From Outline to Message
An outline is a skeleton. It shows the shape of the passage and the points the preacher will make, but no one is fed by bones. Between the outline and the pulpit lies the work that Vines and Shaddix call maturing the ideas: taking each point drawn from the text and developing it until the hearer understands it, sees it, and knows what God requires of him.
John A. Broadus, whose 1870 treatise trained generations of Baptist preachers, described the kinds of material that do this work, and preachers have used his categories ever since. Vines and Shaddix teach them as the functional elements of a sermon. They rank explanation first, because every other element depends on it.
The four kinds of material that develop each point of a sermon: explanation, which makes the meaning of the text plain; argumentation, which answers the questions and objections the text raises; illustration, which lets light onto the truth; and application, which presses the truth into the hearer's life.
The Pattern of the Master
“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”LUKE 24:27 · KJV
On the road to Emmaus the risen Lord gave two discouraged disciples a Bible exposition. Afterward they said to one another that their hearts had burned within them while he opened to us the scriptures (Luke 24:32). Luke's word for opened, dianoigō, means to open up completely. It is the same word he uses for Paul's preaching in the synagogue at Thessalonica: Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead (Acts 17:3).
That is the work of this stage of preparation. The preacher opens the text so its meaning is plain, sets the evidence beside it so its truth is clear, lets light in through faithful pictures, and presses it home so that hearts burn and lives change.
Explanation comes first because the other three stand on it. An argument must defend something. An illustration must illustrate something. An application must apply something. If the meaning is wrong or missing, the proof, the picture, and the plea all rest on nothing.
This topic assumes the interpretive work taught in the Advanced Hermeneutics series. For the rules that govern moving from what the text meant to what it means, see Rightly Applying the Word and Authorial Intent and Historical Context. Here the question is how that sound interpretation becomes preaching.
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For Deeper Study
- Power in the Pulpit: How to Prepare and Deliver Expository SermonsAmazon Jerry Vines and Jim ShaddixThe guide this series follows; its chapter on maturing the ideas treats explanation, argumentation, illustration, and application.
- On the Preparation and Delivery of SermonsAmazon John A. BroadusThe Southern Baptist classic, first published in 1870, from which the functional elements of the sermon became standard teaching.
- Lectures to My StudentsAmazon Charles H. SpurgeonIts third series, The Art of Illustration, is full of wise and lively counsel; Spurgeon was a Calvinistic (Particular) Baptist.
- Christ-Centered PreachingAmazon Bryan ChapellCareful chapters on illustration and application, written from a Presbyterian and Reformed tradition.
- 12 Essential Skills for Great PreachingAmazon Wayne McDillA Southern Baptist professor's workbook, including skills for painting word pictures and bridging from the text to the sermon.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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Designing the Structure
An expository outline grows out of the passage's own flow, so that each main point is drawn from the text, develops its central idea, and is stated clearly enough to help the listener follow the Word rather than admire the preacher.
Open Doctrine