What is application? It is an appeal to the congregation to reckon with the implicit or explicit doctrinal, moral, or practical implications in a given passage of Scripture. Any particular application will be determined by the text. It might be a simple call to faith or it might be a detailed exhortation to godly living or a doctrinal truth. The teaching, nature, and immediate (and broader) context of the preaching text must determine the application.

In Part 1 we began looking at application in preaching. Another difficult aspect of this discussion is the lack of consensus as to just what a sermon is. In broad terms, this post assumes that a sermon is a close exposition of God’s Word that contains both declaration and application (as defined in part 1 and as elaborated below). Declaration is the announcement or proclamation of the law and the gospel. A sermon may be “redemptive-historical,” i.e., one that focuses on locating a passage in the progress of redemption and revelation or it may be topical (e.g. the second service or the catechism sermon, which tends to focus on the doctrinal or moral sense of a text or series of texts as guided by the catechism). There is a place for both. It is clear that the apostles did not feel compelled to choose between redemptive-historical and topical sermons and the Reformed tradition has never felt the need to choose between these two.

What is application? It is an appeal to the congregation to reckon with the implicit or explicit doctrinal, moral, or practical implications in a given passage of Scripture. Any particular application will be determined by the text. It might be a simple call to faith or it might be a detailed exhortation to godly living or a doctrinal truth. The teaching, nature, and immediate (and broader) context of the preaching text must determine the application.

Perhaps it’s helpful to say what application isn’t.

1. It is not bare lists of “dos and don’ts.” For many, application seems to entail lists of things to do or 10 steps to a happy marriage. A sermon may certainly have implications for Christian marriage and texts certainly should be applied appropriately to marriage and other relationships but the preacher, in the act of preaching, is not a marriage therapist. This is not to say that the preacher should not apply a text to how husbands and wives should love one another, but, as R. B. Kuiper used to say, any sermon that could be preached by a rabbi (or we might add, an imam) isn’t a Christian sermon. The one thing that that Christian preacher knows, that neither rabbi nor the imam knows, is the gospel of Christ’s holy incarnation, obedience, death, resurrection, and ascension for his people. This must be the basis for any exhortation to obedience and sanctity. Exhortation to obedience and sanctity is absolutely necessary but no more so than the gospel itself. To separate the two is moralism or rationalism or both.

2. It is not ten steps to a happy/fulfilled life. See #1. In general if you see Joel Osteen doing it on TV, it’s probably not something you want to do.

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