Logos Tools for Creating Text-Driven Sermons Barry McCarty SWBTS School of Preaching

Text-Driven Preaching Text-driven preaching is the exposition of a preachable pericope of Scripture that expresses the substance, structure, and spirit of the text. The preacher’s task in a text-driven sermon is to explain, illustrate, and apply the text he is preaching.

The first step in sermon preparation should always be: read the passage. Don’t start with commentaries, theologies, or other reference books that are about the text. Start with just the text, asking the Holy Spirit to help you understand what he has written.

“You’ll be amazed by what you find in the Bible if you just look.” —Dr. David Allen Dean of SWBTS School of Preaching

Read it inquisitively. Ask questions. “I keep six honest serving-men   (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When   And How and Where and Who.” —Rudyard Kipling, poem in Just So Stories

Read it in the original language, if possible, or in an interlinear translation.

Tool 1: Interlinear and right-click menu information.

Logos interlinear options gives you immediate access to original language information on your screen.

Even more information is accessible through right-click menus.

Tool 2: Parallel Resources You can access parallel resources through the menu bar, or Use the left and right arrow keys to scroll through the English Bibles in your library.

What is the genre of your passage—the spirit of your text?

Each genre of Scripture has a different key to discovering its structure Poetry (Psalms, Prophecy, Wisdom Literature): the Hebrew strophes and stanzas. Story/narrative genre (OT narrative, Law, Gospels, Acts): the scenes of the story. Letter genre (Epistles, Revelation): verbs and their clausal structure. Verbs are the load-bearing parts of a sentence.

Tool 3: Clausal Outlines A Greek-English interlinear in a clausal outline helps me work with Greek (the language of the text) and English (the language of the sermon) together.

Paragraph Sentences Main Clauses Dependent Clauses Phrases Words

A clausal outline is your best tool for the exegesis of a letter. Identifying the main verbs within the paragraph and the dependent clauses shows the biblical writer’s flow of thought. The first step in creating a clausal outline is identifying the sentences that compose your passage in the Greek text. Carefully observe all the verbs and verbals (gerunds, participles, infinitives).

Verbs are the load-bearing walls of meaning. Parse all the verbs (noting their tense, voice, and mood). Tense shows the time (past, present, or future) and the aspect or kind of action (completed, ongoing, or undefined) of the verb. Voice shows the relation of the subject to the action (Is the subject acting or being acted upon?). Mood shows the verb’s action in relation to reality (a fact, a command, a possibility, a wish).

Greek Verb Tenses The present tense indicates either a continuous or undefined action. (“I am studying” or “I study”), usually occurring in the present time. The imperfect tense describes a continuous action usually occurring in the past. The aorist tense describes an undefined action usually occurring in the past. The perfect tense describes an action that was brought to completion and whose effects are felt in the present. The pluperfect tense describes an action that was completed and whose effects are felt at a time after the completion but before the time of the speaker.

—Fredrick J. Long, Kairos: A Beginning Greek Grammar Greek Tense (Freq.) Translation Corresponding English Tense Aorist (11,606) “You taught” Past Present (11,583) “He teaches” or “He is teaching” Present Present Progressive Imperfect (1,682) “I was teaching” Past Progressive Future (1,623) “She will teach” Future Perfect (1,571) “They have taught” Present Perfect Pluperfect (86) “They had taught” Pluperfect —Fredrick J. Long, Kairos: A Beginning Greek Grammar

Greek Verb Moods The indicative is the mood of factual statements and questions. It describes something that is, as opposed to something that might be. The imperative is the mood of commands and requests. The subjunctive is the mood of possibility, what could be or what might be. The optative is the mood of what someone wishes to be. Participles are verbal adjectives.  Infinitives are a verbal nouns.

Also look for discourse markers that are clues to connections between sentences. Greek is especially rich in discourse markers that indicate the relationship between the parts of a sentence and between independent sentences that compose a paragraph. “Particles like καί, δέ, ἀλλά, γάρ, οὖν, δή, etc., were very common in this connection. Demonstrative pronouns, adverbs, and even relative pronouns were also used for this purpose.” —A. T. Robertson A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research

Place independent clauses that contain a main verb (include the subject, verb, and direct or indirect object or predicate complement) at the left-hand margin of the page.

Placing the clauses with the main verbs all the way to the left of the page is the key to making the prominent points of the passage immediately obvious.

Above the main line, slightly indented, place conjunctions that connect the main clause to what precedes it. Below the main line, indent dependent clauses or phrases underneath the part of the sentence they modify. These include prepositional phrases, ἵνα clauses (marking a purpose, “in order to”), ὅτι clauses (marking a cause or reason, “because, since, for”), comparatives, and appositives (two expressions that identify the same object or event). Indent these parts of the sentence to put them under the parts of the sentence they modify. Stack parallel parts of the sentence underneath one another.

Creating and working with clausal outlines is one of the ways Logos Bible Software excels as a sermon writing tool.

Logos: there are two ways to use clausal outlines in Logos. First, see if your library has: Dean Deppe, The Lexham Clausal Outlines of the New Testament

Dean Deppe, The Lexham Clausal Outlines of the New Testament Dean Deppe, The Lexham Clausal Outlines of the New Testament. If you have this resource, it will be a book in your logos library.

The new and improved way to get clausal outlines: Lexham Discourse Datasets. Lexham Discourse Datasets are not books in your library, but datasets that enable features within your Logos Bibles.

The Lexham Discourse Datasets can create propositional outlines in most Bibles.

Tool 4: Visual Filters This is my visual filter for Greek verb moods.

Tool 5: Exegetical Summaries by SIL International.

You can also build your Exegetical Summaries collection volume by volume.

Paragraph Sentences Main Clauses Dependent Clauses Phrases Words

Possible discourse units. Clauses and phrases. Lexical information. Exegetical questions

Discourse units show the choices of various scholars in how to divide the text.

The lexicon form of the key words are given with the definitions from and hotlinks to the LN (Louw and Nida 1988) and BAGD (Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Danker) NT lexicons, along with how various commentators translate the word.

Tool 6: Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains

Example: two senses of κόσμος (world) in 1 John 2:15.

BAGD: Eight main senses, numerous sub-senses.

1 John 2:15 isn’t cited until Sense 7.a.

The LN numbers 1.1 and 41.38 take you right to the definitions for the respective senses of κόσμος in each part of verse 15.