Therefore, if you fail to handle the Word of God accurately, you are sinning against God, distorting what Jesus Christ wants to say to His Church through you, the preacher. As a preacher you are commanded by God to be an unashamed workman, “handling accurately or with precision, the Word of truth” (II Tim. Now you might be wondering to yourself, “Why bother with all this talk about main points and subpoints?” Because the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Sometimes there will be phrases that modify or speak about other phrases that modify or speak about the main points. Second, whatever words or phrases speak about or modify the main points will be your sub points or paragraphs that further explain your main outline points. Fix this first principle in your mind, My sermon outline must reflect the authorial intent and inspired emphasis of the text I am preaching. For now, focus on what I am telling you as it will help you later. I have a section under “Sermon Construction” titled “Sermon Outlines” where I give you many examples of exegetical sermon outlines derived from text flow diagrams (Click Here). “But how do you find the main points of a text?” an eager student asks. Whatever big idea, theme, focus the original author had in writing his text should be reflected in the main points and title of your sermon. First, become familiar with the rule and then over the course of time you can learn about the exceptions to the rule. I know, you are probably thinking to yourself, “What are the exceptions?” Be patient. This may sound obvious, and yes, there are exceptions, but as a rule, the main points of your sermon must submit to and reflect the inspired main emphasis of the text. Pick up your hermeneutical crampons, carabiners, and pickax and follow me as we head out together on the exegetical trail that slowly ascends the Mount of Outlines.įirst, your main outline points need to match the inspired emphasis of the biblical text you are preaching. In later articles we will focus on outlining specific kinds and sizes of texts. You are at the base of Mount Outlines, but by God’s grace, you can reach the summit! See it jutting up before you from the plain of Scripture, its peak disappearing into the clouds of inspired revelation!īecause I cannot, in this one article, give you instruction and examples for every kind of biblical genre and size of text, my goal is to give you some basic and nearly universal principles that apply to many kinds and sizes of texts the expository preacher will encounter in preaching the whole counsel of God’s Word. Even a man who graduates the top of his class from an excellent seminary will have to labor all his life to learn to outline the many kinds and sizes of biblical texts he will encounter over the course of his preaching ministry. You may crash and burn like the Hindenburg in some sermons by failing to represent the authorial intent or you may crash into the ice of complicated grammar and syntax and your mangled outline will sink to the bottom of murky failure like the Titanic. You are not going to be an ace at deriving accurate exegetical outlines from every kind and size of biblical text overnight.
I am not trying to make you faint like the Apostle John did before the angel, I merely want to give you some realistic expectations.
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