{"id":140375,"date":"2026-09-30T09:59:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T08:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/banneroftruth.org\/uk\/?p=140375"},"modified":"2026-09-30T10:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T09:00:12","slug":"pitfalls-in-preaching-a-letter-on-application","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/banneroftruth.org\/uk\/resources\/articles\/2026\/pitfalls-in-preaching-a-letter-on-application\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitfalls in Preaching: A Letter on Application"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following letter was published in the December 2025 issue of the Banner Magazine. It is published here at the request of a reader who found it helpful, in the hope that its counsel might be blessed to others also. You can also listen to a reading of this letter<\/a> on the Banner Podcast.<\/p>\n

Dear J______,<\/p>\n

Following our conversation about application in preaching, I thought I would send along some thoughts I have had over the years on the subject. I want to point out some pitfalls you may want to keep in mind as you train R______. The only reason I know about them is from spending too much time in them myself! There has been a lot of self\u2013examination and repenting over the years for me in this matter.<\/p>\n

The first thought is that too often (even in some of the best books on preaching) we hear that the text drives the sermon. This is a half-truth. A potentially dangerous half-truth. I have seen a man so intent on expositing his text well (and he did it very well) that he did not seem to notice or care that a third of the people in the room walked out before he finished preaching because he went on so long and the last meal of the conference was being served to meet the constraint of local train times. A wrong type of focus on the text and its explanation can make us oblivious to the very people the text is for.<\/p>\n

A preacher who stands up to preach having spent ninety per cent of his sermon preparation time in the week concentrating on the biblical text has not sufficiently realized what preaching actually is. In their book Letters Along the Way<\/em> D. A. Carson and John Woodbridge put it this way:<\/p>\n

A chief reason why so much of what passes for evangelical expository preaching is so boring and irrelevant is that the preacher has spent a vastly disproportionate amount of preparation time in exegesis and outlines, and so little in thinking through how the Word of God is to wound and heal (to use the language of Hosea).1<\/a><\/sup>D. A. Carson and J. D. Woodbridge, Letters Along the Way<\/em> (Wheaton: Crossway, 1993), p. 99-100.<\/span><\/p>\n

So preaching is about people. Preaching is about what God has to say to<\/em> people about their lives<\/em>. The text for a sermon is what God has to say to people<\/em>. So the text of a sermon is like the recipe for a dish. A good cook would never be so focused on a recipe that she did not stop to realize that this was not at all the type of food her guests would need or appreciate. She would have her guests in mind from the start. After all, the goal of a good cook is not simply a matter of a recipe or a certain dish. It is feeding and feasting people<\/em>.<\/p>\n

People drive the sermon. People are the reason God has given us the message in the biblical text. The biblical text leads the preacher to what the people<\/em> need to hear from God. But the biblical text is only a means<\/em>. The goal<\/em> is people\u2014to bring them<\/em> somewhere that God wants them to go. To enlighten them, change them, help them, console them, correct them, train them to worship and serve God. People-oriented preaching comes from a God-centred, loving interest in them<\/em>. Text-oriented preaching may simply come from the preacher\u2019s love for preaching, for exegesis or for theology. A physician may be fascinated by medical treatments. But the good physician\u2019s real interest is not treatments but people whose suffering has called for those treatments. Just so, true preaching is about people.<\/p>\n

That brings me to a second, related thought. We are often told that in preparing a sermon the key is finding the main idea<\/em> of the text. To consider this as the key is not a people-oriented point of view and does not produce good preaching. It produces preaching with lots of emphasis on ideas and little emphasis on application. The key to preparing a sermon is not to find the main idea<\/em> of the text. It is to find the main goal<\/em> of the text. Not \u2018What does the biblical text mainly say?\u2019 But rather \u2018What does this text intend to mainly do<\/em> for people?\u2019 What does the text intend mainly to effect<\/em> in the lives of people? What does this text aim to move the people to believe, to do, to become? Application!<\/p>\n

A. T. Pierson, in his book The Divine Art of Preaching<\/em>, puts it this way:<\/p>\n

In pulpit oratory are three elements, either of which may control: (1) the text, (2) the subject or theme, and (3) the object or end aimed at. If the text rules, the result is an exposition or exegesis; if the subject, an essay or discourse; if the object to be attained be steadily kept in view, and control the disposition of the parts and the expression and delivery, we get properly a sermon.2<\/a><\/sup>A. T. Pierson, The Divine Art of Preaching<\/em>, (New York: The Baker and Taylor Company, 1892), pp. 24-27.<\/span><\/p>\n

I realize that saying that the biblical text does not control the sermon is a provocative way of putting things. Now that I have \u2018provoked,\u2019 I will put things less provocatively and more accurately. Rightly interpreted, the biblical text does control the sermon because, rightly interpreted, the heart of every biblical text is not simply a divinely revealed \u2018truth\u2019 that is to be understood by men, but a divine intended goal that is to be accomplished in the lives of men by that truth. Hobart puts it this way: \u2018\u2026no man does good interpretation who does not look for results in men as the final aim of his interpretation.\u20193<\/a><\/sup>Quoted by Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation<\/em> (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1977), p. 96.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hobart is right that we haven\u2019t interpreted the biblical text far enough if we are still seeing it in terms of a \u2018main idea.\u2019 We are not thinking enough in terms of the people to whom it is addressed. When we are sufficiently thinking of them<\/em>, we will see the text in terms of what it must effect in their lives.<\/p>\n

Jay Adams has written at length on this in several of his articles and books on preaching. Notice what he says in a critical review of John Stott\u2019s book Between Two Worlds<\/em>. Whether or not his criticism is warranted I put aside for the moment. What interests me is the point he is making.<\/p>\n

Stott, with many other writers on homiletics, stresses the need for a central theme<\/em> or dominant thought<\/em>, as he prefers to call it. But, in doing so, he perpetuates the problem that for so long has plagued preaching\u2014the idea that we can talk about a theme<\/em> rather than talk to people about God and themselves<\/em>. Rather it would have been helpful for Stott to have spoken about the purpose<\/em> of the passage. Preaching portions should be chosen because they are purpose units<\/em>, and the purpose for which the Holy Spirit gave any particular portion of Scripture should be the purpose for which it is used in preaching. Preachers need to ask the question, \u2018What did the Holy Spirit intend to do to the reader by means of this passage?\u2019 Then, in preaching from it, they ought to urge their congregations to believe, disbelieve, or do whatever the Spirit wishes.4<\/a><\/sup>The Journal of Pastoral Practice, Christian Counseling And Educational Foundation<\/em> (Vol. VIII, No. 2, 1986), p.62<\/span><\/p>\n

If you look at Jonathan Edwards\u2019 sermons it is interesting to notice that the application part of the sermon (which usually comes after the exposition) is longer than the exposition! The editor of the Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards<\/em> writes:<\/p>\n

In the application [of his sermons], where he usually lays out his strength, he addresses himself with peculiar plainness to the consciences of his hearers, takes up and applies to them minutely all the important ideas contained in the body of the discourse, and appropriates them to persons of different characters and situations in life, by a particular explanation of their duties and their dangers; and lastly, by a solemn, earnest, and impressive appeal to every feeling and active principle of our nature.5<\/a><\/sup>The Works of Jonathan Edwards<\/em>, (repr. Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1987), vol.1, p. cxc.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of how many of us could it be said that it is \u2018in the application of his sermons that he usually lays out his strength\u2019? I am afraid it is just here that we come to realize that there is a world of difference between Edwards and us in terms of what we even conceive preaching to be. How many of us could say what Spurgeon said concerning his conception of preaching: \u2018Where application begins, the sermon begins.\u2019<\/p>\n

My third thought is that earnest and godly evangelical preachers can be insensitive to the fact that they are not preaching people-oriented sermons. As preachers we often don\u2019t realize to what extent we have become wrapped up in the biblical text in a way that has diverted our attention from God\u2019s people to the beauty, structure and minutiae of the Bible passage! Or perhaps our problem is being so concerned about the delivery of the sermon that we are more conscious of this than of the people to whom we are supposedly delivering it?<\/p>\n

How blinding our selfishness and sin is! Because of this we can go on for months or years without realizing how, in the concrete job of preparing to preach during the week, we have been more concerned about \u2018our\u2019 sermon than \u2018God\u2019s\u2019 people and God\u2019s plan for them. More concerned about crafting sermons than changing needy lives. More concerned about preaching a \u2018good sermon\u2019 than \u2018doing good\u2019 to the people who hear it? I don\u2019t believe that this last-described and crass form of pride and selfishness can ever be the only driving motive in a truly godly preacher\u2019s heart, but it can come in and gain too much ascendancy without our being fully aware.<\/p>\n

We may object and justify ourselves. After all, we reason inwardly, every one of our sermons includes several applications for the people! No doubt! But even where sermons include such applications, this applicatory aspect may be tacked onto the sermon rather than the driving force of the preacher\u2019s heart, interest and effort in that sermon. In an article that made me smile and wince at the same time from the Journal of Pastoral Practice, Ron Taylor gives a rather exaggerated case of the problem from his own beginnings as a preacher. After preaching a sermon which undoubtedly had \u2018several applications\u2019 he had the following exchange with his wife on the way home:<\/p>\n

I had preached from Philippians 2:1-11 at a rural church as a seminary senior. As most seminarians do, I asked my wife as we were returning home, \u2018Well, what did you think of the sermon?\u2019 I settled back as humbly as I could to receive the accolades of my admiring wife, satisfied that I had done a good job since I had made several astute remarks about the syntax of the Greek text and had thoroughly debunked several ancient heresies of which the congregation was totally ignorant. My wife\u2019s candid response was painfully incisive. \u2018Your sermon was certainly orthodox.\u2019 I grunted in agreement. \u2018It was informative and scholarly.\u2019 I smiled approvingly. \u2018However,\u2019 she remarked, \u2018I couldn\u2019t help thinking throughout the entire sermon, \u201cSo what?\u201d\u2019 I was miffed at that comment at the time. But I later came to see the wisdom of that insight from my wife\u2019s pew \u2026 The preacher must preach sermons that [bring the Scriptures] to bear upon the life-situations of people with a genuine pastoral concern.6<\/a><\/sup>The Journal of Pastoral Practice, Christian Counseling And Educational Foundation<\/em> (Vol. 4, No. 4, 1980), p. 109.<\/span><\/p>\n

Intuitively, Taylor\u2019s poor wife was more sensitive than her husband was to what John Broadus expresses thus: \u2018The application in a sermon is not merely an appendage to the discussion or a subordinate part of it, but it is the main thing to be done.\u20197<\/a><\/sup>John Broadus, A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons<\/em> (New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1896), p. 230.<\/span><\/p>\n

My last thought concerns things we need to read because we do really need to give this subject serious thought and attention. Jay Adams\u2019 book Preaching with Purpose<\/em> has essential chapters for anyone who wants to preach in an applicatory, people-oriented manner. In this book he puts it in a typically clear fashion: \u2018The lecturer speaks about the Bible; the pastoral preacher speaks from<\/em> the Bible about<\/em> the congregation.\u2019<\/p>\n

The key thing to realize is that if a preacher has trouble getting application into his preaching it is because he is not actually preaching yet. He is constructing sermons. He is \u2018unpacking\u2019 texts. (We should avoid such phrases like the plague!!) He is performing a literary function like an English teacher instead of a homiletical function like a prophet. He is discoursing about a \u2018pericope\u2019 instead of dealing with people, as Christ\u2019s ambassador, about their souls in the sight of God.<\/p>\n

In the end, the root of the problem, I think, is love. Love makes people-oriented preachers. Love is what makes the heart of the preacher yearn for the people\u2019s<\/em> true and eternal good. Love is what makes us see preaching as the God-ordained way of bringing our hearers that desperately needed good. Preaching is a function of godly love. And love is where we most fail.<\/p>\n

Have a look at the article from Jay Adams entitled \u2018Preach, Don\u2019t Construct Sermons\u20198<\/a><\/sup>https:\/\/nouthetic.org\/preach-dont-construct-sermons\/<\/span> in which he touches on the subject a bit, but to get the whole thing you will have go to his book Preaching with Purpose<\/em>. Do you have John Carrick\u2019s The Imperative of Preaching<\/em><\/a>?9<\/a><\/sup>John Carrick, The Imperative of Preaching: A Theology of Sacred Rhetoric<\/em> (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2002).<\/span> It will show you how much-used preachers of the past have done what is being urged here. To see it concretely in action, as in this book, is crucial. Carrick gives striking examples of Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Samuel Davies, Asahel Nettleton and Dr. Lloyd-Jones among others. After reading Carrick it might be a good idea to re-read of some of the sermons of Edwards, Nettleton, Spurgeon or Lloyd-Jones. As you do so, look specifically for how people-oriented their preaching was. They were really connecting with people about their lives<\/em>, not just delivering a discourse in front of people. And look specifically for how they were aiming to do something<\/em> in the lives of their hearers. One feels that they were on a very specific and deliberate mission. There is something specific they want to accomplish in their hearer\u2019s lives and they must succeed!<\/p>\n

May the Great Shepherd draw us into sympathy with his heart for his sheep and for all men.<\/p>\n

Yours in Christ,
\nDavid Vaughn<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Featured Photo (visible when article shared on social media)\u00a0by Towfiqu barbhuiya<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following letter was published in the December 2025 issue of the Banner Magazine. It is published here at the request of a reader who found it helpful, in the hope that its counsel might be blessed to others also. You can also listen to a reading of this letter on the Banner Podcast. 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