By Donald R. Sunukjian
• What do I need to explain?
• Do we buy it?
• What does it look like in real life?
Probing the take-home truth and each statement in the outline with these three questions causes the biblical text to expand and develop into a full sermon,” the author asserts.
Sunukjian proceeds to discuss the various methods and resources used to amplify on the take-home truth and build on the outline to develop the body of the sermon. In one helpful section, he discusses and demonstrates the difference between developing a sermon deductively and inductively. There’s also a helpful discussion of shaping a sermon when the biblical passage is chiastic – “that is, when the original biblical passage repeats previous themes in inverted order” as was common in Hebrew poetry.
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In his discussion of the introduction,Sunukjian pictures it as a funnel – “capturing the listeners at the widest edges of their interest, directing them with clarity and a sense of need to the biblical passage, and taking them into the first hunk of the message.” (How can you not love a preaching book that talks about the “hunks” of a sermon?) He offers several steps in this process:
• Engage the listeners’ interest
to “create a need for, or curiosity about, the message”
• Focus the message on either the take-home truth (deductive) or the topic/question (inductive)
• Set the stage biblically
• Preview the coming hunks, the direction the message will take
• Announce the passage
Sunukjian also offers counsel on developing the sermon’s conclusion and title, and reminds his readers that as preachers we are to “write for the ear” – “write ike you talk, and be sensitive to the emotional overtones of your language.” He concludes with some suggestions for ways to achieve clarity in an oral presentation and to gain delivery in freedom by preaching without notes. There are some interesting appendix items added to the book, including a chapter on procedures for outlining a sermon and a discussion of the dangers of alliteration in preaching. (The latter has long been a topic of interest to Sunukjian, and one on which he wrote for
Preaching several years ago.)
Don Sunukjian has given us a practical guide to developing 21st century sermons that are biblically faithful, clear and engaging. This is not ivory-tower theory; Invitation to Biblical Preaching offers down-to-earth insights and enough examples to spark dozens of great sermon ideas for any preacher!