Every **ssage is unique

A lot of preachers seem to scan their preaching passage for gospel words and then essentially preach the same message every week. 

Their messages may be doctrinally sound and evangelistically clear, but they and their listeners are impoverished by this approach.

Every passage is unique. Instead of scanning the passage for gospel words or harvesting imperatives for applicational teaching, my advice would be as follows:

Study the passage and seek to really understand it. Don’t jump off that pursuit just because sermon material shows up in the text. Keep studying and really seek to understand the passage. 

Then prepare and preach a sermon that has a fingerprint as unique as the passage it is based on – so that every message is unique!

This approach will bless the preacher because you will enjoy the richness of God’s Word far more and find that God stirs your heart with layer upon layer of biblical truth. 

This approach will bless the listener because they will not grow tired of hearing the same sermon dressed up in different clothes every week. 

Instead they will start to appreciate the uniqueness of each passage, the beautiful diversity of Scripture, and the multi-faceted and highly relevant wonder of God’s character.

Peter Mead is mentor at Cor Deo and author of several books. This article first appeared on his blog Biblical Preaching.