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How to Cut: 9 Ways to Trim Your Text to a Preachable Size

Cutting the Text describes the action of selecting your preaching portion, how much of the Bible you intend to preach for a sermon.1 Preaching with greater accuracy involves understanding how your selection of Text affects interpretation and application. This article contains a brief analysis of:
1. why cutting the Text is important,
2. an example of the vital role cutting the Text plays,
3. instructions for cutting the Text in various genres,
4. two instructions that apply in any genre.

Each time you select an amount of Scripture to preach on a given Sunday, you are implying that the preaching portion is able to stand alone. You are saying to your congregants that the phrase, verse or verses function for the church. So, it’s critical that preaching portions possess a sufficient level of independence.2 Your choice of preaching portion will largely determine the meaning you communicate, depending on how closely you stick to your selected Text.

For instance, your choice of preaching portion may lead you down the path of preaching a little idea.3 This is the case if you select Matthew 18:18-20 as your preaching portion. It reads, “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

On their own, you can understand how these verses are most often quoted in the context of a small prayer meeting. They seem to mean that God will answer the prayers of any two who are praying together about the same thing. Preaching with greater accuracy involves seeing verses 18-20 as containing small ideas that mean something in conjunction with a larger idea. If I do decide to select verses 18-20 as my preaching portion, I need to know that a larger idea in previous verses controls the meaning.

The larger idea is Jesus’ instruction on how churches are to rescue faith-family members who refuse to turn from sin (cf. Matt. 18:15-17). At the end of the process, the church treats the professing Christian as a Gentile and tax collector. The question arises: Who gives us the right to make this judgment call? Verses 18-20 answer that question. From a human perspective, the church’s decision about the sinning, professing believer is backed by the presence of God.4

Can Matthew 18:18-20 function as a legitimate preaching portion? Yes it can. Does it possess enough independence to function for the church? That depends on how much you allow context to determine meaning. That depends on your ability to differentiate between the meaning of exegetical fragments and the meaning of semi-complete thoughts. My take on it is that Matthew 18:18-20 does not possess enough independence to function for the church apart from its previous context. It contains an important little idea.

So, what happens if you decide to preach those three verses? Early in the sermon, allow everyone to hear the larger idea that is driving the entire section. Then, show the logical connection between that larger idea and the idea in verses 18-20. Once that connection has been said clearly, your preaching portion contains more meaning. It functions for the church in the way it was designed to function as dictated by the logical flow of thought—by continuing to urge Christians to rescue sinning faith-family members with full confidence of God’s favor on the process.

If your preaching calendar includes preaching through books of the Bible, it is important to know how to preach little ideas. If your preaching style lends itself to thorough coverage of relatively small preaching portions, it is important to know how to preach little ideas. In these cases, you may find yourself frequently preaching mini-series.

In the case of Matthew 18, the theme of rescuing a sinner rules a large section of the chapter. You decide your sermon time on a Sunday morning does not allow adequate coverage of the section. So you divide the section into smaller, more manageable pieces. Because you are aware of how the meanings interrelate, you treat the three or four individual sermons as a mini-series dealing with the topic of rescuing sinners. Each individual sermon focuses on a slice of meaning that contributes to the whole. The little ideas do not stand alone to create meaning.5

Another example is a lengthy narrative such as the Joseph story in Genesis 37-50. Unfortunately, God did not write the Bible to accommodate a 40- to 45-minute sermon. You could preach one sermon on the entire story. Even if you preached for a couple of hours, it would be impossible to cover all that material in detail. Or, you may decide to preach a mini-series on this section as we discussed in the Matthew 18 example.