OVERSEER COURSE LESSON SEVENTY

THE POWER OF A GREAT SERMON

PREPARATION
MODULE SIX

The Sermon Text

Henry Epps
founder
HARVEST LIFE
GLOBAL NETWORK
Overseer Course Lesson 70
 Lesson Seventy

The Sermon Text

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The Text

Summary

Its Meaning
Derivation of the word "text."
May include more of a passage than is read.
More commonly means the special words read by the preacher, from which he proposes to speak,
and which are often detached from the context: (1) The theme should, as a rule, cover the whole
text; (2) Yet one theme need not necessarily exhaust the text; (3) It is well that the text should form
a complete rhetorical sentence.
The History of the Text
The Jewish custom.
The practice of the apostles compared with that of their immediate successors.
Later history, "postillating" and "declaring."

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Uses Served by the Text
Disadvantages: (1) The use of a text cramps the liberty of preaching; (2) Is not favorable to the
most intelligent treatment of Scripture; (3) Is artificial.
Advantages: (1) A cure for desultoriness; (2) Insures some reference to Scripture; (3) Carries with
it a sense of authority; (4) Is not confined to preaching.
The Structure of the Text
Reverence demands that it form a complete sentence.
Yet "fractional texts" may be used.
As to the length of the text.
The text may be drawn from more than one passage: (1) Complementary texts; (2) Contrasted
texts; (3) Texts made up of the same words in various connections; (4) Series of sermons on
contrasted or complementary texts.

Its Meaning
I. The meaning of the text
1. To recall the derivation of the familiar word "text" is to recognize the bounds which it naturally
sets to the sermon. Taken from the Latin textus, it suggests something woven into the entire web
of the discourse. Plainly it points back to a time when preaching was altogether expository, when
the sermon was little more than a running comment on the Scripture for the day, which in its turn
formed the text.
2. The text may still mean the whole passage with which the preacher proposes to deal, although
he may read only a few words taken from it. Horace Bushnell's sermon on "Unconscious
Influence," is prefaced by the words "Then went in also that other disciple" (John 20:3-8), but in
its development it is based on the entire narrative from which that fragment is taken.
3. More commonly we understand by the text the special words read by the preacher as those on
which he proposes to speak, and which he often wholly detaches from the context. When Guthrie
discourses on "The Messenger," and takes for his text, "Moreover the word of the Lord came unto
me saying, Son of man" , he uses the context scarcely at all.
Since the sermon is based on certain words upon which the preacher proposes to speak, it is best
that the theme should. as a rule, cover the whole text. A limited use of the term "text" has anyhow
the advantage that all the text can be pressed into the service of the sermon.
At the same time a single theme need not necessarily exhaust the text. In one verse in Ezekiel,
Guthrie finds three themes, and from each of these he preaches a sermon.

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Whenever possible let the text as it is announced form a complete rhetorical sentence. To use a
few fragmentary words is open to many objections, as we shall see; and certainly not the least of
them is the offense to the ear, which naturally delights in the balance and harmony of sound.
Its History
II. A few words may here be devoted to the history of the text
1. The Jewish custom was to read the Scriptures, which of themselves almost formed the discourse
without any added comment. Gradually, however, partly because the language was no longer that
of their daily lives, and partly because there was need to justify the additions made by the scribes
to the simple law, it came to be the fashion to indulge in extended exposition and application. So
Jesus preached in the synagogue of Nazareth ; and to Paul and Barnabas when worshiping at
Antioch in Pisidia came the invitation from the ruler of the synagogue there, after the reading of
the Scripture, "Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on."
2. The apostles, believing themselves inspired teachers, often preached without texts; and the fact
that their successors did not follow their example shows that for themselves they made no such
claim. Inspiration ceased, and henceforth authority was found in the use of the words of the now
complete Scriptures.
3. Until the beginning of the thirteenth century the sermon was little more than an expansion of
the text, itself often a long passage or even an entire book. Such preaching was called "postillating,"
and was distinguished from "declaring," a name given to that kind of discourse in which the
speaker said what he desired to say without taking any text. In the thirteenth century the habit of
preaching from a single verse, or a few verses only, became common, and very soon we find the
elaborate analysis, the divisions and subdivisions, which are now so usual in the sermon. They no
doubt helped the hearer to follow and remember the discourse, yet they date from the days when
medieval theologians reduced all thinking to rigid and formal systems.

Its Use
III. This brings us to the use served by the text Undoubtedly it has advantages, although these are
not without the defects of their excellencies.
1. Three disadvantages we must mention.
(1) The first is that a slavish adherence to a text cramps the liberty of preaching. Voltaire says with
reason that for a preacher to speak at length on a brief quotation, and to make his whole discourse
bear upon that, "appears to be trifling little worthy the dignity of the ministry. The text becomes a
kind of motto or rather enigma, which the discourse develops."
(2) A second objection to the use of the text is that it is often fatal to the most intelligent treatment
of Scripture. Chopping the Bible into fragments, the practice pursued from a host of pulpits through
long centuries of abuse, leaves us amazed that the book has survived during centuries of dislocation
and dismemberment. The words of Erasmus are needed still: "To get at the real meaning it is not

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enough to take four or five isolated words; you must look where they came from, what was said,
by whom it was said, to whom it was said, at what time, on what occasion, in what words, what
preceded, what follows." Each clause in this wise and weighty sentence should sound the death-
knell for a multitude of sermons.
(3) A third objection is that the use of the text is artificial. It tends to make preaching monotonous,
unnatural, and unreal; and the step is a very short one from the unreal to the uninteresting. Indeed,
what preacher has not at times found himself chafing against being forced by custom to maintain
the unvarying habit of announcing his text? Certainly if it were our chief duty to bring preaching
to perfection as a rhetorical exercise, we should begin by abolishing the tyranny of the text, which,
like the lame beggar, demands tribute from us every time we attempt to enter the temple.
2. Yet it must be evident that the advantages of using a text are many and great.
(1) For one thing, it is a cure for desultoriness and rescues the preacher from deserving the sneer
of Sterne when he says that the excellency of a certain text is it will suit any sermon, and of a
certain sermon that it will suit any text.
(2) Evidently, also, it does insure some reference to Scripture. The preacher starts well, however
he may finish. So far he is bound to be, true to his office as a messenger; and when he can find no
text for his sermon he does well to ask himself whether the sermon ought to be preached. The
"prologues" or "preludes" in which some preachers now indulge, by the very fact that they range
themselves under no inspired texts, confess that they have no authority such as the genuine sermon
carries with it. We may note in passing that if the sermon is to be an expansion and application of
a text it seems to follow that the text must be chosen before the sermon is composed. The late
Professor Jowett, of Oxford University, said that it was his habit to write the discourse first, "and
then choose a text as a peg." We need not be surprised therefore that he should hold forth in the
chapel of his college on the causes of failure in the university from the words "Much study is a
weariness of the flesh."
(3) The use of a text has then the further advantage that it carries to the hearer a sense of authority.
Uttering only the brief but terrible "word of the Lord," Elijah broke in upon Ahab in his ivory
palace at Jezreel ; with a text from Isaiah, John the Baptist came preaching the Gospel of
repentance ; and it was with words dear to many generations of believing hearts that Jesus, in the
synagogue of Nazareth, led the way to His sublime announcement, "This day is this Scripture
fulfilled in your ears."
(4) Nor is this practice confined to the pulpit. The old philosophers detaching sentences from the
writings of their famous sages, used them as texts; the orator who speaks to a toast and the
statesman who previous to his address in the legislature calls for the reading of certain resolutions,
both of them use texts; the musician varying the air, but at the same time preserving harmony by
observing unity, finds in the motif of his composition his text; to the painter some familiar strain
of song or some stirring scene in history furnishes a text; and when Milton opens "Paradise Lost"
with the words,

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Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,

or when Tennyson, in the first lines of "In Memoriam," holds it true with another singer that "men
may rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things," they only illustrate the use of
the text by the greatest of our poets.
In summing up this part of our subject, let me counsel that the use of the text be preserved, although
the habit should not be regarded as carrying with it any divine sanction; that where we deem it
wise to do so the text may be dispensed with, and a subject announced instead, such as may very
likely demand the consideration of not one only but many passages of Scripture; that occasionally
the preacher does well to place his text where it seems naturally to belong, and where the old
German usage puts it, namely, after the introduction of the sermon has been given; and, above all,
that because he conforms to the time-honored practice of having a text, no preacher is warranted
in treating it in such a way as to do violence to the context. The growing feeling at the present time
is against that reckless indifference to the whole tenor and spirit of a passage which permits the
preacher to make a "peg" of his text on which to hang a sermon. However richly his sermon may
merit hanging, it deserves to go to its own place in some less honorable way.
Its Structure

IV. We pass on to consider the structure of the text.

1. Not alone our respect for rhetoric, but still more our respect for the Bible, demands that as a rule
the text shall form a complete sentence. Verses of Scripture should not be mutilated for the sake
of obtaining a striking or sensational text. There was no excuse for South, when having to preach
before the Merchant Tailors' Company of the city of London, he announced as his text, "A remnant
shall be saved" ; and still less excuse for Dean Hook, when preaching before the young queen of
England he founded an argument for submission to ecclesiastical authority on the words, "Hear
the church." Whately was justly indignant at this priestly trifling. "By quoting slices of texts you
may prove anything. Why should not someone else preach on the text thus, "If he neglect to hear
the church, let him... ?"
2. And yet so long as they do no violence to the context, what are called "fractional texts" are often
impressive. "The blood of the everlasting covenant," "Whose I am," "Reconciled to God,"
"Unsearchable riches," illustrate a legitimate use of Scripture fragments. The conflict between faith
and culture may be discussed from the words, "Thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece" ;
and the contrast between human and divine methods of action may be emphasized by the broken

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sentence, "Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and... then that which is worse,
but thou... "
3. The length of the text must be determined by the theme. The main thing is to do full justice to
that. A short text often arrests attention, while a long text gives an impression of fullness and
authority. We hope that the frivolous fancy for excessively short texts has died out. "And
Bartholomew," on which a Puritan preacher discoursed with much unction, may be more fruitful
on longer acquaintance than it promises to be at first; but a score of sermons by another preacher
of the same period and school on the interjection "Oh," must frequently have provoked his hearers
into using the text themselves in no very gracious spirit; and the preacher who enlarged on the
little word "But," when he was a candidate for an endowed lectureship, was paid in his own coin
when the senior trustee met him as he left the pulpit with the remark:. "You have given us a most
ingenious discourse, and we are much obliged to you, but we hardly think you are the man we
need."
4. The preacher does well occasionally to draw his text from more than one passage of Scripture.
(1) Texts which corroborate one another are often useful. The Second Commandment, "I the Lord
thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children," may fairly enough
be coupled with the equally authoritative words in Ezekiel, "The son shall not bear the iniquity of
the father." That "Our God is a consuming fire," is the other half of the great truth set forth in the
more familiar declaration of John, "God is love." A charge to a young pastor was founded not long
since on portions of three verses in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians. "A minister of
Jesus Christ" (verse 7), "A minister of the gospel" (verse 23), and "A minister of the church" (verse
25). These are examples of complementary texts.
(2) Contrasted texts are equally impressive. Close to one another are the two verses which picture
the Gadarenes as beseeching Jesus to depart from them and the people on the other side of the lake
as gladly receiving him. The futile yearning of David, "O that I had wings like a dove! then would
I fly away and be at rest," is answered by the invitation of David's Lord, "Come unto me all ye that
labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." . The merciful provision of night here may
be set over against the merciful release from it hereafter. That "the sea is his and he made it," does
not take away from the blessedness of the future home where there shall be "no more sea." The
superior glory of the two dispensations may be suggested by using for a text the last words of the
Old and New Testament, "Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse," and "The grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen."

(3) While guarding himself against any disposition to ingenious trifling, the preacher may with
advantage find his text in the same words as they are used in various connections. The "ifs" of the
eleventh chapter of John stand up like the successive peaks of a mountain range. Mr. Spurgeon
preached a searching sermon on the words "I have sinned," as they were used by the hardened
sinner Pharaoh, the double-minded Balaam, the insincere King Saul, Achan with more remorse
than repentance, Judas in his agony of despair, Job overwhelmed by the righteousness of God, and
finally the prodigal confessing his unworthiness to his father. Matthew Wilks, a quaint preacher of

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a past generation, who often pushed addresses in the pulpit to the verge of audacity, has a good
sermon on the word, "Afterwards." One more plague upon Pharaoh, and afterwards he will let you
go; for Esau no place of repentance afterwards, when he sought in vain the blessing once rejected;
the afflictions of to-day must be looked at from the point of view of this word, for "afterwards they
yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness"; divine guidance in the present, and afterwards glory is
the assurance for the believer; while to the impenitent there is solemn warning in the weighty
clause "after death the judgment."
(4) A good series or succession of sermons may be built up on contrasted or complementary
texts.—"bear ye one another's burdens" may be followed by "For everyone shall bear his own
burden." "My peace I give unto you" may suggest the question "Is it peace?" and this in its turn
the remonstrance, "What hast thou to do with peace?" Finney preached the complete Gospel from
three texts, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son"; "How shall we escape if
we neglect so great salvation?" and "But they made light of it." It will be well for the preacher to
plan such series as these, in which without formally announcing his intention, he may deal with
the various aspects of some important truth.
The Making of the Sermon: For the Classroom and the Study.