Avoid the extremes of either making all your Old Testament sermons about following (or avoiding) the examples of the Old Testament characters, or of making all your Old Testament sermons theological flyovers that land finally in Christ but never impact the spiritual lives and ethics of your hearers. Old Testament sermons should have both emphases, although sometimes a sermon will have more of one than the other.

“Do you have any tips on things that might be helpful in teaching through the Old Testament, or potential pitfalls?”

That’s the question I was recently asked via email and I thought it might be profitable to share the answer here.

1. Focus on the Original Message

One of the biggest mistakes in Old Testament preaching is to think that these books were written only for us. They were written for us, but only in a secondary sense. They were originally written for Israel and therefore we have to ask first, “What was the message to Israel.” What problem was this book addressing? We often do this with New Testament books and letters, but for some reason that step is often skipped in Old Testament preaching. Once we get the original message to the original audience, it is so much easier to go from that to the present message to the present audience. Richard Pratt’s He Gave Us Stories is a great book for learning this skill.

2. Learn Old Testament History, Geography, and Culture

This is really linked to the first tip because you cannot figure out the original message to the original audience without first knowing the historical, geographical, and cultural setting. There are many “Introductions to the Old Testament,” or study Bibles like the ESV Study Bible, the Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible, or the Reformation Study Bible, that give excellent summaries that set each book in its context.

We can’t assume that people know anything today about Old Testament books. We’ve got to do a lot of education before we get to edification. Because of that, it’s probably best to start with the familiar stories and passages, because that will need less background information. Which demands that we…

3. Develop the skill of summarizing and modernizing

As I’ve said, one of the biggest mistakes in Old Testament preaching is to ignore the original setting. However, another mistake is to get totally bogged down in the original setting. Many Old Testament sermon have failed to lift off because the preacher turned his hearers into snorers as he droned on about the Gibeonites or the date of the Exodus.

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