Illustrations have been described as windows that add light into the sermon in order to illuminate abstract truths. If that is true, and I believe it is, then quotes are a good tool to have in your sermon arsenal. Except when they aren’t. Quotes can be used effectively, and they can be abused in the worst way. I want to point out the proper and improper uses of quotes in a sermon.
Good Uses of Quotes
Here are 6 reasons to use a good quote would be appropriate:
Artistry: The writer says something more beautifully than you can say it yourself.
Clarity: The writer makes the point clearer than you can.
Impact: The writer says something in a powerful way to make your point.
Pithiness: The writer says something in a memorable and “catchy” way.
Depth: The writer says something with a profundity that you can’t seem to say yourself.
Interesting: The writer says something that draws interest or excites the imagination.
Poor Uses of Quotes
Here are 8 reason you ought to think twice before using that quote in your next sermon:
Quotes that are too good not to share, even though they have nothing to do with the main idea of your sermon. Just because you like it, don’t squeeze it in.
Quotes that are not short and to the point. Two page quotes from a Puritan in old English aren’t helpful unless you are trying to help someone fall asleep.
Quotes that are only an interest to a very specific audience. Just because you love reading Wallace’s Greek Grammar doesn’t mean you should quote from it.
Quotes that you have to explain after you read it. It’s like a joke–if you have to explain it, it’s not funny.
Quotes that can be stated in your own words easily.
Quotes that are meant to carry a sense of authority, i.e., “The great theologian so-and-so says…” The Scripture should be our authority. Quotes of men may bring clarity, but they should not bear the weight of authority to prove our point.
Quotes that you cannot verify or find the source. If we proclaim the truth, we shouldn’t be using quotes that may be false.
Quotes that are shocking and controversial. This isn’t because they don’t work, but because they do. This type of quote might just derail your sermon if your audience does not recover from the shocking quote bomb you let loose.
Back at the beginning of the 20th century, a massive change was taking place in the evangelical church in America. Denominations had become overrun by the ideas of Higher Criticism which was nothing short of an attack on the authority and inerrancy of the Bible. But the changes in the churches and denominations were only the symptoms of something much worse. The average person in the pew heard sermons from these compromised churches that denied the fundamentals of the Christian faith—so much so that J. Gresham Machen called Liberalism “another religion.”
These sermons were coming from the men that were trained at denominational seminaries where the professors had embraced the lies of liberal theology in many forms. Although begun as biblical schools, liberalism had kept in and taken over. From Europe to America, the eventual result was that the unwary Christian found himself shocked to hear the assault on the Bible coming from their pastors. But many Christians were ill-equipped to respond.
The historic Christian church did respond though. New churches were planted. Fellowships were formed to work together. Missions agencies were begun. And seminaries were started to train men for the ministry, and Bible institutes were raised up to equip the layman. The Moody Bible Institute, Philadelphia School of the Bible, Bible Institute of Los Angeles, and others sprang up to meet the needs of the church.
With our nation currently undergoing a dramatic change, the church has not been untouched. For decades many discerning believers have been sounding the alarm that what was once “evangelical” has changed. Although it is still known by that name, it no longer teaches the same things. The church in America as a whole has slid far from its foundations, and with it so have the churches, missions agencies, seminaries and Bible institutes. The reality is that liberalism never builds anything because it is parasitic. It only takes over its healthy host and then devours it from the inside.
The time has come for rebuilding once again. We must continue planting churches, form fellowships and partnerships, rebuild or replace missions agencies, and begin training our pastors and laymen in Bible colleges and seminaries that are faithful to the truth.
Not all is lost. There are still many who have not bent the knee to Baal. But with the way things appear to be headed, larger Bible colleges, Christian universities, and seminaries will have a hard time staying open with greater pressure put upon them from our government. We need to remember the power of the Bible institute.
Bible institutes are a powerful blessing to the local church. They can train local church leaders to better serve the church. They can be a source of training an army of Sunday school teachers, Bible study leaders, missionaries, evangelists, counselors, and more. They have low overhead and don’t often offer degrees, so tuition is affordable enough for almost everyone.
I’d encourage you to look up your local Bible institute and support it through sending students, praying for them, teaching if you are trained, and supporting them with your gifts.
If you attended a Bible Institute, what was your experience? Would you recommend them and how did it bless you and the Church?
If we are honest, we would have to admit that many churches in the U.S. are not growing from conversions but from transfers from other churches. I’ll admit that there are some valid reasons for a Christian to leave one church to attend another, but the Great Commission isn’t about shuffling believers from one church to another. There are many things a church can do to bolster its outreach, but one that is consistently missed in the vast majority of churches today is evangelistic visitation. What is that you ask? Keep reading and I’ll explain.
Every Saturday for many years there were at least two people from Grace Baptist Church that would go out to share the gospel with our community—myself and one of our deacons named Everett. Some Saturdays there were others that would join us, but many times it was just the two of us. Everett and I shared Christ with gang members, homeless people in the park, people in half-way houses, and everyday people that look like you and me.
We had dogs chase us, people scream at us, a couple of doors slammed in our faces, and even a few people that I am convinced were demon possessed. Although we visited door to door in order to hopefully share Christ with our neighbors, we found that this method wasn’t too successful. Instead we found that evangelistic visitation was far more productive.
Whenever a person visited our church, they would receive a bulletin and a small visitor’s card that we asked them to fill out as a record of their visit. These cards were placed in the offering plate when the offering was received. When the deacons counted the offering, they would take out these cards and give them to me for follow up.
In my discussions with many pastors and church leaders, many churches don’t do anything to record visitors anymore. I’m not sure why, but they don’t seem to even collect a card to record visitors. In my many visits to different churches, most didn’t request a card to be filled out, and of those that I have filled out, only one has ever done something with it.
On Tuesday when I came into the office, I would send out a welcome letter thanking the visitor for coming. If they wrote the name of who invited them on their visitor card, I would include that as well. Sometimes I would call the friend of our visitor and ask them some questions to find out more about what brought them to our church.
But my follow up didn’t stop there. On the following Saturday, Everett and I would take that card and drive over to the visitor’s house to pay them a visit. Yes, you read that right! We actually showed up at their front door! When we did this, we followed a few rules that worked for us:
1. We only visited on Saturdays from 10am-12pm. This is because before 10 some people were sleeping in and after noon they would be leaving for the day. Three day holidays were almost worthless as far as visiting goes.
2. We took a church flyer or business card with us to leave if they didn’t answer the door. We wanted our visitor to know we came by and missed them. A quick note on a church invite flyer or the back of my business card was slipped in the door jamb for the visitor to find when they returned home.
3. We didn’t call to make an appointment. We found that when we made arrangements we would often find nobody home. It was better to surprise our visitors. Even so, the vast majority were happy to see us.
4. We thanked them for their visit and asked if they had any questions about what they heard. Their visit showed us that they had some interest in church and the Bible. Our conversation helped us determine if the visitors were Christians or needed to hear the gospel.
5. We made sure to express that we were there because we had an important message that we wanted them to hear. We assumed God had sent us as His messengers and we were not ashamed, but bold ambassadors for Christ.
6. We invited them to come back Sunday (the next day). Many people were shocked that the man that preached the sermon had taken the time to personally visit them. This impression made them more open to come back, and it showed them in a tangible way that we truly cared for them.
Having successfully visited our visitor, we usually asked them if we could pray for them and if they had any special prayer needs. The visit often ended with smiles, laughs, and a new relationship begun. Of all the people that returned a second time, many were those that had been visited by someone in our church.
When you think about what connected you to your church, what sticks out the most? What were the things that turned you off about visiting a new church?
Have you ever sat in church and been frustrated by the sermon? How about bored? Have you ever been completely confused? If you have been any of these things, you’re not alone. Although we preachers sometimes like to think that only those who are “less spiritual” or aren’t interested in “the deep things of God” are the problem–but truth be told, many times its the preacher who is at fault. It reminds me of the pastor who stopped his sermon to tell a little boy to wake up his sleeping father. The little boy replied, “You put him to sleep, you wake him up!”
If you’re a pastor or preacher and you have seen the stifled yawns and the impatient looking at watches, I’d like to help in one area that you might need to consider–your target audience.
I have been blessed (and not-so-blessed) to hear hundreds of sermons by seminary students as a professor of preaching for 12 years. Some were confusing, others were boring, while some were too scholarly, and others were simply biblical history lessons. A good strong cup of coffee was helpful in getting through some days in preaching lab.
J. Vernon McGee used to say that a preacher needs to put the cookies on the bottom shelf where they can be reached. By this he meant that preachers and teachers need to make sure that their sermons are accessible to the common man. Dr. McGee died over 30 years ago, but his radio teaching is still popular all over the world because he made sure to teach at a level that was easy to understand.
One way to help sermon preparation hit the target of listeners is to make sure that the cookies are not only on the lower shelf, but also on the right shelf. By this I mean that every teacher and preacher should understand his audience’s spiritual maturity in order to teach in a way that everyone is fed. In a healthy church there will be several levels of spiritual maturity–unbelievers, new believers, spiritual “teens,” and spiritually mature. If you aim your teaching only at the mature, the unbeliever and the immature will be confused and not get anything out of the teaching. If you aim at the unbeliever or the spiritual infant, you will find that your more mature listeners will become frustrated, and bored.
If you are stubborn and only supply a steady diet of spiritual steak (sometimes raw) or spiritual baby food, you will find that those that are babes in Christ or those that are mature will eventually leave your church because they are not being fed in a way that benefits them. That’s not their fault, it’s yours. So what is the answer?
Put the cookies on the right shelf. In each sermon, and I’d even say in each teaching point, make sure that you speak to every level of maturity. Make sure you use theological language for the mature, but define it for the immature and growing. Give application for those that are still learning how to apply the Bible for themselves. Stretch the younger in Christ, but make sure you patiently explain the difficult concepts. Use illustrations to shed light on abstract truths, and make sure that you point to Christ so that the unbeliever can hear the message they need most: how to be saved.
When you put the cookies on the right shelf, everyone will be fed. And a well fed congregation is a happy congregation.
Commentaries are a huge blessing to those who study the Bible. From them we can glean from the years of hard study of thousands of Christians who have come before us. Their knowledge of culture, language, grammar, background information, and theology can fill out our understanding of the biblical writers. For pastors, Bible students, and scholars, Bible commentaries act as a check on their own study, allowing them to see if they are coming to similar conclusions as those who have studied the same passage. This helps to make sure that our own conclusions aren’t going off in a direction that might lead to error, or even worse. But there are a wide variety of commentaries out there, and it is often difficult even for those trained in seminary to know which to use and when to use it. I thought it would be helpful to describe each type of commentary commonly available, how it is helpful, and then what order I use commentaries to best help me develop my sermons and Bible studies.
Like a lot of Christians, my first experiences with Bible commentaries were mixed. Some seemed to be written in a foreign language, even when they were written in English. They were so complicated and hard to understand that they were frustrating and useless to me. Others were understandable, but they often read like sermons. This made them enjoyable to read, but they often skipped over large portions or failed to explain the one verse I was needing help with!
Later, after attending seminary, I learned that there are different categories of commentaries for different purposes. And I learned an incredibly important lesson: commentaries should be used after I have done my own study. The temptation can be to take a great teacher’s study and sermon outline from their commentary and teach or preach it as if it was my own. Not only is that unethical, it robs you of the blessing of encountering the Word for yourself when you do the hard work of studying.
To help myself, I came up with a simple system of when to read the types of commentaries I use in a specific order. I’ll give you that system a little later, but first I think it would be helpful for me to lay out some of the different types of commentaries out there. This will help you know what you already own, their strengths and weaknesses, and hopefully it will give you a better idea of what you should buy the next time you purchase a new commentary.
Types of Commentaries[1]
Devotional-These commentaries are written for the average Christian and are heavy with application. They are broad in scope, meaning they cover a lot of Bible in a little space. Often, they are a short book written to cover a whole Bible book. Warren Wiersbe’s “Be” series and J. Vernon McGee’s Thru the Bible Commentaries are of this kind.
Expositional-These commentaries are based upon the preaching of a particular pastor’s sermons. They may or may not be heavily edited, but they often include coverage of a preaching portion: illustrations, application, and explanation of the text. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary series and James Montgomery Boice’s commentaries are good examples of this type.
Exegetical– These commentaries rely upon the original languages of the biblical text, and aid the Bible student in understanding the significance of the language, grammar, and syntax. Additionally, the exegetical commentary will give large sections of study to introductory matters, translational issues, contextual matters, and interpretive challenges. Although useful without the knowledge of biblical languages, they are most helpful to those who have a working knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. The Hendriksen New Testament Commentary set and Word Biblical Commentaries are representative of this type of commentary.
Critical/Technical– As far as traditional commentaries go, these are the most specialized. These commentaries deal with original languages, biblical manuscripts, and many other issues that are important to biblical scholars. Many (although not all) of the contributors to these commentaries are theologically liberal, and they are usually very expensive, although they often contain gold when the student knows how to use them profitably. Some examples of these commentaries would include the International Critical Commentary (ICC) series and Hermeneia Commentaries.
Background-Normally biblical background information is included in most commentaries, but there are some commentaries that focus on this aspect in a commentary format (using book, chapters, and verses divisions). An example would be the IVP Bible Background Commentary.
So, how do I choose which commentary to use first, and does it really matter?
My System for Choosing Which Commentary To Use First
After I have studied the passage for myself, I usually will have several questions and observations about the text. But because of my study, I will have a good general understanding of the main idea. If this is the case, I will choose commentaries from the above categories and read them in this order:
Critical/Technical
Exegetical
Background
Expositional
Devotional
I may not read any commentaries in categories 4 and 5 (Expositional and Devotional) every time. I’ll explain in a moment why.
The reason I begin with the harder and more technical commentaries and move toward the easier and more popular ones is because when I turn to my commentaries I am still wrestling with the text and any unanswered questions. I want to find the answers for myself from my work with the language, grammar, and syntax. If I move too fast to the expositional commentaries, I will be tempted to adopt the interpretation of the writer. And since they are human, they might be wrong. Until I have answered these questions for myself and my interaction with the biblical text, I need help with exegesis before moving on to interpretation.
After I have successfully understood the hardest ideas in the text, I move to the next level of commentaries. The expositional commentaries will help me understand how another pastor has preached and outlined the text I am studying, and a devotional commentary will show me how it has been illustrated and applied. If I understand the text well enough, application and illustration may begin to form easily for me and I won’t need to look at the devotional or expositional commentaries I have.
So, why not flip the order? Because I consider it “cheating” for me, since I will be given an explanation, outline, illustrations, and applications of a passage that I did not myself discover for myself. Additionally and most importantly, I am not trusting the Bible and the Spirit to inform my study, but instead am giving another human author a great amount of influence in my understanding of the Bible. When I teach the Bible, I want to have the confidence to say, “Thus says the Lord” because I have done the hard labor of study. If I cheat and simply read the fruit of someone else’s study, then I am not truly being a biblical expositor; I am simply a parrot.
But there is one exception to my rule when I will actually begin with either an expositional commentary or a devotional commentary. That is when I have studied the text in-depth for myself and I am left completely without a clue as to how I would preach or teach this particular text. I may understand the words, sentences, and paragraphs, but how I can teach this particular passage has stumped me. At this point, I will choose a faithful devotional or expositional commentary and read the section I am studying. This will usually help me see how the author taught it and clarifies for me the main idea to teach. At this point, I stop reading and begin going through the list as I gave it above, beginning with the more technical commentaries and moving down the list.
I don’t necessarily think that this method is the only way of using commentaries, but it works for me and helps guard my heart against taking the route which might cause me to shortcut my study. What about you? How have you used commentaries that have helped your study? What are your favorites and why? If you have any followup questions about how I use commentaries, let me know. I’d love to help.
Footnote:
[1] I’ve added the Amazon.com links to each of these commentary series’ to help you identify them. I have done this for reference only and don’t necessarily endorse everything in them. Also, I don’t gain anything from you purchasing a book through the link. Shop around, you might find great deals elsewhere. More money saved means more money for books!
Always Reforming 