06.11. Chapter 11: The Construction Of A Sermon
Chapter 11 THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SERMON THE CONSTRUCTION of a sermon is certainly one of the most important labors of a minister’s life. We do not agree with Austin Phelps of Andover that it is practically the minister’s sole business: that he is to leave social functions, secular addresses, administration, state and national issues, and all other matters to other men and make a beaten path between the study and the pulpit. But sermonizing is so essential and so conspicuous a part of the minister’s vocation that we have never regretted the Phelps over-emphasis.
If one asks what a sermon is, Phelps’ answer is excellent: “An oral address to the popular mind on religious truth contained in the Scriptures, and elaborately treated with a view to persuasion.” The construction of a sermon is not altogether unlike the building of a house. In some respects there are points of great similarity between the two. In each case there must be a preliminary sketch that should be satisfactory to the creator before further procedure is possible. That sketch we call in homiletics the outline; and, as in house building, so in construction, when the preliminary sketch is satisfactory one is ready for the more perfected plans, including its varied appointments. At every point house building and sermon construction require parallel procedures. Each involves parts, production, and appeal. ITS PARTS They are naturally constituted!
Just as a house, if worthy the name of a home, is certain to have a living room, dining room, kitchen, bedrooms, halls and baths, so a discourse, worthy to be called a sermon, commonly claims an introduction, main divisions, subdivisions, and conclusion. The introduction should usually be brief—the main divisions not too few, and still important. Three is perhaps the most popular number now in ordinary use; but this is not arbitrary, since the sane and sufficient interpretation of the theme or passage involved will necessarily effect that number. As three is often adequate for main divisions, so it will be found that three subdivisions under each main will work out well—but here again the complete presentation of Scripture is a deciding factor. We present this very chapter as sample of the parts in harmonious outline.
They should be carefully planned!
Once in my youth we needed a new barn on our Kentucky farm. I volunteered to build it, and in due process of time the feat was accomplished; but it was built without plans of any kind, without even a lead-pencil sketch, and also without all the necessary carpenter’s tools. I confess it was never an occasion of pleasure or pride; and when I took my bride to Kentucky I was pleased to see that my attempt at building had been demolished and a new and well-planned one replaced it.
I have often heard sermons that reminded me of that misdirected effort. They were neither stately nor attractive. Like my barn they seem to be bits of mental timber tacked together. It was evident they had never enjoyed a preliminary sketch, that they had never followed a blue print, and that both plans and specifications had been lacking.
It is my candid judgment that the average sermon has cost the preacher entirely too little mental endeavor. Among the reasons that there are not more great preachers is the fact that there are so few painstaking students. Good preaching is only and ever the product of great study.
They should be properly proportioned!
Perhaps not one sermon in a hundred that is preached ever reaches the printed page; but of the better sermons, that proportion increases, and of the best it is greater still. Certainly when a sermon is to be given to the public in printed form it makes a far more pleasing impression on the mind, through the eye, if the statements constituting the outline are symmetrical.
We think of one of the great preachers of the past century —our personal and esteemed friend also—whose failure in this very matter was most marked. When one studies his books of sermons and other volumes from his pen, he will often find utter disparity at this point. One main division may be stated in two words, while the next main division is voiced in two or three lines. So also with his subdivisions. The visual impression is most displeasing. With him no attempt was made either at proportion of parts, alliteration in statements, or symmetry of arrangement; but because he had a well-trained intellect, an unshaken faith in God and His Word, studious habits, and a forceful delivery, he was one of the leading ministers of his day—all of which goes to evidence the fact that preaching, in its highest form, is not fixed or determined by rules or regulations, but is, in its last analysis, a witness in the power of the Holy Ghost.
However, it should be understood and admitted that the Spirit of God, while not limited to mechanical devices, is not necessarily aided by ignoring righteous rules. Observation has convinced us that great preachers are born rather than made. Recently two of the most notable of our Southland have gone to be with the Lord. I speak of George W. Truett, the university graduate whose silver tongue was the pride and blessing of the entire South, and of A. N. Hall of Oklahoma, the high school chap, who felt called from a business career to minister in the Word. I say without hesitation that Hall was easily the homiletician of his day. He had never studied the subject at the feet of any man; I doubt that he had ever read books on the theme, yet he was a past master in homiletics. It shows that homileticians are born rather than bred, but the best by birth can be improved by training. But we pass from the consideration of the sermon parts to ITS PRODUCTION
Here we reach holy ground! Here we deal not alone with human endeavor, but also with divine influence. The great essentials in sermonizing involve both.
It should start with the selection of a text or theme! (Maclaren, Cure of Souls, pages 8-12). Is that a matter of the minister’s mind only? We think not! Experience has taught us differently. It is here that he needs the help of the Holy Ghost. Happy is the preacher when such help has been consciously vouchsafed. I have chosen many a text of my own volition, and presented it with my best but unaided ability—never to my joy or even satisfaction.
Then, thank God, I have had that other week in which the text was manifestly chosen for me; when I became conscious of a divine demand that it be presented to my people; and while “I was musing [in preparation] the fire burned; then spake I with my tongue.” Those have been the high moments of life; those have been the great hours when God’s people have been stirred and sinners have surrendered.
I write as a man of long experience in the ministry, and if I had the ear of every theologian in the world (and he would receive advice), I should plead for prayer as he sought for a text, and for further prayer as he entered upon its study, and for a never failing solicitude that the Holy Spirit should continue to guide from the hour of choice of text to the last word of completed discourse so that he might be the ideal witness described in Acts 1:8, upon whom the power of the Holy Ghost rested in both production and delivery.
It should proceed by extensive research!
There are men who entertain a philosophy that if the Holy Ghost helps them, no endeavor on their part is needful. As a defense of their philosophy they often employ the last sentence in Psalms 81:10, “Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it—,” a scripture that has no reference at all to preaching, but to the experience of Israel in the wilderness, when God sent them manna and quail to satisfy their hunger.
Paul indulged in no such false or foolish interpretation. On the contrary, writing to another young minister of his day, he solemnly enjoined upon him “Study to shew thyself approved unto God . . .” (2 Timothy 2:15). The idea that one can impart information without first taking the pains to acquire it is both a mental and moral absurdity. The greatest preacher I ever knew was Dr. B. H. Carroll of Texas. He was also a most assiduous student. I sat at the feet of Dr. Henry Grattan Guinness after he had celebrated his eighty-third birthday, and when between services I visited with him in his hotel room, I found him uniformly with his face between the pages of a book; and when I came to read the production of his pen or listen to the eloquence of his tongue, I knew full well that he was drawing upon a reservoir of information which his studies had “filled to the brim,” and, like the disciples of Jesus at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, having filled the receptacle he could draw the rich wine of truth from the same, and so meet the needs of the people. When one thinks upon the sources of supply—history, biography, literature, science, observation, sacred Scripture, etc., he is compelled to assent that the poor preacher, like the average poor man, is poverty-stricken often as the result of indolence.
It should receive most careful expression! At this point we favor written rather than extempore sermons. The extemporaneous preacher is too likely to voice himself in slovenly manner, employing any word that would approach his intent rather than the exact word that would voice his idea. A written sermon can be reviewed, weaknesses detected, best words selected, and phrases satisfactorily finished. An extemporaneous sermon is somewhat like the wind of which the Master spake, “but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.” If a minister wants to increase his vocabulary and employ constantly the best word to express his thought, he is compelled to search among synonyms —a thing quite impossible with what is commonly called “free speech.” In my early ministry it was not unusual for me to spend from fifteen minutes to half an hour to finish satisfactorily a single sentence, and I have spent that amount of time searching for the right word.
I am not pleading for sermon reading—as a rule that is a sleepy procedure for both the minister and the audience, and illustrates the widely spread story of the preacher who suggested to his hearers that “a little snuff might keep them awake”; whereupon an auditor replied, “Wouldn’t it be better to put the snuff into your sermon?” Snuff in a sermon is clarity of expression! The best of extemporaneous preachers are seldom book-authors. The power and popularity of the printed page has always been and will forever remain the reward of concise, clear, and competent expression. So firmly have I been convinced of this method of procedure that for eight years before I was provided a secretary, I wrote out every sermon, in full, with my own hand, though often suffering from writer’s cramp. ITS APPEAL Every sermon should have a direct objective!
There should be a reason for its being preached, and a desirable end to be accomplished. The appearance in the pulpit is not a mere performance! The making of some sort of speech on Sunday is not necessarily a sacred obligation; but to meet the mental and moral demands of men’s souls— aye, that is a vocation worthy of angels.
There is a story told of a missionary in China who, passing along the road, saw a native hacking away at a log. Stopping for friendly conversation he said, “John, what are you making?”
Shaking his head, the Chinaman answered, “Dunno, maybe bedstead, maybe god.” Not a few ministers have had to wait until the sermon was finished to find out just what they had produced. Instead of moving as a bee does, straight from the flower to the hive, to put the stored sweetness where it would conserve the highest good, they wander as butterflies without other objective than physical exercise. The fundamental of preaching itself is the accomplishment of a direct and desirable objective.
Each part should move to that end. A homily should have unity. The best auditors will demand that, and the poor ones, even though they may not be able to express the reason for their disappointment, will feel its lack. A great idea, well-lodged in the mind of the congregation, is more sure to effect life for good than a dozen disjointed suggestions could ever accomplish. Nature is orderly; so is grace when it is fully comprehended. A characteristic of Christ’s preaching is symmetry. Some one has said that the difference between an eloquent man and a very ordinary orator is both in choice of words and orderly arrangement; but to clothe them and organize them into an effective argument evidences genius and makes preaching great. Its final impact should be decision and action. In accomplishing this the minister must be able to visualize his audience while yet at his desk engaged in preparation. In the forty-five years of my pastorate in Minneapolis, I was as conscious of my congregation when dictating to my secretary in the study as I became when addressing them face to face. Many times I have been moved to tears in expression where my only audience was my secretary, and it was not altogether unusual for her to manifest the interest of bedimmed vision.
Such is the seriousness of professional preaching. It has in common at least with the teacher the determination to impart truth, knowing that “truth makes men free!” It has in common with the attorney the securing of a verdict, knowing that apart from decision there can be no character; it has in common with the physician the patient’s help, knowing that soul-healing is the highest human accomplishment. Every sermon therefore should be considered a deliverance involving eternal destinies. That is why preaching is altogether the most important of human occupations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Pattison, T. Harwood Parts of the Sermon (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publishing Society, 1898).
Broadus, John A. The Foundation of a Sermon (On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, new and revised edition; New York: Harper & Bros., 1944).