For me, one of the hardest parts of writing and preaching a sermon is application: bringing the truths of Scripture to bear on our daily Christian lives. This is a big discussion for sure. And for those of you who aren’t preachers, let me just say it’s not easy to do solid and edifying application in sermons. Pray for your pastor in this area of his preaching.
Speaking of the difficulty of good application in Christian preaching, Daniel Doriani wrote some helpful remarks about the challenges of applying Scripture biblically and well:
First, the Bible is neither a casebook for personal decisions nor a detailed guide to daily conduct. It doesn’t tell us whom to marry or what job to seek. It doesn’t directly answer complex questions such as “What should I do when I suspect that a coworker is deceiving a customer?”
Second, the Bible doesn’t explicitly address most contemporary issues. How should we use social media? The latest communication technology? How does the command to love my neighbor apply to business competitors? Is my competitor my enemy? How do I love a competitor if his gain is my loss? When we get stuck, we can use the questions developed in the previous chapter: What should I do? Who am I? Where should we go? How can I see? That is, we address duty, character, goals, and discernment.
Third, the Bible is the story of salvation, not a moral handbook. In the Bible, morality is important but secondary. What God did for us counts more than anything we do for him. The Bible isn’t an ethics textbook. It starts with God and creation, not with a section on primary moral principles. Many passages have no commands, and many hortatory passages offer illustrations of conduct, not a comprehensive guide to behavior. Jesus’ instruction on anger, lust, oaths, and generosity in Matthew 5:21–48 illustrates the connection of the heart and behavior. It doesn’t try to be a complete moral code. The same is true for Moses’ laws that regulate property, marriage, and justice. So the Bible does not present a formal ethical system.
Fourth, because cultures change constantly, there are gaps between biblical commands and contemporary issues. Statements about meat, idols, oxen, and feasts can seem irrelevant. But since Scripture equips God’s servant for every good work, we must not say, “The Bible doesn’t address that.” It is true that Scripture doesn’t directly address current topics such as genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. Still, the Bible has principles that speak to every issue, and we need strategies to apply them.
After listing these challenges, Doriani gives some helpful direction on finding applications in all genres of Scripture. Perhaps I’ll return to them sometime in the next month. For now, if you’re a pastor or seminary student, Doriani’s Getting the Message is a helpful resource in the area of sermon application.
If you’re not a pastor, this might be a good book to gift your pastor. You’ll have to do it in the right way, however. It’s never fun for a pastor to get a book like this with the implication: You’re really bad at _____, so I’m giving you a book about _____! Instead, perhaps you can mention that you saw this book here and a fellow pastor found it helpful. Anyway, here’s the book:
Shane Lems
Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC)
Hammond, WI, 54015
The Reformed Reader Blog 
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