The Gospel of John

How to do Homiletics

Today we discussed how to do Homiletics. Homiletics involves the analysis of a passage from scripture and is a technique (or approach) on how to prepare for a teaching of that passage. Here is a cut and paste of an e-mail that I had sent to Eddie:

The best way to approach this is to do a Homiletic.

1. Read the passage to get an understanding of it.

2. Re-read the passage and summarize each verse. Some of the summarizing may cover 1, 2 or 3 verses but no more. Target to paraphrase the passage. Also each summery should be a complete sentence (with subject and verb). Ask yourself what is this verse about.

3. Take your summaries and group them into 3 to 4 divisions. Each division should be a complete sentence. This will create the outline structure of your Homiletic. Division sentences should not be more the 10 words in length.

4. Take some time and prayer looking at your divisions (notice the verbs that you used and usually the subject is the same for each - my guess for this section it will be like Jesus said or taught etc...) and write a title to summarize your divisions. Again complete sentence 10 words or less.

5. Go back to each division and create a principle for each. For example the first division of this section may have the principle "When we seek worldly things they will perish, but when we seek the things of God, they will last for eternity".

6. Next create a call to action question for each principle to prompt the group into thinking about how they can apply that principle. Example using the above principle "What things or habits do we need discard so we can clearly focus on heavenly things?" These questions should be open ended and drafted to draw personal discussions.

And there you have it!!

Added cautions:

Your Homiletic should not be over creative or brilliant. Humble yourself and let the scripture speak for itself. The point is not to show how smart you are, but to draw out the truth that is in the scripture.

posted by Ray Andrade @ 2:13 PM