W. A. Criswell was pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas from 1944-1991. He demonstrated the importance of preaching through books of the Bible. In Why I Preach That the Bible is Literally True, Criswell wrote that “Soon after coming to the pastorate of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, I made an announcement that I would preach through the Bible. It was my first intention to go through the Book much faster than I finally did. In fact, at first, I did preach rapidly through the books of the Old Testament. But as the days multiplied, I found myself going slower and slower and slower. Finally, I came to the place where I preached for several years on some of the sections of the New Testament. In all, from Genesis to Revelation, I spent seventeen years and eight months going through the Book. where I left off Sunday morning, I began Sunday evening; where I left off the previous Sunday night, I began the following Sunday morning.
When I made the announcement that I was proposing to preach through the Bible, an obvious foreboding fell upon a part of the congregation. They were afraid that the church would be ruined. Some of them felt that no one would come to listen to long passages in the Bible that were not familiar and that had never been discussed or preached on. The whole outlook was one of gloom. The lugubrious prognostication would have made any church dark with foreboding of inevitable failure.
What actually happened, however, was as if heaven came down to attend church with us. As I continued to preach through the Word of God, the congregation continued to grow. Finally, throngs and throngs came to wait upon the word of the Lord. The auditorium in the First Baptist Church of Dallas is one of the largest in America. We filled it to capacity and the people kept coming in increasing numbers. the people grew to esteem Bible preaching. Their every comment was one of love and appreciation. Many times have I heard our new members talking to one another facetiously say, “You know. I joined the church in Isaiah!” Another would add, “I joined in 2 Timothy!” (page 83). We know that preaching through books of the Bible is no magical formula and the results vary. It is just encouraging to read of one example of God’s blessings on a pastor committed to preaching the Word. You can read his pastoral theology in Criswell’s Guidebook for Pastors.
John Calvin was dedicated to preaching verse by verse through books of the Bible. Steven J. Lawson in his book The Expository Genius of John Calvin wrote that Calvin preached through “Genesis, Deuteronomy, Job, Judges, I and II Samuel, I and II Kings, the Major and Minor Prophets, the Gospels, Acts, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, I and II Thessalonians, I and II Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews” (page 33). Calvin was banished for three years (1538-1541) from Geneva by the City Council because he refused to let members living in open sin participate in the Lord’s Supper. When the city began to struggle, the City Council invited Calvin to return. “In September 1541, Calvin reentered his Geneva pulpit three years later and said, “Now in the next verse!” Similarly, Calvin became seriously ill in the first week of October 1558 and did not return to the pulpit until Monday, June 12, 1559—-when he resumed at the very next verse in the book of Isaiah” (page 33). Hence, the advantage of series preaching through books of the Bible.
Stephen Davey, the pastor at Colonial Baptist Church, said in his last sermon (click here to view) in his series on Romans: “How do you end a study like this? It has spanned six years and two months, with breaks, of course, for Christmas and Easter and summer series.” Criswell, Calvin, and Davey preached successfully with God’s blessings through books of the Bible which has advantages and disadvantages. Notice the wisdom of Davey to still preach on special days even in the midst of a series.
There are two ways to choose a passage to preach
You can choose a passage in a series that has many built-in advantages
If you did the spadework of outlining the book ahead of time this makes choosing the passage simple. Start where you left off in the last sermon. Not only is this an advantage to you but to your members who learn God’s Word in the context of the book being preached.
Tony Merida discusses how to get started in series preaching through a book of the Bible: How do you come up with sermon ideas and series? One way is to simply start with a Bible book itself. If this is a new idea for you or the church, start with a smaller book like Philippians (Tony Merida, Faithful Preaching, B&H Publishing. Kindle Edition, 65). Merida has a helpful but brief section on selecting passages to preach on pages 65-66.
There are, however, also disadvantages of preaching in series. Members may become weary if the series is too long. If the series has died; dismount. Find a good division in the book, stop, and come back later. If you are in Romans 3 and your people are filling in the o's, d's, and p's in the bulletin then close the series on sin at 3:20.
Another disadvantage is not enough variety in preaching. This can be remedied by preaching contrasting series or no series at all in the other services. For example, if you are preaching a verse-by-verse series through Romans on Sundays do a topical or thematic series from Proverbs on Wednesdays. This series provides contrasts between the Old and New Testaments, genres, subjects, and styles of preaching. You can go back and forth with alternating series as just suggested if you only have one main preaching service a week and small groups the rest of the week. I give some practical tips shortly on “How to Plan and Preach a Book Series” (click to view).
The second way to choose a passage is more difficult. Choose a passage, not in series
You can choose a text according to the needs of the congregation or according to the goals of the pastor (Once a year State of the Church sermon), or according to the time of year. I suggest when special times of the year roll around such as Christmas, Easter, the 4th of July, or even Memorial Day, break away from the series and meet the expectations of your people and address those special times and themes. All of these should be according to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Jerry Vines and Jim Shaddix in Power in the Pulpit: How to Prepare and Deliver Expository Sermons (both 1999 and 2017 editions) give helpful tips on choosing a passage for either series or non-series preaching (pages 92-96). Vines and Shaddix call series or book preaching “systematic exposition” and what is not series or book preaching, they call “general exposition.”
Spurgeon’s Example
Spurgeon demonstrated both the advantages and disadvantages of preaching or not preaching a series of sermons. Spurgeon did have a sermon preparation process that usually took place on Saturday evenings after 6:00 p.m. He once gave the following description of his process to his students:
“Brethren, it is not easy for me to tell you precisely how I make my sermons. All through the week I am on the look-out for material that I can use on the Sabbath; but the actual work of arranging it is necessarily, left until Saturday evening, for every other moment is fully occupied in the Lord's service. I have often said that my greatest difficulty is to fix my mind upon the particular texts which are to be the subjects of discourse, on the following day” (C. H. Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography: Compiled from His Diary, Letters, and Records, by His Wife, and His Private Secretary. Vol. 4, London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1900, 65-68).
Week-by-week, Spurgeon selected a Scripture text from which he would preach. He found this to be “the greatest difficulty” of his preparations. This process involved not only careful study and pastoral consideration of his congregation’s needs, but he looked to the Spirit’s leading. He shared with his students, “I confess that I frequently sit hour after hour praying and waiting for a subject, and that this is the main part of my study.” But this was not a passive waiting. Even as he labored “in manipulating topics, ruminating upon points of doctrine, making skeletons out of verses,” he depended on the Spirit to guide him to a text.
Spurgeon did not forbid his students from planning a sermon series ahead of time and preaching through books of the Bible. But he warned them that a long series could end up being wearisome to a congregation (Spurgeon’s Preaching Prep Process by Geoff Chang at Preaching Today) (click to open).