Page 31 - Homiletics I Student Textbook

Study Section 5: “Big Idea” Preaching

5.1 Connect
How many of you can remember the outline of the sermon from last week? Some may
remember parts of last week’s message, but how about that from a month ago? The truth is
that people can seldom remember the points of a sermon a day later, let alone a week or a
month after it has been delivered. Many times, the preacher himself can’t remember his
points either without going back and reviewing his notes.

Rather than locking multiple details away in their mental storage cabinets, most people have an easier
time packing away one truth or a single idea that they can chew on and digest during the upcoming
week. Therefore, preaching the single ‘Big Idea’ is very important. If is often referred to as the
proposition of the sermon.

5.2 Objectives
1. The student should be able to define what the “big idea” is in a passage of Scripture.

2. The student should be able to state what the two parts of a proposition are.

3. The student should be able to state and explain the three forms of sermons.

5.3 “Big Idea” Preaching

The aim of ‘Big Idea’ preaching is to discover the central truth of a text and communicate that
truth in one precise and concise sentence.

The Definition of the ‘Big Idea’

A sermon should be a bullet and not buckshot. Ideally each sermon is the explanation,
interpretation, or application of a single dominant idea supported by other ideas, all drawn from
one passage or several passages of Scripture.
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Students of public speaking and preaching have argued for centuries that effective communication
demands a single theme. Rhetoricians hold to this so strongly that virtually every textbook devotes
some space to a treatment of the principle. Terminology may vary – central idea, proposition,
theme, thesis statement, main thought – but the concept is the same: an effective speech “centers
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on one specific thing, a central idea.”

40 Robinson, Haddon, Biblical Preaching, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980), 33.
41 Robinson, 34.
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