Dr. John G. Mitchell, one of G. Campell Morgan’s disciples and the founder of Multnomah University wrote a review of G. Campbell Morgan’s Concise Survey of the Bible. Dr. Mitchell said that Dr. Morgan taught him to read a book of the Bible fifty times before you ever preach it.[1]
This takes time. A large block of uninterrupted time early in the morning is usually the best. There is an excellent interview between C. J. Mahaney and Mark Dever on this necessary step. Mark Dever says that he first reads and rereads the passage that he is going to preach and spends about 35 hours a week in sermon preparation. Dever tells the following story to make his point:
Gordon Fee taught me New Testament exegesis at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and—although I didn’t agree with his feminism or his kenotic Christology—I did love his story about the graduate student in ichthyology (The theology of fish, just kidding, even though that is the etymology of the word. Ichthyology comes from the Greek: ἰχθύς, ikhthys, "fish"; and λόγος, logos, "study"). There is a student studying fish at a doctoral level, and a world-class expert tells him to write down everything he sees about the fish and then he leaves. And the guy is kind of disappointed because he was studying under this great expert. He thought, “Why am I doing this?”
He wrote down a few things. The expert returns about 30 minutes later and says, “This is all you’ve got?”
And the graduate student says, “Yes.”
He says, “I want you to do this for the next hour.”
And the student says, “An hour? You’re kidding!”
So for an hour, the student does it and he starts noting down more things, and seeing more things, and writing them down.
The expert returns an hour later and he says, “All right. This is a pretty good start. Why don’t you do this the rest of the afternoon?”
And the graduate student is thinking, What are you thinking? You are the great expert, I came to learn from you and this is just a fish floating here. So the student spends the rest of the afternoon doing the same thing. But by the end of the afternoon, he realizes he has learned more about fish just by sitting and staring at the fish.
All of that to say: Rather than reading all the commentaries, I spend my first day in sermon preparation just reading and rereading the text and praying about it, and noting things I see (any structures or questions that are answered). I find this to be the most fruitful way for me to have my soul freshly engaged by God about his Word.
Jerry Vine and Jim Shaddix stress the importance of reading the book and passage prior to sermon preparation. They admonish preachers to “Read repeatedly … read prayerfully … read carefully … read contemplatively … read imaginatively … read purposely … read obediently.”[2]
The following comments will help in studying the passage: (You can choose one of the other Factual Data” sheets, such as, “Factual Data” Sheet for Narratives if you are preparing a sermon from Nehemiah. Just click the link on Narratives below).
"THE FACTUAL DATA" Sheet for Sermon Preparation: (For Pauline Epistles Genre)
Part One: Macrohermeneutics (study the context of the preaching passage)
(See THE FACTUAL DATA Sheet for the Gospel of Mark, or Hebrew Poetry, or Narratives or Pauline Epistles if you have already read this Factual Data Sheet)
I got the idea for “The Factual Data” sheet from reading that Warren W. Wiersbe’s homiletic teacher, Lloyd Perry who used a generic “Factual Data” sheet for sermon preparation. I have adapted “The Factual Data” sheet to the different genres of Scripture instead of a one-size-fits-all approach.
1. The Epistle is the dominant literary form or genre in the New Testament (21 of the 27 books are epistles). Jeffery D. Arthurs does a great job in Preaching with Variety [3] at showing how the uniqueness of each genre should influence not only the form of our sermons but how we preach them. I will only highlight some of his points for preaching Pauline Epistles and especially the book of Ephesians.
a. Epistles are closest to the sermon and therefore preachers feel the most comfortable preaching epistles.[4]
b. Epistles were formal, public letters written mainly to churches something like our letters to the editor.
c. Epistles are direct addresses like sermons. They are like listening to one side of a telephone conversation.
d. Epistles, like sermons, used theology to solve problems. The imperative (we must be united in Ephesians 4:1-17) is grounded in the indicative (there is unity in the Trinity in Ephesians 1:3-14). The standard of living is high but the motivation is sufficient and from God.
e. Epistles, like sermons use other forms like proverbs (Gal 5:9), hymns (Phil 2:6-11), lists (Rom 1:29-31), rhetorical questions (Rom 8:31-35), extended metaphor (Eph 6:10-17). The listener never knows what is coming next. So should we preachers use a variety of material in our sermons? Sometimes when I am nearly through preparing a sermon, I will list the illustrations on a separate piece of paper just to see if there is plenty of diversity in them.
f. Epistles, like sermons were written to be heard (1 Thess 5:27; Col 4:16; Philemon 2). Even private reading was done orally (Acts 8). The letters were even dictated to the scribe. Therefore repetition was important (“one” is used 14 times in Ephesians to show the need for unity) and concrete language (“Macedonians” 2 Cor 8:1-7) or family (Eph 2:20). Therefore as preachers we should repeat.
1) Repeat the key sentences your audience needs to remember ("to the praise of the glory of His grace" Eph 1:6, 12, 14).
2) “These sentences are like the pegs of your tie rack. Take away the pegs and you have only a colorful jumble. With the pegs, the ties hang straight and can be examined.”
3) What are these key sentences that must be repeated? Proposition (MPS), main divisions, etc.
4) To preach for the ear, we must preach in koine or the common language of the people. Billy Sunday was a master at this. Once when preaching near a lumberman’s camp, he learned that when the lumbermen went deep into the woods to cut down trees they would sprinkle sawdust to find their way out of the forest. At the end of the workday, the foreman would shout, “Let’s hit the sawdust trail and go back home.” When Sunday learned about this tradition, at the end of his sermon the next night at the invitation, with sawdust on the floor of the Billy Sunday Tabernacle, Sunday exhorted the unsaved to “Hit the sawdust trail and come back home to God.”
2. Let the form of the Scripture influence the form of the sermon. When preaching on Romans 11:33-36, a glorious hymn inserted abruptly into the flow of Paul’s argument, let the form of the doxology influence the form of your sermon. You would not preach the doxology like an argument from Galatians. Craddock attempts to capture the mood: “Let doxologies be shared doxologically, narratives narratively, polemics polemically, and parables parabolically. In other words, biblical preaching ought to be biblical.”[5]
a. If the text uses word picture, use pictures in your sermon (A soldier from images in Google transferred to your PowerPoint on Eph 6:10-20).
b. If the text is autobiographical, use a first-person sermon or at least a portion of your sermon (A Night in Persia, Esther by Donald Sunikijian in Biblical Sermons by Haddon Robison).
c. If the text has debate (Gal 1:11-24), use a debate after the sermon.
d. If the text is a dialogue (which epistles are: one half of the conversation), use dialogue.
1) Habakkuk is all dialogue. Jesus used dialogue when He asked 153 questions. Paul did the same in Acts 17:2 (Paul....reasoned [Gk. dielegeto] from which we get our English word dialogue).
2) Let the audience ask the preacher questions following a sermon.
3) Preacher asks the audience real questions or rhetorical questions.
4) Have main divisions stated as questions.
5) Use drama with dialogue. There are many ways the preacher can allow the form of the text to mold the form of his sermon and Jeffery D. Arthurs' Preaching With Variety is a very useful tool. In Part 2, I will provide "The Factual Data" Sheet, Part 2 which will help the preacher Observe, Interpret, and Apply his passage. I will deal with what I call Macro Hermeneutics, which establishes the context of the text, and Micro Hermeneutics, which helps analyze the content of the text.
Part Two or Microhermeneutics (study the content of the preaching passage) to assist the preacher in taking the three steps in Bible Study:
Step One: Observe, Which answers the question: “What does this text say?”
Step Two: Interpret, Which answers the question: “What does this text mean?”
Step Three: Apply, Which answers the question: “What does this text have to do with me?”
Here is what Mark Dever says about these three important steps:
Exegesis is simply drawing meaning out of a text. The three steps are observe, interpret, and apply. These steps will often overlap. But try to do one at a time.
Observing the text is simply asking "What does the text say?" So here you're looking for repeated words or ideas, conjunctions, subject and object of actions, comparisons, contrasts, transitions, literary structure, and verb tenses.
Observing the text, it helps to type the passage out, print it, and then mark up the printout using different colors to highlight the different lexical, grammatical, and syntactical features of the text.
Interpreting the text is simply asking "What does the text mean?" So here you're synthesizing your observations, discovering principles, drawing conclusions, and seeking to discover what claim the text lays on your life. In Acts 10:9-16, the text says that Peter can eat what in the OT was unclean. What does that mean to me? I am to be a witness to Gentiles once considered unclean (10:28).
Applying the text is simply asking "What does the text mean for me?" So here you're looking for concrete ways to obey the claim of the text on your life or to put the principle into practice. The first of Mark Dever’s 9 Marks of a healthy church is expositional preaching and is worth reading.
You can do further reading in Tony Merida’s Faithful Preaching. He writes about these steps as well which he calls
1) Obvious Observations —-What Does the Text Say?
2) Responsible Interpretation—What Does the Text Mean?
3) Redemptive Integration—How Is the Gospel Related to This Text? Here Merida warns ‘Of course, we do not want to insert Jesus where He is not.’
4) Concluding Implications—How Does This Passage Apply to Us Today? (pages 66-75).
I. STUDY THE CONTEXT (Macro Hermeneutics)
I am only partially answering some of these questions to demonstrate how “The Factual Data” Sheet works.
1) Who is speaking or writing? Paul according to Ephesians 1:1; 3:1. Gather pertinent material concerning his background, life, and work. The background on Paul can be gathered from Harold W. Hoehner’s commentary on Ephesians and D. Edmond Hiebert’s An Introduction to the New Testament, Vol. Two.)
2) To whom was the passage addressed and why? The believers at Ephesus. The background is Acts 18:19ff.
3) Where (locate on the map) was this book written? Ephesians was written in Rome during Paul's first Roman imprisonment (Acts 28). Look up Rome and Ephesus on the map.
4) Locate on the map any other places referred to in the passage. There is no other city or country mentioned in Ephesians. In Colossians 4:13, Paul mentions Laodicea and Hierapolis. If you were filling out"The Factual Data" sheet on Colossians you would locate these cities on the map.
5) When was this book written? A.D. 60-62 in Paul’s first Roman imprisonment in Acts 28. This becomes important, for example, in the significance of the Prison Epistle Prayers which (1:15-23; 3:14-21) are always for others, not Paul’s needs, and also are always for spiritual needs and not physical or material, even while Paul had both physical and material needs while in prison.
6) What is the purpose of the author writing this book? To encourage God’s people to love each other and God in order for there to be unity in the church. Harold W. Hoehner documents this well in his introduction to Ephesians.
7) What is the theme of the book?
The Unity that Love Can Bring. “What did it mean to the original audience?” must precede “What does it mean to my audience?”
8) Give the development of the theme (the overall outline of the book).
I. Theological Unity in Ephesians (Chapters 1-3)
A. Theological Example of the Trinity (1:3-2:10)
B. Theological Example of the Church (2:11-3:21)
II. Practical Unity in Ephesians (Chapters 4-6) Seen in the 5 “Therefore Walk” passages.
A. “Therefore Walk” in Unity (4:1-16)
B. “Therefore Walk” not as the Unsaved (4:17-32)
C. “Therefore Walk” in Love (5:1-6)
D. “Therefore Walk” in the Light (5:7-14)
E. “Therefore Walk” in Wisdom (5:15-6:9)
9) Are there parallel passages elsewhere in Scripture that can help me understand this passage? Of the 155 verses in Ephesians, the content of 78 of them is repeated in Colossians with some differences. This is why the two books are called the “Twin Epistles” (Robert Gromacki. New Testament Survey, page 241). The parallel passage of Ephesians 4:24 in Colossians 3:10 helps us understand that at salvation the image of God greatly impaired with the Fall of Adam was regained through Christ at our conversion.
2. EXAMINE THE DETAILS OF THE PASSAGE SELECTED TO PREACH (Micro Hermeneutics)
1) Identify important doctrines
A. The doctrine of the Trinity is mentioned 8 times: 1:3-14; 1:17; 2:18; 2:22; 3:4-5; 3:14-17; 4:4-6; 5:18-20. The Trinity is Paul’s perfect example of unity for the church to emulate.
B. The doctrine of the Church or the Body of Christ is also important because there is also perfect unity of Jews and Gentiles positionally in the body of Christ. The word "one" is mentioned by Paul 14 times in Ephesians. Jews and Gentiles, who were bitter enemies in the Old Testament, are now "one" (2:13-15). These two doctrines help the preacher know what is the big theme of the book.
2) Identify the grammatical introductory words: Around these three words: Eph 4:17 “Therefore,” 4:20 “But,” 4:25 “Wherefore,” this section, (4:17-32) can be outlined.
Proposition or MPS: We must not live like the Unsaved (Eph 4:17-32).
I. Because the unsaved are totally depraved (4:17-19). "This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk" (4:17).
II. Because believers have been changed (4:20-24). "But you have not so learned Christ" (4:20).
III. Because believers do not practice the sins of the unsaved (4:25-32). "Wherefore putting away lying" (4:25).
3) Identify important theological words. Paul piles up the theological words in 4:17-19 that describe the totally depraved nature of the unsaved. Notice that the division of these theological words becomes the subdivision for the main point I.
Proposition or MPS: We must not live like the Unsaved (Eph 4:17).
I. Because the unsaved are totally depraved (4:17-19). "This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk" (4:17).
A. Sinners are totally depraved in their minds: “vanity of their minds” (v.17), “the understanding darkened” (v.18), “the ignorance that is in them” (v. 8), “blindness of the hearts or mind” (v.18).
B. Sinners are totally depraved in their emotions: “who being past feeling” (v.19).
C. Sinners are totally depraved in their will: “have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity” (v.19)
4) Identify important tenses. The differences in the tenses in 4:22-24 form the subdivision for point II.
Proposition or MPS: We must not live like the Unsaved (Eph 4:17).
I. Because the unsaved are totally depraved (4:17-19).
II. Because believers have been changed (4:20-24).
A. The tense of “put off the old man” in 4:22 is aorist. The old unregenerate man has been put off.
B. The tense of “be renewed in the mind” in 4:23 is present or continual. The new nature is being renewed by the Holy Spirit (3:16).
C. The tense of “put on the new man” in 4:24 is aorist. The new regenerated man has been put on.
5) Identify important patterns. The identical pattern of the five “therefore walk” sections is how the theme of unity is developed in the practical second half of Ephesians as seen above. The identical pattern in 4:25-32 becomes the subdivisions for point III. Each of the five ways believers do not practice the sins of the unsaved has an identical pattern of a negative command, positive command, and a reason for the positive command. Here is what it looks like:
Proposition or MPS: We must not live like the Unsaved (Eph 4:17).
I. Because the unsaved are totally depraved (4:17-19). (important theological words helped with main division I)
II. Because believers have been changed (4:20-24). (important tenses helped with main Division II)
III. Because believers do not practice the sins of the unsaved (4:25-32). (important patterns helped with main Division III)
A. Lying (4:25)
1) Negative command
2) Positive command
3) Reason for the positive command
B. Anger (4:26-27)
1) Negative command
2) Positive command
3) Reason for the positive command
C. Stealing (4:28)
1) Negative command
2) Positive command
3) Reason for the positive command
D. Corrupt Speech (4:29-30)
1) Negative command
2) Positive command
3) Reason for the positive command
E. Bitterness (4:31-32). I am only developing this point because it is linked to the "therefore" in 5:1.
1) Negative command: “Let all bitterness…. be put away.” These sins from bad interpersonal relationships begin internally with bitterness and anger and if not confessed become outward outbursts. Like a boiling pot of water that spills out all over the kitchen, splashes on the cook, burns, and does all kinds of damage.
2) Positive command: “And be kind one to another tenderhearted, forgiving one another.” Just as God is unconditionally kind to us (Luke 6:35b), tenderhearted or compassionate and forgiving of us so should we be to others who have hurt and disappointed and even betrayed us. We have not just had these sins committed against us, but we have committed these sins against God.
3) Reason for the positive command: “Even as God in Christ has forgiven you.” God has forgiven us unconditionally. We should forgive without exacting first a pound of flesh. God has forgiven us eternally. We should forgive and not hold grudges. God has forgiven us completely. He is not keeping records. “Love doesn’t keep records” in 1 Corinthians 13:5. If we keep bringing up someone’s fault against us then we have not forgiven. The unsaved get even. Believers forgive like our Savior who on the cross prayed for His enemies, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Is there someone for whom you need to pray this prayer and act like Christ rather than getting even like the world?
In the next post, we discuss Step 3: Discover the main thrust of the passage or the proposition or the MPS (Main Point of the Sermon).
[1] David P. Craig, “Learning Scripture Memory From One Who Mastered The Bible” Dr. John G. Mitchell Lifecoach4God, access 02/28/2020.
[2] Jerry Vine and Jim Shaddix, Power in the Pulpit: How to Prepare and Deliver Expository Sermons (click to open) (both 1999 and 2017 editions), 101-105.
[3] The non-epistolary books are the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation. Hebrews and 1 John are hybrids, sharing many characteristics of epistles, but omitting an address to specific groups. Acts and Revelation contain embedded epistles as do OT historical books. See 2 Sam 11:14-15; 1 Kgs. 21:8-10; 2 Kgs 5:4-6; 10;1-3: Ezra 4:9-12, 17-22; and 6:3-12” (Jeffery D. Arthurs, Preaching with Variety, Grand Rapids: Kergel, 2007) 152, 217.
[4] Both are created to address specific circumstances; both argue ideas and employ ‘support material,’ such as illustrations and quotations; both are markedly aural. No wonder preachers often feel at home in the epistles. Poetry, narrative, parable, and proverbs tend to hide their rhetoric, using induction and imagination for persuasion, but the epistle flies its rhetorical flag for all to see” (Ibid., 152).
[5] Fred Craddock, As One Without Authority, 131.