This article will serve as a background to what future articles will contain.
First of all, I would like to say that I am thoroughly a Lutheran pastor and I make no apologies for that. How I look at preaching is rooted and grounded in my theology as a Lutheran pastor.
Any discussion of preaching must therein begin with a brief statement of what Lutheran theology holds. Lutheran theology is based solely on the Bible and as proclaimed in the Old and New Testament. This theology proclaims that we are saved by grace through faith; which means, God acts we respond. God acted in the Old Testament to deliver the people of Israel from Egypt to the promised land. God acted and the people responded by leaving their homes and following Moses through the desert to the promised land.
Then in the New Testament, God acted again to deliver the whole creation from sin and death by bringing his Son to earth as the baby Jesus born in the manager, so that he would die on the cross for our sins; and we would be seen as Paul says, white as snow, cleansed from our sins. This theology then reminds us each day, that God acts in our lives with his saving grace and we respond to that with lives that our given over to him, in thought, word and deed.
If you are interested in further reading in this area, I suggest the following internet sites:
Selected Works of Martin Luther http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text...
The Book of Concord http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text...
The Augsburg Confession (1530) in HTML http://www.frii.com/%7Egosplow/augsburg....
So with the basics of theology in hand, how does one preach? First, I must say, as a Lutheran pastor I will be talking about preaching using the pericope, or a set of passages to preach on each week. Lutherans are using The Revised Common Lectionary series A, which means the gospel texts for preaching are taken from the gospel of Matthew. We believe if a preacher follows the Lectionary series of text he/she will preach on the whole gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the church year. Paul says in Romans that he preached on the whole gospel of Christ as he visited each church and we take our mandate from him.
In the future, I will show how to look at a passge of text so one can decide how to preach on that text. I will show how to develop a sermon idea using Bible passages and illustrations, and then I hope to post a sermon each month and explain some of the major points of that sermon and how they were arrived at.
Go To Page: 1 2
