to God’s glorious Word.

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How to Effectively Structure a Sermon

By Adam Nesmith | May 14, 2021

No one taught me how to structure a sermon or a teaching. I was given a limited amount of tools for studying a text, and I was told the importance of preaching. But the question of how to effectively structure a sermon was not answered for me. So, through reading and listening to a wide variety of preaching, I found a number of different ways to create an orderly sermon.

There is certainly not “one way” to structure a sermon. But there are a number of patterns or “archetypes” used by preachers both present and past. In this post, I want to give you a handful of ways to structure a sermon. There is no perfect way, in fact, I would recommend thinking through sermon structure each time you preach. Depending on the text, the length of the passage, the type of literature, and other factors, one structure might be preferred to another.

I will first define three important terms that I will use to analyze sermon structures. Then, I will present two general sermon structures from two different structures derived from the New Testament Epistle. Finally, I will present a few sermon structure “archetypes” I have analyzed by listening and reading the great expositional preachers through history.

Definitions: Doctrine, Application

The distinction between doctrine and application is one of the most important concepts to think through. In order to even begin to think about sermon structure, you must understand the vital difference between doctrine and application. Essentially, doctrine describes reality. It is a declarative statement from the Lord about what the world really is like. Application, on the other hand, gives the readers/listeners how they should live in light of this reality. It is an imperative statement which commands some response.

For example, if I said “It is raining outside,” that is a declarative statement. I am making a claim about reality. If I followed this up with “You should bring an umbrella” I am now making an imperative statement. In light of the reality of rain, I tell you that you should bring an umbrella. Most of the time, doctrine and application are connected with a “therefore”. Because something is true, you should do something.

Scripture is full of doctrinal teaching and application. But different authors go about this in different ways. The two main different ways which are helpful when thinking about sermon structure are what I will call “Paul style” and “Peter style”. I will first go through each of these styles before looking at how preachers in general often structure their sermons.

Sermon Structures Derived from Scripture

Doctrine-application structure

Even though there are exceptions, Paul favored introducing doctrine first before application in his epistles. Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians all have a pretty “predictable” structure. Paul spends the early chapters of the book piling on doctrinal, declarative, objective spiritual truths. He builds on these truths throughout the book until he reaches a “therefore.” This “therefore” transitions from the first half of the books which is primarily declarative to the second half which is primarily imperative.

Romans 12 is a great example. For 11 chapters, Paul goes through doctrine and truth and spiritual reality. Then, in Romans 12, Paul transitions to imperatives with a “therefore”.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Romans 12:1, ESV emphasis added

How does this help you structure a sermon? The way Paul structures his epistles is one of the foundational sermon structures you could choose from. Essentially, a “Pauline” sermon structure might look something like this

Introduction
Expound, analyze, and argue doctrinal truth
Take that doctrinal truth and command a certain, necessary behavior from your congregation in response to it

The “logical progression” structure I discuss at the end of this post borrows from Paul’s typical flow. Essentially, since all application should arise from doctrinal truth, sermons which use a “Paul style” strictly separate doctrine and application. Moreover, this type of structure focuses on presenting doctrine first before transitioning to any sort of commands.

The benefits of this structure include:

Clear division of doctrine and application so they are not confused
Complete focus on either doctrine or application rather than switching from one to another
Logical order of doctrine then application based on that doctrine

Apply-as-you-go

The other major ordering of doctrine and application you see in the New Testament is common in the general Epistles. I call it the “Peter style” even though the ordering is found in Hebrews, 1 John, and James. In 1 Peter, Peter does not wait until the end of the letter to transition to application. Peter applies doctrine as he goes. Throughout 1 Peter, you read a doctrine and then almost immediately see it applied.

For example, halfway through 1 Peter 1, the text transitions from discussing the salvation and inheritance the Church has received in Christ to a call to holy living.

It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 1:12-13, ESV emphasis added

So, a “Peter style” sermon structure does not move from doctrine to application, but from one point to the next. A sermon using this organization would look like this:

Introduction
Expound doctrinal truth 1
Apply doctrinal truth 1
Expound doctrinal truth 2
Apply doctrinal truth 2
Repeat until finished

As you can see, each point is applied as you go through the teaching. This style has several benefits:

Gives readers/listeners practical application as the sermon progresses
By applying doctrine as you go, each application is directly tied to whatever specific doctrine it arises from

There is more that could be said on the different ways to divide doctrine and application. But understanding the two general Biblical relations gives a helpful context for analyzing the sermon structures of great preachers.

Sermon Structure Archetypes from Great Preachers

There are four general patterns I have seen in how preachers order their sermons. I have ordered these four archetypes from most “text driven” in structure to most “preacher driven” in structure. “Text driven” refers to how much of your sermon structure is derived directly from the text while “preacher driven” refers to how much of your sermon structure comes from your own opinion on how the sermon should be ordered.

Running commentary

The first archetypal sermon structure I have encountered is what I will call the “running commentary”. Calling it a “structure” might be deceiving, however, because it is almost a non-structure. Your sermon starts at the beginning of the text and ends where you decide to end for that week. Its characteristics are simple:

Introduce & read the whole passage
Read a small section of the passage
Explain what it means
Move on to the next small section
Explain what it means
Repeat until complete

As you can see, there really is no formal structure to this type of sermon. The preacher simply works through the passage word by word, line by line and explains it and applies it as he goes. If you choose to preach using this method, you probably don’t even think about “sermon structure”. You simply go through the text and give your commentary to the congregation as you go.

There are definite positives to this method:

Every single word of a passage is explained to some degree
You can devote more focus to studying a text rather than figuring out how to structure your sermon
The length of the sermon can easily scale based on how large a passage you choose

There are some drawbacks to the “running commentary” method, however:

It is easy for your sermon to lack emphasis
You can focus so much on individual words or phrases that you “miss the forest in the trees”
Your sermon can sound more like a class teaching rather than heralding the word

I would argue this method is most helpful for dense passages of Scripture like prophecy or the Epistles. Passages which have a definite logical argument or inherent structure can benefits from having the “running commentary” approach applied. The thoroughness of this method makes it applicable to the most complicated and detailed portions of Scripture.

Text-determined structure

This method is still based on the text, but gives a more defined structure to your sermon than the “running commentary” method. Essentially, you look at whatever passage of Scripture you are expounding and find any transitions, shifts, or sections that are contained within it. You then use these divisions to form the backbone of your sermon. In the end, your sermon structure looks like this:

Introduce the text and its main divisions
Read, expound, and apply the first section
Read, expound, and apply the second section
Repeat until all sections of text are preached

This method I call “text-determined” because you are letting the logical, grammatical, or textual breaks of a passage determine each section of your sermon. In this way, your sermon structure is still determined by the passage of Scripture itself, but you are extracting an outline from the passage instead of just walking through the passage.

If I had to summarize this method, it is making the outline of your sermon the outline of the passage. To apply the “text-determined structure” you should outline the Bible passage you are preaching early on in your study. From there, you already have a rough sermon structure into which you can add any application or further exposition.

This method has a lot of advantages:

The flow of your sermon follows the flow of the passage
Sermon structure is easily seen by your congregation in the text itself
Your sermon’s transitions are based on real transitions within the text
Outlining the passage does “double duty” by also becoming the headings of your sermon

Some drawbacks to this method include:

Not every text or literary type easily breaks into a defined structure
Depending on the length of your text, your sermon can have too many points
The structure of the text might not be an ideal structure for understanding the meaning of the text

What is great about the “text-determined” structure is how applicable it is to different literary types and text lengths. I think it particularly shines when preaching through Psalms (which often have clear transition points), Epistles (which have logical and grammatical features which are easy to use as transition points), Proverbs, and prophetic writings. I would argue in most cases, this structure should be your default.

Clearest communication structure

This sermon structure is less “text driven” and more “preacher driven.” It is similar to the “text-determined” structure, only with another step to it. You find the transition points of a passage and outline it. However, then you order whatever sections exist in the text in an order you as the preacher think makes the most sense. You essentially pick whatever headings or points you think the text makes, and then order your sermon based on what you think makes the most sense to your listeners. A “clearest communication” sermon would look something like this:

Introduce the text and the main points you will preach on
Give point 1, show where it exists in the text, expound, apply
Give point 2, show where it exists in the text, expound, apply
Repeat until done preaching the passage

In this method, you are not making the outline of the text the outline of the sermon. Your sermon outline, though based in the text and your study of it, is decided by you, the preacher. You think through what the most clear way to preach the text is and you let that concern for clarity drive how you order your sermon. In the end, you decide what the “organizing factor” is within the text, whether that be the main points of emphasis, the main characters of a passage, or the events of the passage. In this method, you must make a sermon structure apart from whatever structure already exists in the text.

There are some definite benefits to this method:

You can make the emphasis of the passage the clear emphasis of your sermon
Your congregation is in view as you study and prepare to preach
This method allows you to reduce a long or complex passage into a few central points

As with all methods, there are some drawbacks too:

Your sermon structure can become arbitrary or foreign to the text itself
It can be less clear to the congregation where you get each point you make
You can spend too much time focused on how to present the text rather than what the text says

The “clearest communication” structure really shines with narrative sections of Scripture and long passages of Scripture. I have written before on the difficulties with preaching narrative. Unlike poetry or logical argumentation, narrative does not always have a clear structure to extract. Therefore, having the “clearest communication” structure in your toolbox will help you when you have to summarize large portions of Scripture or when you have to deal with texts that don’t have clear or equally sized divisions.

Logical progression structure

This final sermon structure is the most “preacher driven” and has the least connection to the structure of the text you are preaching. The “logical progression” structure fits any sermon on a given passage of Scripture into three categories: definition, exposition, and implication. The structure is as follows:

Introduce and read the text
Define key words in the text
Summarize the doctrinal truth from the text
Expound on this truth by connecting it with other Scripture
Draw out logical implications and applications of the doctrinal truth to your listeners.

This structure follows the “what does it say, what does it mean, how do I apply it” flow of a typical “inductive Bible study.” The Puritans often used this structure when they preached.

Some benefits of this structure include:

Clear, predictable flow for the congregation
Covers all major aspects of studying and applying a text
The sermon builds logically from the verse itself to the listener
The last thing your congregation hears is how the text applies to their lives

The drawback so the logical progression structure are:

Forces you to fit the nuances of a text into arbitrary categories
Treats all types of literature in the Bible the same way
Demands you reduce all of a passage into a single, definite proposition

I personally really enjoy this way of structuring a sermon. It particularly shines in expounding Epistles or smaller statements found in other Biblical literature. I do think this structure is not as effective with narrative passages or larger sections of Scripture in general. But if you are teaching only a verse or two, I highly recommend preaching like the Puritans did.

Conclusion

Structuring a sermon is a difficult but necessary task. There are a number of ways to order your teaching and no one way is the best fit for every type of literature of Scripture. My hope is that after reading this post, you have a few more sermon structures to pull from in the future. One of the highest privileges of a preacher is presenting the truth of the Bible clearly to the congregation. Keep thinking through ways to better communicate God’s truth to others.

For tools to help you in your sermon preparation, check out the Bible Study Tools page. If you need help thinking through sermon application, use these series of questions the Puritans used. I used some of these sermon structures in my own preaching, which you can find here.

Fear, Faith, & False Repentance: Numbers 14 Sermon

By Adam Nesmith | February 15, 2021

I recently preached a sermon on Numbers 14. My Pastor was out of town, and he asked me to cover for him. I have decided to make this sermon available on this blog.

In a previous post, I discussed some of the challenges with preaching narrative. Numbers 14 was a difficult text to preach in one sermon. But it contains a lot of rich theology.

I think in particular, Numbers 14 reveals how sin flows out of unbelief. Unbelief in God’s promises. In His power.

It took me a while to get the sermon written. I would work on the sermon every morning for a couple hours before heading to work.

But in my opinion, take every opportunity you get to preach God’s word. It is an amazing privilege.

I personally love the sermon writing process. You start out digging deep into God’s word on your own. Then you think how you best can present your insight to the congregation.

You write an outline. You check your conclusions with commentaries. Then, you meditate on the text until you develop useful applications.

Finally, after much prayer and wrestling and rewriting, you present it to the congregation.

I think Piper says it best in this excellent book on preaching: “Preaching aids worship and is worship.”

How true that is. I hope this sermon on Numbers 14 is a blessing to you. I have attached the video below, followed by the audio file.

Audio file here.

Any comments or thoughts? Feel free to reach out! If you want my thoughts on illustrations in preaching, see this previous post.

4 Useful Keys for Effective Sermon Illustrations

By Adam Nesmith | February 12, 2021

I attended Cedarville University where there were chapel speakers every day. Each speaker had their own style of preaching, some more effective than others. One of the things that interested me most is how speakers used sermon illustrations.

Oftentimes Pastors opened with extended personal anecdotes to “connect” with the room full of college students.

Others interrupted the flow of their own sermon to tell a humorous story.

The key question which entered my mind was: When and for what purpose should a preacher use a story, illustration, or anecdote?

In my opinion, there are several keys to deciding whether to use a sermon illustration or not.

Key 1: Don’t use sermon illustrations merely to entertain

One of the fundamental responsibilities of a preacher is to lead the congregation in worship. There is nothing more distracting than a funny story to open up a service where we are worshiping the living God.

If you are making your sermon and decide you want to tell a funny story at some point during your preaching, please reconsider.

The preacher is a mouthpiece to communicate truth to the congregation. It is a responsibility. A lot of your credibility as a pastor is based on how seriously you yourself take that truth.

At college, I often thought one of the main reasons speakers told entertaining stories was to seem relatable or relaxed or casual or accessible.

Preaching is not about making yourself seem accessible, it is about making the truth of God accessible to your listeners.

Most often, the longer and “funnier” the story, the more jarring the transition to actually preaching the Bible.

I am not arguing for a joyless service. By no means! But when the Church is gathered for worship the joy should be from the genuine delight we have in the gospel.

Our culture and to a great degree the day to day lives of your congregants is over-saturated with entertainment. Netflix. Disney+. Social media.

Do your congregation a favor and never use an illustration that distracts from the gravity of the Church gathering for worship.

Show your congregation that there is more to life than entertainment. Don’t use illustrations to entertain.

Key 2: Don’t use an illustration that detracts from the main point

I think many of the pastors I have heard who interrupt themselves with illustrations really think they are doing their listeners a favor. It gives their listeners a break from the really dense exposition of scripture.

Sometimes this may be true. But I found that it is better not to try to illustrate a point if you can’t do it well.

A poorly made illustration will cause the listener to fail to grasp the full weight of the text of scripture.

If you can’t think of a useful illustration, don’t manufacture one. Instead maybe try to restate the point using other words.

Or clarify it by going to another part of scripture.

If your illustration is less interesting or impactful than the truth you are presenting, skip it. Too many illustrations I have heard sound forced or overly long.

Especially frustrating is when a speaker makes a long-winded side illustration only to barely connect it to the point at hand.

The old principle of “when in doubt, leave it out” certainly applies here.

If your illustration is not obviously connected to the point you are trying to make, leave it out or think of a better illustration.

A half baked example or personal story will do more harm than good. You will leave your listeners more focused on the story than the point itself.

Preaching is nothing if not heralding the truth in clarity. Anything which doesn’t serve this purpose must be cut.

Key 3: Don’t use sermon illustrations that complicates your point

A classic example of these are all the different supposed illustrations of the trinity. I refer you to this video for an accurate take on them.

Sometimes, well meaning illustrations take simple points which should simply be affirmed and make them even harder to grasp.

Specifically, your illustration needs to match up as close 1:1 to the point you are trying to illustrate.

A bad illustration can cause your listeners to ask more questions than give answers. For example, should you attempt to illustrate the trinity with a three leaf clover, you are not only teaching partialism, but inviting your listeners to evaluate your analogy.

“How is the trinity like a clover?”

“I thought the Bible said there is one God? Are there three parts to him”

It would be easier if you simply presented the truths scripture declares and exhort the congregation on the necessity of faith and the transcendence of God.

Recognize that certain Biblical truths defy analogy. Simply affirm them.

Reflect on your illustration. Is it simplifying your point? Or adding a layer of complexity?

To put another way, will your listeners immediately grasp your illustration? Or will they spend more time trying to understand how your illustration relates than actually thinking about the text?

Now, these are all pitfalls to using sermon illustrations. How should you use them?

Fundamental Principle: Sermon illustrations exist to communicate abstract truth more clearly to your congregation.

For a good book on how humans use analogical thinking, see here.

The bible is full of metaphors, illustrations, and analogies. They are taken from nature, from other parts of scripture, and from the culture around them.

And in every case, the purpose is to take abstract spiritual concepts and make them tangible and accessible.

For example, in Isaiah, God doesn’t say “Your sins against me are an offense to my holiness and because I am infinite in majesty you deserve infinite judgment in proportion to that offense. However, even though this is your state, I will deal with this problem so you will not meet the infinite judgment you rightly have earned. Additionally, I will conform you to my holy and righteous standards.”

Instead, God uses a metaphor: though your sins are scarlet, you shall be made white as snow.

God graciously condescends to our finite minds by giving us truth using pictures that are common to our lives.

By understanding sin as a stain that must be washed away, you as the reader immediately grasp the truth of our guilt and God’s holiness in fewer words.

And that is how you preacher should use illustrations.

Don’t use them to entertain or make simple points excessively long.

Also don’t always relate the point to your own personal life or experience.

Take spiritual realities and make them clear by connecting them with the common things in your congregation’s life.

Now, recognize also not every abstract truth can be made into an analogy. The trinity and the virgin birth are just a couple biblical truths that defy analogy.

But just as limitations of illustrations should make you wary of using them excessively, seeing how God uses them in scripture to communicate to His people should make you want to use them when you can.

If you want to use illustrations effectively in your sermon, you must study the Bible. God is the original and best illustrator of spiritual truth.

Any comments or thoughts? Feel free to contact me!

3 Important Tips for Preaching Narrative

By Adam Nesmith | February 5, 2021

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.