Questions for Sermon Preparation

In the beginning of my sermon yesterday, I mentioned a list of questions that I work through with each passage to help me think through the text from a number of different angles.  I had a couple of people ask me for the list, so here they are:

1. What does the text tell me about God?

2. What does the text tell me about mankind (examples to follow/avoid, commands to obey, promises to believe)?

3. What key truth(s) is the author communicating in this text?

4. Where do our lives fail to conform to these key truths?  In other words, what areas of unbelief does the text expose or confront?

5. How does the text point to, deepen our understanding of, or flow from the gospel?  How does Jesus' work on the cross come to bear on the text?

6. How would our lives be different if the key truth(s) became explosively alive in our innermost being?

7. How does the text address the unbeliever?  How does it touch on unbelievers' common objections or difficulties with Christianity?

8. Why has God brought this text to us this week?

9. What are the missional implications of this text?

10. How does the text impact our corporate lives together as the church?

11. What aspects of the text highlight areas in which our church flourishing or excelling?

12. What other texts illuminate, expand on, or cross-reference this text?

13. What questions will the congregation have about this text upon the initial reading of the text?

14. Summarize the text's meaning in a sentence