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So Many Good Preaching Sources, Where to Start?

Exegetical vs Homiletical Resources

I once heard a craftsman who was working on a house job with only a tool or two in hand say, “I don’t use every tool every time. That’s why I have the big truck. It holds the ones I might use.” Preaching tools are just that, tools. Some you use every time, some you do not.

Every pastor builds a tool kit of resources to turn to again and again in developing sermons. There is widespread disagreement about which of those sources are best, most faithful, or even ethical. The universal experience for preachers is to find some highly recommended resources unhelpful, and unmentioned resources critical. If many preachers are honest, they have used sources they wish they had not.

Beginning preachers have a lot of questions about sources. Maybe this is because they feel the confused conflict between the advice of the experienced preachers who mentor them. Or maybe they just are not sure about all the big name books their bible professors seem to love. The questions preachers have surrounding resources often include some of these:

  • Is it okay to get illustrations from stock sources or internet pools for preaching ideas?
  • Is it faithful to use others’ outlines and sermons resources?
  • Is it ethical to use someone else’s story? How much credit must be given?
  • What if I don’t know any greek or hebrew?
  • Which books are the most important to buy if I am going to buy some?
  • What about commentaries? Which ones should I use? Which can I trust?

Those questions are important and we will cover most of them in coming articles. Hopefully it will help experienced preachers reflect more clearly on the resources we have become accustomed to using as well as clear some things up for beginning preachers at the same time.

Today we want to outline a critical difference between preaching resources in general, and exegetical resources for preaching in specific. There are thousands of endless millions of resources for preaching. That is not an exaggeration when you consider that all of life is a sermon when you have a well worn passage tucked away in your mental pocket. Exegetical resources are more countable, more easily categorized. Exegetical sources are more tailor made for the task of interpreting the Bible.

Here is the difference in a nutshell. Exegetical resources are those tools and sources used to understand and interpret the biblical passage in its own voice and time.

Preaching sources are the wide array of content inputs preachers use to add meaning and creative vantage points to their interpretation of the text. A book on friendship during the single years can be a preaching resource, whether it is particularly Christian or not. A lexicon defining the meaning of the Greek word friend, or the word for sibling-like love phileo, is obviously an exegetical resource.  

Why is this distinction so important?

It is tempting to prepare an entire sermon quilted together from patches of other people’s insights and interpretations.

A quote here, a borrowed illustration there, a set of teaching points and voila a sermon is born. When life is busy and pastoral duties squeeze out the luxury of reflective time with scriptures this can happen. Few pastors of very may years can judge another minister for the occasional sermon in this category, at least not without hypocrisy. If it happens consistently however, preaching becomes stale. Sermons seem canned. The energy and verve is drained from the preaching moment when the sermon is not born of the preachers’ flesh, blood, and soul. More importantly, the ongoing spiritual formation and spiritual vitality of the preacher is undercut. Preaching forms us, strengthens us, deepens us, if we take the time to use the right resources, tools, and give them good reflection.

The following are good exegetical resources most sermons should engage before deciding on the “main point” or “big idea” or “central claim” of the sermon:

  1. Multiple English versions (NIV, NRSV, NKJV, NASB, CEB, etc.)
  1. Interlinear version (freely available online of course, if you have not yet noticed biblehub.com or blueletterbible.org). Of course if you can translate, by all means do. But 99% of pastors are no longer able to translate even if they once could.
  1. Concordances. Strong’s and Englishman’s are the traditional combo. Again, though, the same material is now available freely online. Most Bible study websites hyperlink English words to the original language.
  1. Original language dictionary/lexicon (Brown/Driver/Biggs, Holiday’s Concise, etc.)
  1. Exegetical, critical commentaries (Word Biblical, Anchor Bible)
  1. Historical, geographical, and theological reference tools as needed (maps of the time period’s geopolitical spaces, theological dictionary references on key concepts or terms, etc.)
  1. Optional: homiletical commentaries (Wesleyan Biblical, Interpreter’s Bible, anything with “Preacher’s” or “Pastor’s” or “Homiletical” in the title). These are sort of boundary dwellers. They have some exegetical material, and others’ homiletical thoughts all mixed into one. I rarely find them terribly helpful for a particular sermon. I read them from time to time to “soak up” preaching in general. Many pastors find them helpful on specific sermons. Pastors seem to use them most often in one of two ways: plagiarizing or quoting. Phrases and sermonic moves are outright lifted from the commentary which is of course not the ideal. Or the pastor simply quotes them, “as one great preacher put it…” Rarely do these sorts of resources seem to spawn fresh interpretations of scripture in the new wine skin of the preacher’s personality.

Every preacher has to find her own way. There is no plug and play formula for a step-by-step guaranteed solid sermon. Just like any craft, each craftsperson finds a personalized way to achieve excellent results. However, preachers will not find consistently solid and gospel-centered sermons without holding themselves accountable to the right tools used the right ways.

The Ordained Preacher is a Craftsperson

stock vs custom cabinetsImagine going to a friend’s house who had custom cabinets installed at a custom cabinet price. Now there is a wide variety of difference in materials and workmanship on custom cabinets. Still, you look inside his cabinets and realize as happy as he is about them, they were purchased pre-fab and pre-assembled. The so called cabinet craftsman had sniffed naiveté. The craftsman could have used hardwood, or softwood, or hardwood veneer plywood. The craftsman could have even used medium density fiberboard and not been out of professional standards of honesty as long as it was communicated. Instead, the craftsman took pre-assembled cheap materials (pressboard and manufactured veneer) and passed it off as custom cabinetry. He picked them up at Home Depot or Lowe’s, added some filler pieces, painted over it all, and called it “custom.”

The cabinets will work. They will hold things, conceal unsightly things, and house possessions. They will cover the wall and the doors will open. It will “work.” But over time it will not satisfy. The veneer will warp and peel. The press board will eventually crumble and disintegrate. More importantly, perhaps, anyone who hears the name of the craftsman and knows cabinetry at all, will lose respect for that craftsman.

Cheap Cabinets PeelingThat friend would rightfully be outraged at the loss of trust. It is not that pre-assembled cabinets are wrong or worthless. Far from it. If you or I (hobbyists) were to install some we might very well use them happily. But for a craftsman to use them? Someone whose job is supposedly to offer custom fit cabinets? That is a disappointment.

Preachers are custom craftspersons. We write our messages for particular people and times. We round out the corners of the sermon to fit the geography and culture of the people. And we intend to give them sermons that will be satisfying for quite some time to come. The depth of the sermonic work provides strength for the content well beneath the veneer of a first hearing. When a layperson fills the pulpit, no one faults them for piecing together bits and pieces of material they have picked up along the way or discovered in preparation for the sermon. They are hobbyists so to speak. A full time preacher, particularly an educated and ordained one, is a different matter.

Preachers have a wide variety of materials and craftsmanship expectations. No one will fault a busy preacher for an MDF board sermon on a rough week. No one will fault the preacher for purchasing a few trim pieces already shaped and pre-primed. However, very few will be satisfied with preachers who purchase or re-use pre-assembled cheap sermons in order to fill the space, hold the attention, and cover the opening.

We want to know the preachers whose job it is to shepherd the flock with personalized care are doing so in sermon preparation. They might use any number of different tools for the job of the week. They might make a wide array of choices for materials. They might use more materials and greater personal cost to themselves. They might use less or thinner materials. Still, we expect a custom job.

Here are some things I have found helpful for me, for my students, and for preachers I occasionally help strengthen their preaching:

  1. Keep a standard list of your most helpful resources. The ones you use. The ones you like. The ones that help you build your own sermons with substance and care.
  1. Put that list in a step-by-step order of what resources to use first. Exegetical resources should always come before homiletical resources. You choose the number and the kind, but put them first.
  1. Put the most crucial resources for crafting custom sermons on a checklist. Make this a list you check before you read any other type of preaching resource.
  1. Use those sources with enough lead time. You need time for your spiritual engagement and preaching creativity to take hold. A rush job, up against a deadline, almost always causes us to use lesser materials without the right tools because we simply do not have time or energy left to do otherwise.