We sit in church week after week and, if we are blessed, twice a week, for corporate worship. One of the most important elements of that holy assembly of the Christ-Confessing covenant people is the preaching of the Word. Yet, were we to ask fifty Christians to answer the question, “What is a sermon?” we would likely get as many definitions. For all the instruction that occurs in confessional Reformed congregations, rarely does anyone explain what a sermon is, how it works, and what a parishioner ought to expect from it. For many parishioners, and even for some practitioners of the homiletic arts, the sermon remains a mystery.
First of all, the word sermon is Latin for word. In some Latin versions of the Bible, John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the sermo and the sermo was with God and the sermo was God.” It is a synonym for verbum (word). A sermon is a word from God or a word from God’s Word.
Sermons were preached in patristic worship services. It was one of the features that the pagan Pliny the Younger observed about Christian worship in the very early years of the post-apostolic period. During the Medieval period preaching continued but it was, to a significant degree, pushed to the margins by holy communion and especially as the church came to embrace the doctrine of transubstantiation and the notion that the minister is a priest who offers a propitiatory (wrath-turning), bloodless, memorial sacrifice on behalf of the congregation. The Reformation restored preaching to its rightful place in the worship service.
Still, differences about what a sermon is and how it ought to be done persist to this day. Medieval preaching came to be dominated by the church calendar and the lectionary. The Reformed tended to adopt the practice of serial preaching through books of the Bible, with some attention to the church calendar. Other churches within the Reformation tradition paid more attention to the church calendar. Then there was the difference between the morning sermon, which tended to be more exegetical, analytical (taking the passage apart and putting it back together), and proclamational, and the afternoon sermon, which, in the Reformed churches, was guided by a catechism. That sermon was a synthetic sermon—that is, drawing Scripture together to show what Scripture says about a particular topic.
For all our emphasis on preaching in Reformed churches, for many in the pews, the sermon remains something of a mystery. To try to demystify preaching, here are three types of preachers.
The Magician
Sometimes the mysterious quality of the sermon is cultivated, as if the minister pulls a metaphorical rabbit out of the metaphorical hat. He dazzles the congregation with his rhetorical left hand until suddenly, much to our surprise and delight, out pops a wiggly homiletical bunny in the preacher’s right hand just at the end of the sermon. How did he do that? We never saw it coming.
The Mechanic
This minister mounts the pulpit, unrolls his tool kit, and rolls up his sleeves to go to work. His approach is the opposite of that of the magician. Where mystery is of the essence of the magician’s work, the mechanic tells us everything—how verbs are parsed, where our English translation is right, and where it can be improved. We have work to do, and the congregation does well to take notes.
The Moralist (and the Pietist, the Doctrinalist, and the Transformationalist)
This preacher may be concerned about your soul, your behavior, your doctrine, or society. It does not seem to matter what sort of text he is preaching since, after a few moments in the text, the sermon inevitably turns to what the congregation is doing that it should not or what it is not doing that it should.
An Alternative
My students and regular listeners to the Heidelcast have heard me mention the words of R. B. Kuiper (1886–1966) to his students at Old Westminster, which I learned from my homiletics professor, Dr Derke Bergsma (1927–2020). As Derke told it, Kuiper used to say, “Men, in every sermon there are three points: the text, the text, the text.” Derke also told us that Kuiper used to say, “Men, preach the text, the whole text, and nothing but the text.” Derke’s commitment to preaching the text left a deep impression on me.
His students will remember that he taught us the reconstructive method of Samuel Wollbeda (1881–1953), who was president of Calvin Seminary from 1944–52.1 In this approach, the preacher is meant to do his exegetical and biblical-theological work to discover the preaching passage (the pericope) and its central organizing theme. The preacher’s homiletic (preaching) task is to find three (usually alliterative) points to highlight three aspects of the central message of the passage. It was reconstructive because the sermon has its own nature and demands, and therefore need not necessarily (though it might) follow the order of the text. The minister’s most basic vocation was to preach Christ from all of the Scriptures, because, as our Lord said, “it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39).
I did not really understand the reconstructive method until after I graduated, which was too bad for my GPA. The heart of Derke’s vision for preaching, however, was crystal clear: a sermon is the proclamation of the Word of God. It is not a bible study (the mechanic), it is not magic, and it is not moralism (or pietism, etc.). To that last point, Derke reminded us regularly of another of Kuiper’s bromides: “Men, if a rabbi or an imam could have preached your sermon, it was not a Christian sermon.” Christless moralism has no place in a Christian pulpit.
How Then Shall We Preach?
What most students do not understand is that behind the magician’s apparent (but not real) sleight of hand lay hours of hard work in the study and likely more than one preaching of a sermon. What most parishioners (and perhaps some preachers) probably do not sufficiently appreciate is that most sermons are necessarily rough drafts never to be preached again. Some preachers have the privilege of filling pulpits and preaching the same sermon two, three, or perhaps ten times. By the time a minister preaches the same sermon three times, it should be reasonably polished, but that is not the life of the typical faithful pastor. He hopes to have his sermon “in the can” (as they say in Hollywood when a film is completed) by Thursday or Friday, but a sick call, a counseling case, or a crisis in consistory can wreck the best-laid plans of the most faithful and diligent pastors.
The mechanic is also seeking to be faithful to the text. He has eschewed style in favor of transparency. There is something to be said about this method, and I admit that, left to myself, I would go in this direction, but whereas the magician has polished his rhetoric, the mechanic has mostly abandoned it. He has given relatively little thought to how to communicate in favor of inviting the congregation into his study to see how he arrived at his exegetical, theological, and ethical conclusions.
The pietist, moralist, doctrinalist, and transformationalist has reduced his text to a runway. As soon as his homiletic Cessna 172 hits 60 mph, his front wheel rotates from the tarmac of the text, and by the time he hits 75 mph, he has lifted off into this week’s “application” about how to change our piety, our behavior, our doctrine, or society.
I agree with R. B. Kuiper, Samuel Volbeda, and Derke Bergsma that the preacher’s task is to preach the text and thereby, if he has done his work, to lead the congregation to Christ (but not to the exclusion of the whole counsel of God; Acts 20:27). To preach the text is to be faithful to this text before us. As Bob Godfrey, my other homiletics professor, says, “Why is this text here?” This is an excellent and essential question. Why did the Holy Spirit put this text here?
Another fundamental, essential Reformation question also requires our attention: How are the principles of law (do this and live) and gospel (Christ has done) at work in this passage? According to William Perkins (1558–1602), until we have done the hard work of answering these questions, we are not prepared to preach this sermon.
So, to try to do justice to all that the preacher is called to do (and in thirty minutes!), without overwhelming the congregation and without so simplifying the sermon that all nuance goes by the boards, I offer this template for preachers and for consumers of sermons so that we all know what is happening during a sermon
A Provisional Template
- Introduction
- When was this passage given, or what period of redemptive history does it describe?
- To whom, from whom, and where?
- What sort of passage is it (e.g., narrative, wisdom, psalm, didactic, etc.)?
- In one sentence, what is the main point of the passage and sermon? (Why is it here?)
- Transition (tell me a story)
- First Main Point (vv. 1–3)
- Exposition
- Application (theological, doctrinal, moral)
- Transition (illustration)
- Second Main Point (vv. 4–6)
- Exposition
- Application
- Transition (illustration)
- Third Main Point (vv. 7–10)
- Exposition
- Application
- Transition (illustration)
- Conclusion
- Restate theme/thesis
- Restate the main point
- Tell us a story
Next time: an explanation and defense of the outline.
notes
1. Born in Winsum, Friesland, the Netherlands in 1881, Samuel Volbeda emigrated to Allendale, Michigan in 1886 with his widowed mother and three sisters. He graduated from Calvin Theological Seminary in 1904 and pastored two congregations before studying at the Free University at Amsterdam, from which he received a D.D. in 1914. He was appointed to Calvin Seminary faculty as professor of Church History, 1914–26, and of Practical Theology, 1926–52. A gifted and eloquent preacher, who was skilled at public prayer in both Dutch and English, Volbeda was also a biblical scholar. He oversaw growing enrollment at the seminary, particularly during the post-World War II years. He opposed suggestions to use higher academic requirements to limit enrollment, arguing that academic achievements do not necessarily make for successful pastors. Due to failing health, Volbeda’s tenure as president ended in 1952 as dissension split the seven-member faculty.
In 1904, Volbeda married Alice Gronedyke (1882–1945). They had three children: Cornelius, Anna Venhuizen, and Frederick. In 1948, he married Trena Mejeur of Kalamazoo, Michigan.
The above is taken from a page from Calvin.edu, which I could only find on archive.org.
©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.
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R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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