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09/12/16 Paul Scott Wilson, Professor of Homiletics, Emmanuel College, University of
Toronto
PREACHING LAW AND GOSPEL
The hermeneutic I use in preaching is law and gospel, or, to use somewhat less
contentious words, trouble and grace. I assume that the Word of God is dual-edged, it
both condemns and liberates, binds and frees. I also assume that the purpose of preaching
is to proclaim the gospel, that I define as God’s saving actions recorded anywhere in the
Bible that have greatest clarity in Jesus Christ. This purpose is larger than preaching any
individual biblical text. Bible texts are treasures in themselves yet they also provide
windows or portals through which we may view the larger faith story. These assumptions
have important implications for preaching, encouraging sermons to be in fact good news,
to be vehicles of Christ through the Holy Spirit.1
I. BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL RATIONALE
From my childhood, many things helped shape my eventual homiletic, including the
weekly preaching of my father. He taught me not least about Bible and theology, about
the sermon’s link to pastoral care, about the value of story and, by negative example,
about not leaving preparation to Saturday night. However, two of the most distinct
lessons came, one from my grandmother and one from my mother.
Our family lived out on the prairies and visits from relatives were few and far between.
Grannie Scott would come from Northern Ireland every second summer. My feelings
were mixed because she would insist on having daily devotions with the three of us
children and these often fell in the middle of a game of baseball on the street, or
neighborhood hide-and-seek. I nonetheless remain indebted to her because in one of
those sessions she told me the story of the death of my grandfather, whom I never met,
and thereby she introduced me to grace.
She had been in the kitchen of their Methodist manse in Quebec preparing lunch.
Grandpa Thomas was up in his study on the second floor, preparing his Sunday sermons.
“Thomas,” she called, signaling that lunch was ready. After a while she called again, with
still no answer. The third time she dried her hands on her apron and went up to get him.
His study door was closed, as was normal. As she placed her hand on the doorknob, she
heard a distinct voice, “My grace is sufficient unto thee.” (2 Cor 12:19 KJV.) She opened
the door and found he had died, slumped over on his roll-top desk. Because she heard
Many of the ideas expressed in this essay may be found in greater detail with examples
in my, The Four Pages of the Sermon (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999).
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what she understood to be God’s voice and had that assurance of grace, she said she was
sustained not only through the time of grieving, but also for the rest of her life. Grace, I
came to understand, is not just an abstract idea, it is God’s unconditional action of
unmerited favor.
My mother taught me a second lesson about preaching when she taught us basic
principles of baking and cooking, like don’t add flour to water, but add water to flour so
the dough won’t get lumpy. To avoid lumpy gravy, don’t initially add hot water to the hot
roux, first add ice water and mix.
When I arrived as a student in homiletics class, I needed to know the basic sermon
ingredients and principles for how they worked. What was I trying to do, write an essay
or lecture? Make a speech? Be a pastor or prophet? What was the nature of God’s Word?
What about grace? I wanted to avoid lumpy sermons and my questions led me to consider
what Bible and theology tell us about law and gospel, and the bifocal nature of the Word.
1) Law and Gospel
Law and gospel are essential ways to speak of what is at the heart of faith. Law is a gift
from God, yet it mainly emphasizes human action and what we must do. Humans are
required to change, yet we cannot do so on our own. As Jesus says in John 15:5, “apart
from me you can do nothing.” 2 Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:5, "Not that we are
competent of ourselves to claim anything coming from us; our competence is from God".
Because we cannot save ourselves or on our own accomplish our mission and outreach,
God by grace provides what is required in Jesus Christ through the Spirit. Gospel is
God’s actions of unmerited and unconditional grace on our behalf. God’s saving action
may be found in either Testament, but is most clearly seen in Christ’s incarnation,
ministry, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, the descent of the Spirit, the second
coming, and his eternal rule at the right hand of God. Good Friday and Easter are at the
heart of it all.
However, law and gospel are loaded terms. Like the long railway trains that rumble
across the prairies, they carry a lot of freight. Law and gospel can mean many things.
Some folks hear Old Testament and New Testament, or old covenant and new. Paul
speaks extensively of law and gospel in Romans and of “the ministry that brought
condemnation” and “the ministry that brings righteousness” (2 Cor 3:6-9.) Some hear
various other words as synonyms for law: God’s commandments, teachings, instructions,
sin (our personal and corporate transgressions of the law), judgement (the consequences
of our sin), fallenness and brokenness (i.e., because of original sin the world and society
2
Unless otherwise indicated, biblical quotations are from the NRSV.
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are not as God intended). Some may hear synonyms for gospel in words like: grace,
salvation, justification, sanctification, righteousness, the church’s message, and the Word.
Law and gospel terminology may raise denominational flags. Some hear law and gospel
as particularly Lutheran, which they are, yet they are central also for Calvin. Luther’s
uses of the law were 1) in its civil or punitive function, to warn, condemn, restrain evil,
curb behavior, and provide a measure of justice, and 2) as a mirror of God’s perfection
and a judgement of human weakness in need of God’s help. Calvin reversed those two
and added a third use of the law as a guide to stir in the righteous a willingness or
excitement to obedience. (Scholars say the third use is present in Luther as well though
he did not call it that or emphasize it for fear it would be misunderstood.) Calvin finds the
third use in David in the Psalms, “The prophet proclaims the great usefulness of the law:
the Lord instructs by their reading of it those whom he inwardly instills with a readiness
to obey. He [David] lays hold not only of the precepts, but the accompanying promise of
grace, which alone sweetens what is bitter…. David especially shows that in the law he
apprehended the Mediator, without whom there is no delight or sweetness.”3 For Calvin,
God is present in the law. It is a gift that reveals human error, yet it also anticipates the
grace and contains a hint or promise of the sweetness of the gospel when human action
corresponds with God’s will.
Law and gospel are also Methodist. John Wesley attacked antinomians who preach only
law or only gospel. He says of the law that it slays some yet for others it is a gift,
privilege, and wonderful liberty. Gospel is the love of Christ. Preaching both is “the
scriptural way, the Methodist way, the true way.”4 Evangelical Episcopalian theologian,
Paul F. M. Zahl, recently devoted a third of his Grace in Practice to law and gospel,
essentially understanding law as righteousness by works and gospel as salvation by grace.
He says of God’s grace, “No apologies! One-way love is the heart of Christianity. It is
what makes Christianity Christian.”5
Law and gospel represent a dynamic relationship, a necessary tension. The law is not a
straw argument made irrelevant by the subsequent gospel. As Jesus said, “I have not
come to abolish [the law and the prophets] but to fulfill.” (Mt 5:17.) Law and gospel are
John Calvin, Institutes, ed. John T. McNeil, trans. Ford W. Battles, vol. 22, The Library
of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1:361. Calvin was reflecting on
the text, “your word is a lamp to my feet…” (Ps 119:105).
3
4
John Wesley, “Letter to ‘My dear friend’”, December 20, 1751, in Albert C. Outler, ed.,
John Wesley (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 37.
Paul F. M. Zahl, Grace in Practice: A Theology of Everyday Life (Grand Rapids, MI:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007), ix. See: 1-93.
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both true, they are both needed to represent the truth, yet they may seem contradictory. As
Luther said, simul justus et pecattor, we are in the same moment both saved and sinners.
Neither half on its own is quite adequate. To resolve the tension established between the
two, faith is needed. By holding law and gospel adjacent to one another, faith may find a
foothold. As Paul instructs, “work out your salvation in fear and trembling, for it is God
who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work to his good pleasure.” (Phil.
2:13.)
Law and gospel are not binary terms, like bad and good. They are not strict opposites.
They are intertwined. Law is good, it is a gift. A warning is often helpful, even if we still
must obey. As a command, it strikes humans initially as a burden, perhaps even as
impossible. When a drug addict is told to quit drugs, the instruction is good, yet if that is
all that is given, it is not enough to save. The addict may be pointed in the right direction
but is still hopelessly stuck. Law accompanied by gospel however is empowerment
through the Spirit to make the required behavioral change. Both law and gospel are
needed.
Swiss Reformed theologian Emil Brunner once marvelously said, God meets us in the
law, but “does not meet us as himself.”6 By the same token, if we preach only gospel,
God does not fully meet us in it. The good news is irrelevant if it is not specific to human
needs. Christ meets us fully as himself in the pairing of law and gospel, in both command
and empowerment.
Law and gospel are not always easy terms. Sometimes I opt for alternate terms like
trouble and grace. They can provide a simpler route to the preaching of the good news.
They have less history and carry less freight. Trouble needs little definition because most
of us know what it is and what it feels like. Trouble is difficulty. At the simplest level,
trouble (like law) puts the burden on humans to do something. Alternatively, at the
simplest level, grace (like gospel) puts the burden on God who has already accepted it in
Jesus Christ. Preachers can use trouble and grace to make an initial diagnosis of sermon
material. To discover if something is it trouble or grace, ask: Does the burden to do
something fall on humans or on God? Does it feel like bad news or good? Generally, if
something feels heavy it is trouble. If it feels like good news, it may be gospel. Trouble/
law is basically anthropocentric while grace/gospel is theocentric. In the sermon, each
must be given time to be fully experienced by the congregation.
To summarize, trouble or law on its own is not the gospel, though it contributes to it.
Grace on its own is also not the gospel, because grace is God’s action saving us from
something. We may thus say: gospel = trouble (law) + grace.
6
Emil Brunner, Truth as Encounter (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1963), 121.
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2) The Need for a Focus on God
When I began teaching in seminary, a problem was apparent early in my teaching of
homiletics: many of the sermons were strong by some standards. The students did careful
study of the text, good exegesis, identified key terms, relied upon biblical commentators
and theologians, were guided by denominational standards, used good images,
metaphors, and stories, ensured social and cultural relevance, and so forth. The product
was often sermons that left me flat. After a few months, I began to recognize the problem.
The sermons were biblical but did not get to God. Or, if they did get to God, they did not
get to gospel. God was portrayed primarily as judgment. Hearers most often were left
carrying greater burdens after the sermon than they had at the start. Quantities of ‘must,
should, have to, and ought’ were hung out on the sermon clothesline. Some students
sounded more like police than pastors.
Something more was needed. With the text of David and Goliath (1 Sam 17), one might
preach all day on grammatical, literary, and historical aspects of the text. The Philistines
had a military advantage in possessing the formula for iron. Their weapons were Iron Age
but Israel was trapped in the Bronze Age, and one might say that David was still in the
Stone Age. Still, from a theological perspective, if God did not guide the pebble that
David launched from his slingshot, if God did not cause the Philistine army to panic, if
Israel did not believe that God saved them, if the story did not reveal something about
God’s nature, there would be no obvious reason to preach that story, even though it is in
the Bible. If any biblical text becomes just history and bears no theology, if it has no
application to faith and action today, does it yet function as the Word of God?
If you purchase a Ford Focus, you may suddenly notice how many are on the roads. If we
note that preaching and the gospel are not identical, in listening to sermons we may
become aware of all the sermons in which gospel is missing. People are the focus. The
emphasis is on what we humans are to do, essentially using our own resources. The
imperative mood is common. It makes requests or commands, expecting the listener to
obey. Some preachers need encouragement to use the indicative mood that by contrast
does not make demands and is thus easier for listeners to receive. It typically describes,
expresses an opinion, or enquires about something.
What we humans do is important and the Word always calls us to some form of change or
repentance. The weakness of sermons that center on human actions is that God and grace
are largely absent. This is the problem with most published and internet sermons,
irrespective of denomination.7 The burden falls on the listener alone to do what is needed.
7
See the analysis of anthologies of sermons in my The Four Pages, 159-161.
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As an easy test to verify this, review sermons and see how many of the sentences have
God, in one of the Three Persons, as the subject of the sentences. Do a further check to
see how many of those sentences actually stress God’s helping action (as opposed to
instruction or warning).
Even sermons that do get to grace often err in one of several directions:
a) God’s love is unconditional, but the preached grace is conditional, as in “if you
will change,” or “when we follow Christ we will discover,” or, “If you become
good enough….” Good news that is dependent upon us, or that is only conditional
as a promise in the future may never arrive. Paul said, “For I do not do the good I
want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Rom 7:19). If that was true for him,
how much more true is it for us? Far better it is to remind listeners that they have
already encountered God’s grace in baptism, prayer, worship, community, service,
and so forth. The good news needs to be extended to the past and present if
listeners are to trust it awaits in the future.
b) Most sermons that mention grace do so only for a short period, perhaps just at the
end, not long enough for listeners even to begin to visualize or comprehend it, or
to begin tasting the sweetness Calvin mentioned.
c) Even sermons based on biblical texts with an obvious gospel emphasis are turned
into law. Thus the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15:1-7 turns into a sermon on
being diligent in searching out those who are lost. That can be part of the
message, but it is not yet the gospel. Jesus focuses on God’s diligence in seeking
the lost. God will come looking even if only one is lost out of a hundred. This text
also points to how the preacher might link to the larger gospel story: Jesus is
determined to accomplish for us on the cross what we cannot accomplish for
ourselves (see, for instance: Jesus setting his face to go to Jerusalem in Luke 9:31,
51).
In sum, a preacher can preach the Bible and not arrive at God’s Word, or can preach
God’s Word as law and not arrive at the gospel. Preaching often puts the burden on
humanity, as though Christ’s life, death, and resurrection make no difference to the
present day.
3) The Bifocal Nature of the Word
The Word of God both binds and frees. It is bifocal, law and gospel. They are in a
dynamic tensive relationship. The dual-edged Word both condemns and frees, cuts and
restores. Luther and Calvin, had no set homiletic based on this, except that law was to
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convict the sinner, and gospel was to encourage and sustain the repentant.8 John Wesley
said law and gospel can be preached “both at once” or “in their turns”.9 The great Baptist
preacher, Charles H. Spurgeon, in the late 1800’s condemned any sermon that does not
offer the grace of God, “ it sweeps over men’s heads like a cloud, but it distributes no rain
upon the thirsty earth….” 10
The common assumption seems to be that human action and God’s action will balance
themselves out over a year. Yet they do not. Law dominates and gospel is occasional and
often fleeting. If a preacher in the sermon goes mainly once to the biblical text, as in
sermons roughly patterned on the Puritan plain style method of exposition/application,
nine times out of ten, the received word will be corrective, something humans must do. In
other words, that form that involves a single movement to the text encourages a theology
of judgement or trouble. Frankly, most preachers do not receive training to also look for
the gospel. They may preach it from time to time, not least at funerals, but may not have
the right lenses to know it or to control it for effective Sunday preaching. For them, law
and gospel have not yet developed as hermeneutical tools.
Trouble and grace are the deep grammar of both theological discourse and sermons. In
language studies, grammar provides normative rules for clear expression. In sermons,
trouble and grace as grammar provide normative rules for clear expression of the gospel.
Like any grammar, these principles are not obvious on the surface, they do not draw
attention to themselves. Yet just as sentences can be analyzed for arrangements of subject,
predicate, object, and so forth, a sermon can be analyzed according to how it employs law
and gospel and in what patterns. Is the burden on people or on God?
In addition to grammar, trouble to grace can be understood as a structure for the sermon.
Faith and the gospel have an underlying plot, seen over and over in the Bible in the
movement from: expulsion from Eden in Genesis to entry to the New Jerusalem in
Revelation, the Exodus to the Promised Land, crucifixion to resurrection, Good Friday to
Easter, the old creation to the new, the old covenant to the new, sin to forgiveness,
homelessness to homecoming, affliction to health, and so forth. We see this movement in
Paul’s own experience in Asia: “…we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we
See the analysis of C. F. W. Walthers, Johann Michael Reu, Richard Caemmerer, and
Herman G Stuempfle Jr., on the subject of law and gospel in my, Preaching and
Homiletical Theory, Preaching and Its Partners (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2004),
75-84.
8
9
Wesley, in Outler, ed., John Wesley, 232-3.
C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, complete and unabridged (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1954), 70.
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despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that
we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He who rescued us from
so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us again” (2 Cor 1:8-10). There are opposite
theological movements in the Bible, like backsliding from righteousness to
unrighteousness, or from justice to injustice, but those are the movements of sin and evil,
not of God. In other words, the gospel has a distinctive plot that can be the underlying
drive of the sermon.
II. HOMILETICAL RATIONALE
1) The Sermon in Two Parts. I suggest that the sermon be conceived in two parts, moving
from law (trouble) to gospel (grace), not the other way around. A sermon might present
only grace, but God’s saving action independent of any trouble is not truly saving.
Preaching forgiveness without repentance is what Deitrich Bonhoeffer called cheap
grace. Grace becomes good news in relationship to the law and when it takes account of
troubles. Similarly, a sermon that is just law, instructions, and demands will likely not
inspire faith and reliance upon God. When law and gospel are preached in sequence,
however, by the end of the sermon, trouble is not erased but it is transformed into an
invitation to rely upon God’s empowering resources for what is needed.
What about preaching law and gospel back and forth, over and over? The movement from
law to gospel is the plot of the sermon, giving the sermon interest and suspense. It creates
tension and resolution. It flows from naming the deep struggles of life to naming the
gospel in response to them.
Trouble to grace is not to be confused with problem/ solution. We would never speak of
the movement from Good Friday to Easter as problem/ solution. The move is from
trouble to a restored relationship with God in Christ. Back and forth over and over
establishes neither and can be experienced like a train in a shunting yard, there is little
forward movement. Neither law nor gospel is experienced in depth. It is like cleaning a
wound, putting on a bandage, removing it, and repeating. Or it is like probing something
emotionally painful, saying some superficial words to make it better, and then doing it
again, probing and soothing without going deep. It is better that people experience the
depth of their sin or the broken social systems in the world, and then move to the good
news, taking full account of the trouble. Much African-American preaching does this,
ending in celebration of God’s action. It moves towards joy, and as Ephesians instructs, it
“equip[s] the saints for the work of ministry” (4:12).
One could argue that even if a sermon does not get to the gospel, the rest of the service
will, for instance in the prayers, singing, banners, videos, sacraments and so forth. Why
worry about law and gospel? In response, if the gospel is barely represented in individual
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Sunday sermons, when will the congregation have a chance to focus on what God is
doing and where they might expect to encounter God today?
At the grocery store, it is good to be guided by a shopping list and not by cravings of the
moment. A little discipline is needed. The same is true for preaching. For the gospel to be
preached on a weekly basis, the approach needs to be intentional. Gospel requires a
deliberate homiletic not guided merely by whim, for instance whether a preacher is
discouraged or happy when composing the sermon. Gospel requires discipline and an
intentional hermeneutic.
2) A Gospel Hermeneutic
Biblical preachers are taught to strive for objectivity when doing exegesis, that process
involving translation, and issues of authorship, historical setting, key terms, original
meanings and so forth. This process safeguards against imposing meanings on texts. The
text determines the sermon’s message. Still, something beyond what the text says must
also operate if one preacher finds only trouble in a text and another finds both law and
gospel. The difference may be explained by what hermeneutic or method of interpretation
is employed. The first preacher uses a law hermeneutic and the second uses a law/gospel
hermeneutic. In other words, what a preacher sees in a text is determined not only by the
text, but also by the lenses used to read it. The question for us here becomes, are
preachers warranted in using a gospel hermeneutic?
Since ancient times, the church has used the regula fidei, the rule of faith, to guide
interpretation of scripture. For most of history well beyond the Reformation, the church
used ‘the four senses of scripture’ as theological lenses to understand its texts. The literal
sense of the text was the grammatical meaning of the words and the historical events they
represented. The moral sense was claimed as the main meaning because it gave even
simple people practical guidelines how to improve their souls by behaving as God wills.
Without using the term moral sense, the church invokes it whenever it draws from a text a
behavioral purpose, even if that is not its direct thrust. All preaching texts imply
something for human behavior. Our preaching ancestors also had two spiritual senses of
scripture, the allegorical sense that finds a meaning about Jesus Christ and the anagogical
sense, that finds a meaning concerning the soul and heaven and hell.
The four senses were pre-critical tools for reading Scripture theologically. Today we rely
on critical scholarship of the Bible and have more than four senses or lenses in play.
Lenses are provided by social and cultural contexts, including race, gender, economic
status, and so forth. Additional lenses are provided by theologies: denominational, black,
feminist, liberation, narrative, Min-Jung, post-colonial, and others. Some of the ancient
insights nonetheless remain important. The reformers claimed that the literal sense of
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scripture was the only true sense. They wanted to limit allegory. In actual fact they
maintained a ‘double-literal sense’. The grammatical-historical or literal meaning was not
the true literal sense. That honor was reserved for what the text says about God or what I
call the ‘God sense’ of a text.11
Theological interpretation was further buttressed by five core reformed beliefs about
salvation, known as the five ‘solas’ (Latin: alone): Sola Fide, by faith alone (saved not by
works), Sola Scriptura, by Scripture alone (scripture is interpreted by other passages in
scripture, against Roman claims that the majesterium of the church has the final say in
what texts mean), Sola Gratia, by grace alone (we are justified not by merit); Solus
Christus, through Christ alone (the priest is not a mediator between the individual and
God), and Soli Deo Gloria, glory to God alone (not humans). The Reformation
understood that Scripture is to be read theologically with a view to what it said about God
and neighbor. Theological reading is the church’s way to discover the Word.
Some critics might say that a law/ gospel approach makes every text conform to a
predetermined pattern or template. Two responses may be given. First, every text already
implies both law and gospel, even if every preacher has not been taught to recognize
them. If preachers typically preach mainly trouble, as is common, they inadvertently
already unconsciously conform to a template, but one that falls short of good news.
Preachers may not even be aware that a bias towards law and trouble governs their
sermon content.
Second, consider this question: Do we preach the text or the gospel? Hopefully both, not
one or the other. Christ commissioned the church to, “Go into all the world and proclaim
the good news to the whole creation.” (Mk. 16:15.) He did not say, go into the world and
preach a text, or a unit of scripture, or a biblical concept, he said preach the gospel. To
my mind that means that we preach texts with a view to arriving at what is good about the
news.
3) Identifying God’s Action for the Theme Sentence
The Christian faith is not just abstract ideas or propositions, it is a relationship with the
Triune God, an experience, an event, a gift, a power in the Spirit, and a motivating force
for loving God and neighbor. Most preaching books speak of the need for the sermon to
be about one idea, or what many call a theme sentence. Even if a sermon has three points,
these should seem like horses pulling in one direction, not three. A theme sentence is one
of the key elements that gives a sermon unity. It is the sermon in miniature or microcosm.
Paul Scott Wilson, God Sense: Reading the Bible for Preaching. (Nashville, Tennessee:
Abingdon Press, 2001). See esp. Chapter Three for the double-literal sense.
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If the sermon is to get to the good news of God’s saving action, the theme sentence needs
to name that action decisively, otherwise the sermon will remain mired in trouble and
law. To preach good news is an intentional decision guided by the Spirit.
Identifying a theme sentence is perhaps the single-most important start in sermon
preparation for the preacher. If done on Monday, it provides maximum time for mulling,
reading, praying, and composing during the week, and a maximum number of nights for
the mind to problem-solve during sleep. Once identified, the preacher can enter a process
of exegesis, consult commentaries, and ask questions that get at relevant literary and
historical issues. The preacher interrogates the text and the text also interrogates the
preacher and the contemporary situation.
At a 3D movie theatre, special glasses are needed to see all the dimensions of the movie.
In the same way, preachers need to put on special glasses to see the dimensions of the
good news. These glasses may be found in answer to one key question: What is God
doing in or behind this text? God’s action in the text is evident if one of the Persons of the
Trinity is mentioned. If not, God’s action behind the text in the larger section of scripture
is sought. To be good news, these actions will be actions that empower, forgive,
reconcile, heal, guide, rescue, and so forth. The book of Esther does not mention God, but
both Esther and Mordecai are God’s representatives and their actions and words speak for
God. The Epistle James mostly says what people are to do yet simultaneously implies
much about our God who mandates such behavior. The Good Samaritan text does not
mention God yet affirms that God cares for the outcast.
Law and gospel have a mirroring function. John Wesley once said, “Every law contains a
hidden promise.” By the same token, every message of good news contains a hidden law.
The dual nature of God’s word represents an important mirroring function. A text that
seems like it is only law, when read with the preacher’s special glasses, makes significant
claims about God’s love. You shall not kill, also says, God wills life. A text that seems to
be only gospel implies trouble: God finds the lost, also says, many are lost.
This mirroring function of law and gospel is a principle of inversion. One doctoral
student chose to preach on the beheading of John the Baptist in Matthew 14:1-12, a text
that for most preachers would result in only trouble. I feared the student might dwell on
the violence in the text which in effect can be the same thing as preaching evil, the power
of violent images can be too hard to counter with good news. In fact, he used pastoral
sensitivity throughout. His theme sentence focused on what God is doing in or behind the
text: God prepared John the Baptist for his death. The sermon explained, God allowed
John to meet Jesus before he died. It was brilliant.
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Let us consider Romans 8:38-39, where Paul says that nothing “will be able to separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”. A few guidelines can be given for
theme sentences in general:
i. Make God the subject, in one of the Persons of the Trinity. It might be tempting to use
‘nothing” as the subject, as in ‘Nothing can separate us from the love of God,’ but the
gospel comes into focus by saying instead, ‘God holds us close no matter what.’
ii. Choose an action of God that is saving, hopeful, or empowering (e.g. ‘holds us close’)
to get to the gospel.
iii. Use an active verb, if possible, to render God’s action more visible or experiential,
more concrete and less abstract. Use of a passive verb like ‘is’ (as in ‘God is love’) may
sometimes be necessary but a more active verb make it easier to visualize God’s action.
iv. Ideally, keep the sentence short (4-6 words), so it can be repeated often in the sermon
and be easily recognized for its importance by listeners. It should be a single clause not a
complex sentence, and not phrased as a question. The following is too long to for hearers
to remember: “God’s love for us in Jesus Christ is so great that no matter what, God will
keep us close.”
v. Use a complete sentence to make an actual claim about the gospel, not just announce a
theme. “God’s love in Christ” is a theme but not yet a sentence. It makes no claim.
In summary, the preacher’s first question early in the week can be, ‘What is God’s action
in or behind the text?’ The theme sentence can be determined even without the aid of
biblical commentators, because if the text does not mention God, they may not either.
Their work is essential but it needs to be married to theological criticism. Theological
readings speak meaningfully, in text-and-Spirit-directed ways, about God and the gospel
of Jesus Christ. Such readings necessarily invoke faith. From the perspective of the
pulpit, the church has always understood its readings as theological, conforming to the
regula fidei, not just to history or some other standards.
III. APPLICATIONAL RATIONALE
The homiletical term application normally refers to how a text applies to our time and
circumstances. In a law/gospel homiletic, many factors contribute to application,
including sermon arrangement or structure, because there are at least two times of
application.
1) Four Pages
If the sermon is in two parts, law and gospel (or trouble and grace), each part needs to be
applied to our time. We may thus identify what I call four basic grammatical elements of
the sermon, or Pages. A Page is not a literal page, it is a metaphor for a quarter of the
sermon. Page One is trouble in the biblical text. Page Two is trouble in our world. If we
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were to stop here we would have the typical exposition/application sermon that has been
the bread and butter sermon of the church for many centuries. It is mostly trouble, in
other words Pages One and Two. Page Three is grace in the biblical text. It marks a return
to the text, this time looking in or behind the text for God’s saving action. Page Four is
grace in our world. These Pages are not a new invention. They represent basic
grammatical elements that have been part of preaching from the beginning. Augustine
said that law and grace are meanings to be found in every text of scripture.12
Pages One and Three deal with the Bible as trouble and grace. And Pages Two and Four
deal with applications of the text to our world, as trouble and grace. From a theological
perspective, these four grammatical elements are universal. Apart from material that is
theologically neutral, what other options are there? No matter what form a sermon may
take, preachers either speak about the Bible or today. And when they do, they either speak
about human actions or God’s. Any sermon can be analyzed using these four
perspectives, whether the preacher knew them or not. Weaknesses in preaching the gospel
can be traced to the absence of any one of them.
These Pages are not rigid grammatical rules. Each Page has its own focus, but other
emphases can be mentioned in passing (e.g., on Pages One and Two, grace can still be
touched upon). Flexibility is needed. Often preachers want to start a sermon with a short
account of a contemporary event. I tend to think of that as an introduction prior to Page
One. If the story is long, however, it functions as a Page Two.
Will the listeners find the Four Pages predictable week after week? Any form can seem
that way. Four Pages can be adapted to other forms, like point-form. Still, the Four Pages
largely are deep grammar, and most hearers simply listen at the surface level of language.
Even if the congregation were aware of the underlying movement and grammar of Four
Pages, they are not likely to say, ‘Oh, no. Now we are going to hear good news.’ That is
what they came to hear. A sermon is like a stained-glass window in which the lead pieces,
called ‘cames’, hold the glass together and give it shape and structure. Viewers look not
at the lead but at the colored glass. Listeners view Four Page sermons in the same way—
they do not look at the structure but for the beauty of the light that shines through.
Trouble (law) and grace (gospel) require between 50/50 and 60/40 of the sermon time,
given the need for introductory matters. Each must form in the consciousness of the
listener, and that takes time. The Pages can be reordered. For instance, the Pages could be
sequenced: two, one, three, four, in which case a preacher would begin with trouble in
our times and in the Bible, and move to grace in the Bible and our world. This three-stage
movement (our world/ Bible [trouble + grace]/ our world) can contribute to easy listening
12 Augustine,
On the Spirit and the Letter, (London, SPCK), ch. 6. [no page numbers]
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and can be especially effective in shorter sermons. Or the order could be: one, two, one,
two, three, four. The reader can list other possible combinations. The longer the sermon,
the more variations are possible, but moving back and forth between Pages too often in a
short space of time can be overly demanding. The listeners must change all the scenery in
their minds with each major shift of location. A reversing movement from grace back to
trouble (i.e., from Page Three or Four back to One or Two), is like a doctor stitching a
wound and then unstitching it. I suggest that preachers initially trying this approach use
the sequence One, Two, Three, Four as a norm. When preachers try any new approach, it
is a good idea to try it not just once, but rather for an extended period, like six months, as
a kind of spiritual discipline, so that lessons learned from it can be maximized.
2) Four Sentences. How is each Page to be determined? Each one is governed by a short
sentence, thus just four simple sentences could be devised on Monday to determine the
entire sermon’s bare-bones structure. Start with the theme sentence that governs Page
Three (God’s saving action). In Luke 8:43-48 this could be, ‘Jesus heals the woman.’
Then flip it using our principle of inversion to determine Page One, ‘The woman needed
healing.’ The other pages fall into place as four sentences to guide composition:
Page One: The woman needs healing. / Page Two: We (or: Many) need healing. / Page
Three: Jesus heals the woman. / Page Four: Jesus heals us (or: many).
In determining the four sentences, by starting with Three and using inversion to get to
One ensures that the first and second halves of the sermon fit like a hand and glove. Ask
of the theme sentence: Why did God act in this way? What was wrong in the biblical
time? Once the four sentences are in place, sermon composition can follow chronological
order.
These four sentences provide just a skeleton. They might seem too simple, but simplicity
is needed for a structural framework. It provides a basic structure for the congregation to
follow the line of thought. It will prompt more complex thoughts in actual composition.
Studies have shown that most people listen at a level of Grade Five education, even if
they have been to university. We should speak so that twelve-year-olds can understand.
These sentences provide a handrail for the preacher to remember the sermon and for the
listeners to follow to the desired destination. The sentences need to appear in the sermon
near the beginning of each Page.
Consider another example, Philippians 4:4-7. Preachers might instinctively take as their
theme sentence, “Rejoice in the Lord always” (4:4). The problem is that the burden is on
humans. It is trouble, not God’s saving action. If we tell people to rejoice who are unable
to do so on that Sunday, we simply condemn them to their circumstances that week. A
deeper reading of the text yields the reason behind Paul’s instruction, ‘The Lord is
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near.’ (The verb is passive but sometimes that is unavoidable.) This is the theme sentence
for Page Three. Page One by inversion could be, ‘The people think that God is absent.’
Here are four possible sentences and some ideas for development of them:
Page One: The people think God is absent. Or, The people do not rejoice. To find trouble,
the preacher can read the entire passage (4:4-7) by inversion. Paul prescribes things
because they are absent. The whole of Page One discusses this Bible text. Reference
could also be made to the “murmuring and arguing” in Philippians 2:14 and the “dogs
and evil workers” in 3:2.
Page Two: We may think God is absent, or, Some people find it hard to rejoice. I think of
people have been dealt with unjustly, or suffered great loss. On this Page the preacher is
not tied to the biblical text itself, but seeks various connections with the wider world.
Page Three: The Lord is near. As with each of these four sentences, this idea should be at
the beginning of the Page, and the whole Page should be devoted to it. Develop it with
details from the text that support the gospel. Repeat it. If the preacher waits until the end
of Page Three to get to the theme sentence, the result is another Page One.
Page Four: Christ is present to us. When developing this Page, return to the people in the
worst situation mentioned on Page Two, in order that good news may be brought to them.
For the people present who mourn and cannot rejoice today, the preacher pronounces
Christ’s blessing to them right now, in this worship time, and the assurance of countless
blessings in the past and future, some of which can be named. A preacher might also cite
texts like, “Blessed are those who mourn” (Mt 5:4), “[I] will wipe every tear from their
eyes.” (Rev 21:4.), and “The Father…will give you another Comforter, that he may abide
with you forever” (John 14:16 KJV).
The four sentences are short. Be sure to repeat them in the sermon. They are designed to
be transition sentences between the Pages. In the sermon, they can be like trailblazing
marks on trees for others to follow the path of thought. Write one of the four sentences on
each of four literal pages. Compose each quarter of the sermon referring to that sentence.
Each quarter is about that one idea. Free associate using it and discover new ideas,
stories, and connections. The four sentences both stimulate theological creativity and
keep the sermon on track, minimizing wasted hours and disorganized effort. One can
work on the sermon through the week in four stages. These four sentences are like a tree
at Christmas on which to hang the essential ornaments of the faith, namely information
about the text, church teachings, life experiences, and God’s abiding and sustaining love.
3) Sermon Unity
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Elements of sermon unity contribute to how the sermon is applied to today. Once sermon
composition is underway, it can be tested for unity. Unity can be ensured by having one
text, one theme, one doctrine, one need, one image, and one mission. The initial letters
TTDNIM can be used to compose a nonsensical sentence to help jog the memory: The
Tiny Dog Now Is Mine. Brief explication is needed:
a) One Text: Normally choose only one biblical text to focus upon in depth. More than
one quickly becomes too demanding. The burning question of churchgoers on any
Sunday is not how does the Epistle connect with the Old Testament lesson? They want a
word of hope and reassurance applied to their lives. They need to know that God is still in
control of the world they see around them. Other texts can be brought in as desired, as we
just did above with “Blessed are those who mourn”, and “[I] will wipe every tear from
their eyes”, but they are for passing reference, not in-depth exposition.
b) One Theme: We have already discussed the importance of a theme sentence on Page
Three. Partly by inversion, it governs and unifies the whole sermon, preventing law and
gospel from sounding like two separate sermons. To be unifying, the theme sentence can
be repeated many times in a sermon, sometimes with variant wording. Each of the
elements of unity, below, is derived from the theme sentence.
c) One Doctrine: A doctrine is a teaching of the church, like Christology, soteriology,
pneumatology, eschatology, the nature of God, the nature of humans, sin, redemption, and
so forth. One solid doctrinal teaching emerging from the theme sentence (or its inverse)
applied to today in each sermon is a good goal. I recommend that students identify a
doctrine, and then read a few pages about it in a volume of systematic or constructive
theology. Such disciplined practice over time can be like taking vitamins in small doses.
It can strengthen a preacher’s ability to reflect theologically and deepen thought in each
sermon. Sometimes the doctrine shifts in writing, a sermon that begins by talking about
sin should end by talking about redemption. Encouragement to have solid teaching from a
doctrine is nonetheless worthy.
d) One Need. The sermon should speak to at least one person’s emotional, spiritual, or
physical need, without naming that person. The goal is a ‘felt need’ that the people might
name for themselves, in their own words, not an intellectual need, like ‘the people need to
know more about the Trinity’. The assumption here is that if one person’s need is met,
many people’s needs will be met. If a sermon does not meet the expressed need of
anyone, maybe it ought not to be preached.
Connecting at emotional and spiritual levels requires empathy. Preachers should
empathize with the worst person mentioned, because someone present may identify with
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that person and that person needs God’s help. To empathize means to show compassion
for that person as a fellow human being, it does not mean condone or sympathize with
what he or she may have done by way of sin. The deepest need mentioned on Page One
or Two should be ministered to by the end of Page Four.
e) One Image
One repeating or dominant image can help unify a sermon and ground it in people’s
experience. Any word picture is an image, and of course the sermon should be as
concrete as possible and use many sensory words. An image becomes dominant,
however, by its repetition in different sermon locations, like the beginning, middle, and
end. The image may come from the biblical text, like the treasure in clay jars, or the long
boney finger of John the Baptist pointing to Jesus, “He must increase, but I must
decrease.” (John 3:30.) The image can be from our world, like a cat, wheelbarrow, or
snowflake. It can be words that summarize a story, like summer vacation, or the long
subway ride, or the soaked baseball diamond, or it can be a refrain like, ‘It’s important to
know what bus you are on.’
f) One Mission
Different writers speak about what they want the congregation to do because of hearing a
sermon. I call mission what Henry Mitchell calls a behavioral purpose and Tom Long
calls a function statement. God’s Word calls hearers to act. The mission may be
something everyone needs to do, like forgive, yet everyone’s mission is not necessarily
the same on any given Sunday. One person may be called to serve in the food kitchen,
another may be called to teach Sunday School, someone else may need to stop by Mrs.
Ellsworth’s home to feed her goldfish while she is in hospital. Preachers may suggest a
few mission possibilities in the hope the Spirit will direct individuals to claim their own
calling.
Mission is what we are required to do, so it is a dimension of law and it belongs on Page
Two. But mission also belongs at the end of the sermon and here a problem arises. The
sermon is devoted in a sense to changing the water of daily life into the wine of faithful
living, to moving the people from trusting in their own resources to trusting in God. If
mission comes toward the end, does it not change the wine back into water?
My understanding is that the proclaimed gospel transforms not only individuals,
communities, and situations, it transforms the nature of mission too. In Mark 16:1-8, the
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“young man dressed in a white robe” instructs the women on Easter morning to tell the
disciples that Jesus is gone ahead of them into Galilee and “there you will see him” (8:7).
Galilee is the place of their mission and ours. In effect the disciples are told that in going
where they are sent, they will meet the risen Christ. I like to think that our own missions
are invitations to meet the resurrected Christ who has gone ahead of us into places of
need. Mission can be not just duty (Page Two) it can be an invitation to empowerment
and renewal (Page Four). The gospel message transforms all of the ‘musts, shoulds, havetos, and oughts’ on Page Two into ‘you may now, there is nothing that can prevent you,
God has prepared the way for you to….’ On Page Four, mission strikes the hearer as good
news, or at the very least, as Calvin’s promise of sweetness and excitement to obedience.
4) A Final Example with Special Attention to Application on Pages Two and Four
Application is mostly centered on Pages Two and Four. Here is a sermon sketch based on
2 Corinthians 4:1-15, the treasure in clay jars. The theme sentence is, ‘God makes
Christ’s resurrection visible in the Corinthians.’
Page One: Paul’s people suffer in many ways. Paul refers to brokenness and sin in his
community in Corinth, to people who are unable to see the light of Christ. Describe his
Corinth. Use narrative as much as possible to reconstruct the biblical text and its
background. Possibly refer to the earlier suffering of Paul and his people from his
previous visit (2:1-4). Instead of writing an essay, try to conceive of the sermon as
making a movie with words. Be imaginative without distorting the text. Picture Paul
writing his letter, perhaps looking out the window and seeing a woman carrying a clay jar
on her head and if falls, scattering the contents. It leads him to think of the Corinthians
and their treasure of faith in clay jars. The clay jars can serve as a dominant image. It
points to the power of God that can be more apparent in frailty of the body.
Page Two: We (or, Many people) suffer in many ways. Here there is no need to confine
the application to the church today, just because Paul discusses suffering in Corinthian
church. The preacher is both theologian and poet-in-residence, and is free on Page Two to
identify any individual or communal situations that need Christ’s light. Suffering is not
just because people directly violate God’s Word (trouble on a vertical axis). It is also
because we live in a fallen world (trouble on a horizontal axis) with the consequences of
the world being not as God intended. The social situations around us are of concern to
God, like poverty, racism, and injustice. Highlighting a key story from the news can be a
way to keep the sermon vital. God alone offers what is needed. Try not to confine the
application to just the local area, go national and global to teach that all people are our
neighbors, and God provides and cares for all people in need. Tell the story of a family
you saw interviewed on the news, describe and quote them. In so doing you make the
people come to life for hearers and you make the stories personal. By allowing listeners
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to meet people in need through the sermon, social issues seem no longer abstract, and
God’s help can be seen concretely. Seek a balance between abstract analysis and narrative
accounts.
Page Three (theme sentence): God makes Christ’s resurrection visible in the Corinthians.
(see v. 10). For the theme sentence, a preacher might get hooked by a vital image and
instinctively opt for, ‘We have our treasure in clay jars,’ but that is not the good news.
Don’t preach the image, preach the core good news idea behind it, and use the image to
serve it. Preaching an image can fire up our creativity like a grill on July 4, without
anything to put on the grill. Even though this is Page Three, brief reference could be
made to Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem”, “Forget your perfect offering. / There’s a crack in
everything. / That’s how the light gets in.”
Page Four: God makes Christ’s resurrection visible in us. In many ways, this is the
hardest Page to write in any sermon and may need most composition time, in part
because great care is needed faithfully to represent God in the world. It is relatively easy
to find stories or situations of law or trouble for Page Two. Here, however, we need
stories of sufficient weight that point to God acting, often through our own actions or the
actions of others. In faith we make claims on behalf of God led by the Spirit.
Still, there should be no shortage of situations to which we can point. Simply look for
signs of the new creation or signs of the realm of God breaking into our midst. Such signs
include mercy, justice, peace, homes for the homeless, food for the hungry, comfort for
the mourning, healing, love, forgiveness, righteousness—the list goes on. In the case of 2
Corinthians 4:1-15 and fragile clay jars, we might point to a story of someone who has
little by way of health, wealth, or power, yet who inspires much. Such ministry could be
claimed as an expression of Christ’s resurrection and his ongoing multiplication of the
loaves and fishes.
Preachers often make the mistake of thinking that stories for Page Four need to be about
religious people, like Mother Teresa. A few problems exist with this kind of thinking: 1)
Such stories are good, but we quickly run out of them. 2) Listeners often convert stories
of amazingly people into trouble when applied to themselves, “I could never do that.” 3)
We do not need to look only far afield to find amazing people and God’s actions. 4)
Whether people in a story are religious, God might still act through them.
How we preachers tell stories can be what makes them religious. Here is the key: Tell the
story of someone’s good works and then do what most preachers omit doing. Point to
God’s signature in the lower corner of the picture. Claim any good action as God’s. By
attributing all goodness to God, we change a story from something congregants must
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imitate (= trouble) into a story of possibility. The same God empowers each of us to
fulfill our own calling. This is a message of hope listeners need to hear.
Application and Elements of Unity for 2 Corinthians 4:1-15
The elements in ‘The Tiny Dog Now Is Mine’ help sermon unity, but they also have
relevance for application:
One Text: Other Bible texts connect with the frail vessels that bear our faith, like Isaiah
42:3, “a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he
will faithfully bring forth justice.” Such texts can help apply the message, without being
explored in depth.
One theme: God makes Christ’s resurrection visible in the Corinthians.
One doctrine: From the theme sentence an obvious teaching of the church is the doctrine
of ministry (i.e., Christ is evident through our service to others). Other doctrines could be
revelation (i.e., God reveals Christ to others) or resurrection (i.e., we participate in
Christ’s resurrection life now). Choose one. Such teachings may be brought into the
sermon on any Page.
One need: Who needs to hear the theme sentence, “God makes Christ’s resurrection
visible in the Corinthians”? Perhaps it is someone who thinks God is remote on this
Sunday, or people who have received terrible news. Speak about them on Page Two. On
Page Four return with encouraging good news from God.
One image: Treasure in clay jars—even when what we have seems fragile, God can work
powerful things through us.
One mission: Serve others and discover Christ’s empowerment.
5) Proclamation
Proclamation is the most intimate form of application. I have devoted an entire volume to
this topic in my Setting Words on Fire: Putting God at the Center of the Sermon, 13 and
here I will give only a brief overview. Proclamation is commonly understood to be a
synonym for preaching, but here and in the history of preaching it has a more refined
Paul Scott Wilson, Setting Words on Fire: Putting God at the Center of the Sermon
(Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2016 [Abingdon Press, 2008]).
13
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meaning. It is one of two dimensions of preaching, teaching and proclamation.
Teaching tells us about certain things like the Bible, history, theology, and God. Teaching
is essential in a sermon. It communicates vital information. At the same time,
communicating information is not primary in preaching. Nor is solving a problem. Some
people mistakenly view four pages as problem/solution, but it is not, unless we
characterize crucifixion/resurrection that way. We do not preach people into a solution to
their problems, we preach them into a relationship with the living Christ. That is primary.
As a result of that relationship, problems will be solved. That is important but secondary.
Preaching is relational ahead of being informational or ‘solutional’. We preach the
identity, will, and action of God, and therefore the identity, actions, and hopes of
empowered disciples.
If you are on a tour of an estate in England, it is one thing to hear about the Baroness who
owns it, and it is quite another thing to meet her in person. Proclamation allows the
listeners not just to hear about God, but to meet God. Proclamation is direct first-tosecond person (I-to-you) speech, direct from God to the people. It bears God’s saving
power. Isaiah 55:11 says, “So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall
not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the
thing for which I sent it.” That understanding is particularly apt for proclamation.
The people should be clear in hearing proclamation that God is speaking. On Page Two,
proclamation can come as law or trouble, “Change your ways. Your path leads to death.”
On Page Four it is the most intimate kind of speech possible, “I love you. I forgive you.
You are mine. I will be with you. I will wipe away every tear from your eyes, etc.” In the
light of the biblical text, the words one places in God’s mouth are the words of love,
encouragement, healing, and liberation the preacher understands in faith that God would
say to the people directly if God were preaching (which on one level is in fact the case).
In proclamation, the preacher steps aside for God to ‘do the gospel’ to the people. Of
course, proclamation is not just up to the preacher. People can hear the intimate renewing
words of proclamation even through an artless sermon if the Spirit wills.
Proclamation can be misused and abused. Preachers can put terrible words into God’s
mouth, which is a caution for any form of preaching. Alternatively, some preachers might
think that to speak for God is too bold, forgetting that that is what they do or are heard to
do every time they preach. If the preacher is not clear, some people in the pews might
hear the words, ‘I love you. You are mine,” and mistakenly think them to be from the
preacher and find that creepy. Still others may find in proclamation a claim of vertical
authority that has often marked tragic abuses in the church. We need to be mindful that
people today tend to mistrust what lacks transparency and accountability.
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Proclamation at the beginning of a sermon is empty or facile, but when it comes later in
the sermon, emerging out of solid teaching, it comes as rescue for the dying and hope for
the hopeless. It is a saving word direct from God. It is sacramental, if offers Christ to the
people, thus it requires the highest degree of sensitivity and care.
We have discussed a balanced sermonic movement from law/trouble to gospel/grace.
The purpose has been to preach the gospel. We need not merely communicate
information about God, we may communicate Christ, who encounters us in the Word, as
Paul says, “by a demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Cor 2:2-4). That power is
Christ’s victory over all death.