When a family buys a VCR, they follow the owner's manual for step by step directions in order to operate it. But, after using it for several weeks, they operate the VCR by second nature.

This article is much like an owner's manual. It presents twelve steps to developing basic sermon ideas on a text from the Old Testament. Preachers who use this pattern will likely adapt it to their own theological frames of reference, styles of working, and personalities.

We illustrate in two ways. First, we follow Psalm 110 as a case study through the twelve steps of the method. Psalm 110 is an interesting study in its own right, and it also plays an important role in early Christian literature. Second, we briefly consider other texts.

1. Determine the Limits of the Text

One of the most basic rules of exegesis is to determine the limits of the text: a natural starting point and a natural ending point. The delimited text should be a meaningful unit of understanding. Still, the congregation may need to know some of the storyline, ideas, or information from the larger context in order to grasp the importance of a specific passage. The preacher can supply this kind of background with supplementary remarks at the time of the reading of the text or in the sermon itself.

Psalm 110 is a complete literary unit. To take another example, 1 Kings 19:1-18 is also such a unit. This second example is the story of the revelation of the presence of God in sheer silence to Elijah on Mount Horeb. However, in the Common Lectionary the text was chopped into three pieces and spread across three Sundays, thus inhibiting its natural movement. In the Revised Common Lectionary in Year C, the text has been located on a single Sunday, but the reading contains only vss. 1-4 and 8-15. In order to honor the fullness of the text, the preacher must supply the missing details.

2. Recall Prior Associations With the Text

Preachers typically have some preassociations with a text. These may be conscious or unconscious. They may come from direct association with the text or by transfer of association from a similar text. Preunderstandings may emanate from official church pronouncements, from recognized Bible expositors, from the memory of a childhood Sunday School class, or from barbershop lore. A preacher needs to be cognizant of these associations and to reflect on them so that they will not predetermine the preacher's conversation with the text and the direction of the sermon. Investigations of the text may confirm preassociations or may enlarge or correct them.

For instance, a preacher might naively think that the reference to the creation of the woman from the rib of the man in Genesis 2:18-25 shows the subordination of the woman to the man. However, a careful reading of the text, especially in light of Genesis 1:27-28 and 3:16, reveals that the man and the woman are created to live in mutuality and interdependence.

Christian preachers sometimes preassociate Christ and the church with texts from the Hebrew Scriptures without reflecting on the meanings of those texts in their own historical and literary contexts. Psalm 110 is often cited in the earliest Christian literature in order to speak of Christ (e.g. Matt. 22:44; Acts 2:24; 1 Cor. 15:25; Eph. 1:20; Heb. 1:3). Consequently, it is natural to think of Christ when encountering Psalm 110 in the psalter. However, to do so is to import associations into the text that were not present in pre-Christian Israel. Reading Christ into the Psalm may short-circuit ways in which the Psalm, as a song of Israel, might be instructive to the church.