From Text to Pulpit: A Worked Example

One Text, Every Step

Twelve topics have taken the sermon apart: the conviction behind it, the man who preaches it, and each stage of the work from the study desk to the pulpit. This capstone puts it back together. We will take one passage, Romans 12:1–2, and walk it through every step of the process, showing the reasoning at each turn, until we arrive at a finished sermon outline that was actually preached to a congregation.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”ROMANS 12:1–2 · KJV

The finished sermon is titled “Transforming Your Head and Heart.” Its main points appear in full later in this study. But the outline is not the point. The road that leads to it is. A man in training can copy an outline. What he needs to learn is how to draw one honestly out of the text, so that when he stands up, the people hear what God said and not what the preacher wished He had said.

The Road from Text to Pulpit

1. Analyze the text. Read it in its context, follow its connecting words, and weigh its key terms (Analyzing the Text).
2. Find the main idea. State what the text meant then in one sentence, and what it means now in another (Finding the Main Idea).
3. Design the structure. Let the text's own verbs and flow draw the outline (Designing the Structure).
4. Explain, illustrate, and apply. Make each point clear, picture it from Scripture first, and press it home (Explanation, Illustration, and Application).
5. Build the introduction and conclusion. Open the door to the text, then close with its claim on the hearer (Building the Sermon).
6. Give the invitation. Call for the response the text itself demands, and hold out Christ to the lost.

This is the plan Jerry Vines and Jim Shaddix lay out in Power in the Pulpit, the book this series has followed. They gather the whole process onto a single page, a sermon summary sheet, and we will fill one in for Romans 12:1–2 at the end. Along the way we will lean on the Advanced Hermeneutics series for the interpretive work and keep our eyes on the move from study to sermon.