Engaging preaching avoids merely using the Scripture text as a trampoline to jump to the topic the preacher really wants to talk about. Instead, faithful and engaging preachers preach the text. Preaching the text requires studying the text. Studying the text requires attention to placing the text in context and understanding its genre. Once these larger considerations have been taken into account, you can dig into the passage itself.

Study Process

Gather your materials. When getting down to study, you’ll want to gather up your materials: Bible, notebook, pen, and anything else you might find helpful. Sometimes, it can be incredibly helpful to print out the passage so that you can circle repeated words, highlight verses, or make notes in the margins. Since studying the Bible is an art, it may also take some time to find the right way to study that works for you.

Read the passage. Read over the passage 2 or 3 times. It may even be worth consulting various translations. Translations such as the ESV or NASB still more “literal,” corresponding to the sentence structure of the original Bible text (whether Greek or Hebrew). Other translations like the NIV or NLT focus more on the “thought” of the verse. Both kinds of translations are helpful. But as you read, you’ll want to make notes. What jumps out to you initially? Jot down those thoughts.

Paraphrase the text. Probably the single best best way to understand the text is to paraphrase it, putting it in your own words. There is a cliche which says that people learn best by teaching. And that is what paraphrasing does. Paraphrase is a form of teaching the text. If you cannot explain the text in your own words, then you probably don’t understand it very well. What does it mean that “God so loved the world” (John 3:16)? Can you explain it in your own words?

(Advanced) Bonus Study Methods

There are also two advanced study methods that you can employ: narrative analysis and tracing the argument. Narrative analysis is a set of tools that enables you to sketch out the shape of a biblical story including things like rising action, conflict, climax, and falling actions/interpretation. Narrative analysis is a kind of tool that can be used for both the Old and New Testament. And since much of the Bible is made up of stories, it is a set of tools that you can employ widely and often. A great book on the subject is Jonathan Pennington’s Reading the Gospels Wisely.

The second advanced tool is to trace the argument. Tracing will be used primarily in the New Testament Letters. Tracing the argument seeks to follow the flow of thought of a biblical author by looking especially intently at the connecting words such as “because” and “therefore.” Tom Schreiner’s Interpreting the Pauline Epistles unpacks the method in detail.

The Big Idea

After studying the passage and paraphrasing the text, you still need to find the Big Idea of the text. The Big Idea answers the question, “What is the one thing the whole thing is saying?” In other words, if you could boil down whole Scripture passage to one sentence, what would it be? Developing your Big Idea is a crucial step in preaching, because it helps provide unity and focus to the message. Too many sermons are scattered and open to the preacher rambling because they do not have a Big Idea. Remember to put the Big Idea in your own words! If you’re able to explain the passage in one sentence in your own words, you will be well on your way to deeply understanding it!