Best resources for preaching application
My weakness in preaching is application. So, I am always on the lookout for resources/guides/books that help with application.
I have the NIV Application series as well as the Sermon Outline bible......what other resources would you recommend...or have you found helpful?
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I always recommend counseling resources combined with the collections tool.
Here are two great resources on sale for this:
- Right now in the Pastor's Appreciation Month sale the JBC is marked down.
- Right now in the October Monthly Sale the Journal of Modern Ministry is marked down.
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Dave Moser said:
I always recommend counseling resources combined with the collections tool.
Blog article by David Moser has Applications collection rule:
David Moser said:subject:(discipleship, “christian life”, “pastoral care”, counsel, “spiritual growth”, sanctification, formation, holiness) OR (title:grow ANDNOT title:church)
An expanded Application collection rule is:
Subject:(Bereave,“Christian life”,Counsel,Death,Discipl,Formation,Holiness,Hospice,“Pastoral care”,Prayer,Sanctif,“Spiritual growth”) OR (Title:(Grow,Holy,Life,Spirit,Pastor,Pray) AND Edition:e) OR MyTag:Application
Noticed MyTag:Application includes a number of commentaries: e.g. Holman New Testament Commentary (12 vols.) , The Life Application Bible Commentary (17 vols.) , Opening Up Commentary Series (43 vols.) , Not Your Average Bible Study Series (12 vols.)
Thankful for earlier forum discussion about searching for application topics: e.g. conflict OR counsel
([field heading,largetext,surface] conflict,counsel) AFTER 88 WORDS ([field heading,largetext] action, activity, application, assignment, characteristic, community, concept, conclusion, consider, contemporary, credential, devotion, digging, discussion, effective, exercise, experiment, guideline, goal, heart, homework, key, idea, important, issue, message, practical, principle, priority, purpose, question, reflection, reshape, revelation, "secret place", step, study, think, tip, "to life", "to live", truth, understand, walk, ”ways to”, "what to", wisdom)
Keep Smiling [:)]
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Mike Tourangeau said:
My weakness in preaching is application. So, I am always on the lookout for resources/guides/books that help with application.
If I may say so, you will not improve by depending on resources to give you ideas of what might be the applications of a passage you want to preach on and your sermons will lack the power of personally "owned" exhortation. It is better to learn strategies for working out valid contemporary applications and then you can compare what you come up with to what other authors suggest. Generally, I find applications in commentaries disappointing. They either err on the side of wanting to be too trendy (the application is so tightly connected to current events that several years later it is already "aged") or for those that are more discipleship oriented, often lack in scholarly depth (reading modern spirituality back into the text and not working enough with what it might have looked like first in its original setting).
The starting point of application is application to self. If you are "weak on application," it may indicate that you spend too much time in exegesis relative to pondering the implications for yourself and others of the passage/topic. You may find helpful as a starting point, Haddon Robinson's developmental questions, especially:
- "Is it true?" Well, of course it is true if it is from the Bible, right? But the question really is about what obstacles there may be to belief or tensions with other doctrines. You could rephrase it as "Do I/we really believe this?" Or "how does this fit with what I believe?" This will help you identify obstacles and challenges to belief and therefore to application (how would believing in this affect my approach to life?).
- "Does it matter?" Again, of course it matters if it is from the Bible, but here the purpose is for the preacher to wrestle with why this is significant. What is at stake? This can help you think about what spheres of life it is supposed to affect in relation to the present societal climate and day-to-day challenges.
I don't have the last edition of Robinson's (the link above). As I recall, the link to application was not always so clear in how he described these questions as opposed to working your way from an exegetical to a homiletical outline for your sermon. This being said, many preachers I hear make the (imo) mistake of preaching essentially an exegetical sermon and then trying to tack on a bit of application at the end. While I have long walked away especially from Robinson's emphasis on crafting punchy lines and working from a carefully written manuscript, the value for application of developing a (soundly and strongly exegetically-derived) homiletical outline remains a solid contribution of his method.
As alluded to earlier, an essential starting point to wrestling with application is to deepen one's learning on what application of a given passage/topic might have looked like originally. For instance, what did it mean for ancient Jews to leave father and mother to follow Christ? What did carrying one's cross actually mean in their context? This kind of questions help us crystallise meaning and implications behind the surface words. Then we can ask what differences there are between the original context and ours and how the same principles can be re-applied today.
I know there are other works out there that focus on application but I do not know enough of most of them to be able to recommend them with confidence. It may be worth taking a look at these. I would caution against the trap (seen in some of them) of defining application as some form of "how does this relate to Christ and the Cross?". However important these questions also are, if used as an end-all for "application," they often result in putting more emphasis on rehearsing belief in the gospel (and a certain version of it at that) than on practical applications and issues of discipleship.
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The Zondervan Exegetical Commentary series are surprisingly useful for this (surprising because they're technical commentaries). They have a section headed "Theology in Application", which is usually very useful.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Mike Tourangeau said:
My weakness in preaching is application. So, I am always on the lookout for resources/guides/books that help with application.
I have the NIV Application series as well as the Sermon Outline bible......what other resources would you recommend...or have you found helpful?
The NIVAC is helpful for application if you read the "Bridging Contexts" section. IMO that is where it should have stopped . I have found very little of use in the "Contemporary Significance" section for reasons that Francis has pointed out. As Mark as written the ZEC is helpful as well as the New Interpreter's Bible, which has a "reflections" section along the same lines as the ZEC "Theology in Application" section.
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Lonnie Spencer said:Mike Tourangeau said:
My weakness in preaching is application. So, I am always on the lookout for resources/guides/books that help with application.
I have the NIV Application series as well as the Sermon Outline bible......what other resources would you recommend...or have you found helpful?
The NIVAC is helpful for application if you read the "Bridging Contexts" section. IMO that is where it should have stopped . I have found very little of use in the "Contemporary Significance" section for reasons that Francis has pointed out. As Mark as written the ZEC is helpful as well as the New Interpreter's Bible, which has a "reflections" section along the same lines as the ZEC "Theology in Application" section.
I gree! The contemporary meaning (the ones I’ve seen) is the bridging context reworded, which makes it somewhat redundant. Good series overall
👍😁👌
DAL
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I'm with Francis on this. (Where's the "like" button?!)
I'd also say that a great resources for application is the folks in the pews. Many of them are already living the truths we preachers preach about. How do they do it? What do they do?
But I'd also like to challenge you to ponder the question: "What is application?" For some it means that you need to do something: pray, give, evangelize (for example). But that's not all there is to application. Sometimes the text challenges not our actions but our attitudes toward ourselves, others, or God. Sometimes the text evokes praise and adoration, or genuine heart-felt gratitude, where the outward action is only an approximation of how the heart should respond.
Also, I prefer to weave application into the message, rather than saving it for some special place near the end (usually), where it sounds, much too often, like an afterthought. I've heard those kinds of sermons, and found them disappointing.
For that matter ask the question: "What is preaching?" In my understanding preaching is application; it's proclaiming the Word in a life-changing way. Yes, we need to unpack the truths we find in Scripture, but to what end? If at the end of a message all we get is people who nod in agreement, and then go on their way, we haven't preached. We may have taught (though I'd challenge that too), but we haven't preached. The Gospel is after our transformation, not our intellectual ascent. (Often recent seminary graduates fall into this trap, because too often seminaries are overly interested in what we know, not how we live out what we claim to know. But that's another rant.)
Sometimes, a good preacher, will take some time to unpack some truths, hidden like gold dust, among words that may be overly familiar. But we don't (or shouldn't) do that for the sake of showing our intellectual, linguistic, or exegetical prowess. We should do so, because those truths are life-changing truths, and we ache for our brothers and sisters to live by them.
God bless you as you come to terms with weaving life-change and life-challenge into the messages you're bringing. And may you never be so confident in your abilities that you stop desperately relying on the help of the Holy Spirit.Help links: WIKI; Logos 6 FAQ. (Phil. 2:14, NIV)
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Great discussion, keep your thoughts coming because I would guess they are helpful to many people including myself.
I wonder if what I mean by application is actually "Bridging Context" (as put in the NIVAC). What I struggle with sometimes is when I am preaching through a book (in particular the OT) and I come to a passage that is somewhat cryptic....say the assassination of Eglon in Judges 3 or say an imprecatory Psalm and I don't exactly know how to connect the text to today.
I have found Robinson's book mentioned above helpful, esp his questions along with Bryan Chappell's book........good discussion.
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Mike Tourangeau said:
I come to a passage that is somewhat cryptic....say the assassination of Eglon in Judges 3 or say an imprecatory Psalm
So, let's use this as an example for discussion. Let's say the assassination of Eglon in Judges 3. First, there is an important problem that is often overlooked in homiletics: the Bible was not all written to be preached in 30-60 mins messages. Some of the problems of applicability can come here because we truncate a book so that we can "cover" it in the time of a sermon but it was not meant to constitute a message by itself.
In the case of Judges 3, the question is whether the deed that Ehud performed is meant to be scrutinised and squeezed for application. I would argue that the story of Ehud does not differ much from the feats of other obscure judges except in circumstantial details. Put differently, I don't think there is much more to be learned from Ehud than there is from Othniel or Shamgar. So, I would not preach this portion of Judges 3 on its own unless I used it as a representative text for other judges as well.
Second, a lot of the work has to do with seeking to understand what the significance of the story was for ancient Israelites. How does it relate to the theology of Judges? How does it relate to the point that is being made about the period of judges within the Primary History? Then I would ask how the story of Ehud in particular illustrates this and contributes to it. From there, I would work out what I think might have been the intended significance for ancient readers. Once I have that, I have the basics of application.
We might conclude for instance, that judges were (except for Deborah) mostly military rulers who were not particularly spiritual but by the power of God were rendered able to do amazing feats to rescue the people because of God's mercy despite their cyclical apostasy. Yet God rescuing His people in the material world does not mean the situation changes. They were to be led by Him spiritually as well. It is only after they misguidedly insisted to have kings, that God redeemed their leadership approach by working in the influence of the prophets (starting with Samuel). Ehud was able to do something brave that delivered Israel and he had a genuine enablement from God to do so, but he had no spiritual impact on Israel and the situation was only alleviated not changed.
Let's presume that this is the point we can make. Then I would extract from it principles: (a) God can grant genuine, great feats of deliverance among people, but without spiritual change, the impact is only temporary/secondary; (b) Even a non-spiritual leader can be used to serve God in some way; (c) The most important need is spiritual leadership and reformation. Ultimately, this leadership belongs with God and then with godly servants.
Now, how do these points relate to us nowadays? How do they relate to your congregation (individuals in it or collectively)? "Is it true?" "Does it matter?"
You can work all this into a homiletical "big idea" (to use Robinson's terminology). By now, you'd have more than what you need to have application, you'd just need to craft a homiletical outline that allows to combine exposition with exhortation.
The main point about application is that it is not just having ideas about how possibly a passage could help us in some way. It is trying to reproduce the impact that the passage was supposed to have originally to us today who live in a different historical, cultural, and redemptive setting.
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Rich DeRuiter said:
I'm with Francis on this. (Where's the "like" button?!)
I concur with Rich and Francis [Y]
Best hint I ran across was when I began writing the main points of my sermons with active verbs. Instead of "a thought to consider" the point becomes "Obedient Disciples integrate..." or "Faithful Christians demonstrate..." This forces application into each section of the sermon. If the text is directed at internal change (compared to external action) the point could be "_____transforms the way a disciple ____"
I don't remember if that hint came from this resource - https://www.logos.com/product/39263/preaching-and-teaching-with-imagination-the-quest-for-biblical-ministry or this one which is available here in Vyrso) https://vyrso.com/product/21696/the-big-idea
One of my seminary professors hung exposition on 3 questions: "What?" "So What?" and "Now What?"
- What does the text say?
- So what does that mean?
- Now what do I do with this meaning?
Making Disciples! Logos Ecosystem = LogosMax on Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (Win11), Android app on tablet, FSB on iPhone & iPad mini, Proclaim (Proclaim Remote on Fire Tablet).
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David Thomas said:Rich DeRuiter said:
I'm with Francis on this. (Where's the "like" button?!)
I concur with Rich and Francis
+1 [Y] Thankful for friendly forum discussions. Also Thankful for God answering prayers [:D]
Mike Tourangeau said:....say the assassination of Eglon in Judges 3
For grins, searched Application collection for Ehud
Keep Smiling [:)]
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An expanded Application collection rule is:
Subject:(Bereave,“Christian life”,Counsel,Death,Discipl,Formation,Holiness,Hospice,“Pastoral care”,Prayer,Sanctif,“Spiritual growth”) OR (Title:(Grow,Holy,Life,Spirit,Pastor,Pray) AND Edition:e) OR MyTag:Application
Thanks KSFJ, for the update on this. It doubled the resources for my applications collection.
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Don't miss the Courson Application Commentaries - three volumes -
https://www.logos.com/product/54016/coursons-application-commentary
And, though not available in LOGOS, I find good material in the Life Application Study Bible:
http://bit.ly/LASBibleand available using several different translations.
Blessings,
FloydPastor-Patrick.blogspot.com
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The following is taken from Michael Lawrence, Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church: A Guide for Ministry, 9Marks (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 185–186.
A Shepherd’s Taxonomy
But not only do we want to be deliberate in the categories of our application, we also want to be thoughtful about the people who are listening to us. What follows is a simple taxonomy of the sheep (and goats!), the ones who listen to you teach and preach every week. William Perkins, the sixteenth-century English puritan, developed a seven-point scheme in The Art of Prophesying. What follows here is not nearly as complex. In a sense, I’m taking the single categories of Christian and non-Christian from the grid and exploring them a bit further.
First, everyone listening to you falls into the following three pairs:
• Christian or non-Christian: I want to address both in every sermon.
• Complacent or Anxious: The complacent need warnings more than promises, because God’s promises don’t mean much to them. They’re content in this world, like the rich young ruler (Matthew 19). The anxious need promises, because they’re already feeling what they lack, and they need hope: “Lord, help me to see. I do believe. Help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). I don’t want to tempt the fearful to discouragement or the proud to self-sufficiency.
• Legalistic or Licentious: The legalistic will listen intently for anything you say about law and rules, but may overlook the gospel promises. The licentious will be eager to hear the gospel promises of grace, but may not appreciate your teaching on repentance and Christ’s lordship. I think everyone tends in one direction or the other. I must apply the text to both.
Second, assume the following is true of everyone listening:
• Idolatry: Everyone is struggling with idolatry in one way or another. As John Calvin said, our hearts are idol-factories. Therefore try to specifically identify some of the idols your passage speaks to, as they are expressed in our culture—power, pleasure, pride, security, wealth, and so forth.
• Self-justification: Ever since the Garden of Eden, we have attempted to justify our idols, to excuse ourselves from our sin and commend ourselves to God. We see it in our desire for praise from this world. But we need to understand that our desire for the praise of men is simply part of a larger conspiracy. Though we were made to give praise to God, in our hearts we long to receive praise from God based on our own merits.
• Love of the world: Love of the world takes a multitude of forms: sex, money, power, possessions, entertainment, beauty, and so forth. The list is endless, but underneath the variation lays the constant theme of worshiping the creature rather than the Creator (1 John 2:15–17).
Third, there are different kinds of errant sheep that need the Word (1 Thess. 5:12–14):
• The idle: These aren’t lazy sheep so much as headstrong and impulsive sheep; they reject discipline and insist on going their own way. Paul says these worldly brothers and sisters need to be warned. This may well include preaching in the second person at times (You!), rather than always using the softer, gentler first-person plural (We).
• The timid: These are sheep who aren’t obeying the Word, but not because they’ve rejected it outright. Rather they are fearful of the consequences, and perhaps responsibilities, that come with faithful obedience. These sheep need to be encouraged with the promises of the gospel and the worth of our inheritance in Christ.
• The weak: In one sense all of us are weak, but here Paul seems to have in mind those whose lack of faith and obedience stems from spiritual weakness that is the result of poor teaching. A diet of milk without meat might keep a sheep alive, but it won’t grow them into the strength of maturity. These sheep need to be helped, says Paul, and we help them most through sound instruction.0 -
Roy Zuck, in his book, Basic Bible Interpretation: A Practical Guide to Discovering Biblical Truth, (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 1991), pages 291–292, provides a list of 90 action verbs that drive at application.
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Also, see this classic Haddon Robinson interview on the challenges of sermon application:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/1997/fall/7l4020.html
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