Overdorf, Daniel. Applying the Sermon: How to Balance Biblical Integrity and Cultural Relevance. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2009.
The key assumption of Daniel Overdorf’s Applying the Sermon is that “[e]ffective preaching includes application that preserves biblical integrity while pursuing contemporary relevance.” The sermon should allow the Word to speak to God’s people “as explicitly and concretely as it did originally” (15), however, this is where most preachers falter because their applications either lack an explicit connection to the text or to the lives of God’s people.
Therefore, Overdorf devotes the first four chapters of his book to developing a biblical theology of sermon applications. He argues that the goal of preaching is transformation rather than information and that every sermon should “spur listeners toward this destiny, even if it’s just one step closer” (21). To achieve this, the preacher must first be faithful to the text but then he must also draw out the implications of that text for daily life. He rightly asserts that “if we preach God’s Word, empowered by the Spirit, listeners cannot escape the application” (28). He then builds on this foundation by showing that both the Holy Spirit and the preacher have a hand in developing applications, and that the logic of the Bible gives the preacher license to do so. Finally, in chapter four, he cautions against the potential pitfalls of developing sermon applications.
Overdorf then devotes the final four chapters of his book to developing a tool by which preachers can create applications that are biblically faithful and culturally relevant. His process includes ten-steps, six of which are dedicated to the creative process and four of which are intended to function as safeguards. He concludes his work by offering a series of ideas for how the preacher can include applications in his sermon.
The strongest aspect of Overdorf’s work is that his vision of preaching is rightly and tightly tethered to the Word of God and he’s clear that our applications must flow from it. He is wise to caution that most preachers slip into heresy at the application stage rather than the explanation stage because their process of developing applications is not biblically rigorous enough. The strength of this argument is what encouraged me to read his book with care.
Second, Overdorf is right to balance the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the preacher in the process of developing applications, but his thoughts along these lines need a bit more explanation (I will address this in more detail below). He is also right to look to the pattern of indicative-imperative in the text of Scripture as a validation of developing applications in modern preaching. In other words, I found his argument regarding the biblical foundations of sermon applications persuasive.
Third, his ten-step process is logical and it flows well, although I’m not sure it will always produce the right applications—no process ever will! But what I’m saying is that good applications don’t simply reduce to a process, rather, they flow out of intimacy with God, a love for the text, and a loosely held process.
Finally, the main weakness I found in Overdorfs work is that there are so many quotes from other authors that I sometimes wondered whose book I was reading. But alas, not every preacher is a born author so despite this weakness I value his work.
I have four personal observations to make about this book. First, the most impactful thought of Overdorf’s book for my preaching was this: “If we preach our own ideas, people can take them or leave them. Listeners can ignore our opinions and, quite possibly, fare better for doing so. But if we preach God’s Word, empowered by the Spirit, listeners cannot escape the application” (28). I literally said “Amen!” out loud when I read these three sentences! It’s not only that they can’t escape the interpretation, but that they can’t escape the implications of the interpretation for their lives—and neither can we preachers for our lives.
I stated the principle this way in the margin of my book: one of the primary goals of biblical preaching, then, is to unveil the inescapable consequences of the text of Scripture for our lives together. This thought really blessed me and motivated me to give a larger place to the development of applications in my process of writing sermons.
Second, although I thought Overdorf was right to argue that both the Holy Spirit and the preacher have a hand in developing sermon applications, I thought he should have pointed out that the lion’s share of the burden falls on the Spirit’s shoulders. God Almighty is the good and great Shepherd of the sheep, and we are merely under-shepherds who do his bidding inasmuch as we discern and submit to his will. Thus, the way we preachers play our part in applying the text of Scripture is by drawing near to our Father, understanding the text as thoroughly as we can, and listening to the whispers of the Holy Spirit as he teaches us how to apply his Word. I’m sure Overdorf would agree with my thinking here but again it would have been good for him to draw this out a bit more. We are, in a sense, co-laborers with God but we are not co-equals.
Third, Overdorf’s conviction that biblical preaching should not only inform the people of God but also transform their lives, reminded me of something I heard Jack Hayford teach a few years back. He argued that every sermon should include information and inspiration, but that its essential nature should be incarnation. That is, the Word of God should “take on flesh” in the life of the preacher and then in the lives of the people through every sermon that is preached. I found this both moving and persuasive “for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:12).
And I now find this helpful for understanding the need for biblically faithful, culturally relevant applications because by helping God’s people see the implications of the Word for their lives we are assisting the Word in “taking on flesh,” if you will. We are offering ourselves as tools in the hands of God by which he can incarnate his will and ways among his people. Of course, the necessary antecedent to this is that we preachers first put ourselves under the Word and allow it to incarnate in our lives—teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training us. Only as the Word has power in us can it have power through us.
Finally, I so appreciated Overdorf’s emphasis in chapter three on the place of grace in the development and delivery of applications. For example, as it is with so many of the epistles, all of the practical instructions in Ephesians 4-6 are firmly rooted in the truths of Ephesians 1-3, and the former cannot be rightly understood or practiced without the latter. “For by grace [we] were saved, through faith” (Eph 2:8), and by grace we learn to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. By grace we learn to apply to daily life the truths God has revealed in his Word.
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