Page 33 - Homiletics Student Textbook

Study Section 6: From Text to Sermon: A Three-Step Process

6.1 Connect

So how do those pastors come up with such good outlines? It’s interesting how they always
seem to have three points. A lot of the time, each point even begins with the same letter of
the alphabet. Are their outlines downloaded from the internet? Do they dream them up on
their own or are they given to them under the divine inspiration of God?

These are excellent questions! Unfortunately, many outlines do not fit the description of
good. They shouldn’t always have three points or be forced into alliteration, they shouldn’t be
downloaded from the internet or dreamed up in the mind, and most definitely are not new revelation
given from God. Just because a preacher has an outline that wows his audience does not mean that his
passage has been outlined properly or correctly.

Today we are going to look at the process of developing a sermon from a Scriptural text.

6.2 Objectives

1. The student should be able to explain the three-step process that must be followed to get
from a text of Scripture to developing a sermon ready to deliver.

2. The student should be able to explain what exegetical, theological, and homiletical outlining
is.

6.3 From Text to Sermon: A Three-Step Process

All sermon outlines should be driven by the text of scripture. Our goal as communicators of
God’s truth is threefold when it comes to interpreting the Word and applying it to our
culture within a preaching setting.

Exegete the Passage (Exegetical Outline – what the passage is about)

This is the most important part of the sermon preparation process. The goal of this process is to
discover what God was saying to the people living at the time in which His original message was given.
The pastor needs to deliberately block out the contemporary world. He must determine what the
original message of the author was to the people of his day. He needs to do context study, then look
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at word possibilities, word choice, look through various translations, find the significance of the passage,
then synthesize the big idea.

Upon examination of the passage, the pastor must determine the main thoughts the author is trying to
convey. From these main thoughts, the ‘Big Idea’ of the passage should become clearer. He can
determine the subject by asking, “What is this passage talking about?” He can determine the
complement by asking, “What is this passage saying about what it is talking about?” The proposition
(‘Big Idea’) consists of both the subject and the complement(s).

46 See pages 12-17 of this syllabus to review the principles and methods of Bible interpretation.
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