Clear Writing, Clear Thinking, Clear Preaching. 1.29.2026

    It is the last week of January. A snowy, cold, exhausting week.  I sketched January’s essays the week before Christmas. In that time, one year has ended, a new year begun and now grows to maturity. Many of us had to cancel worship gatherings last Sunday due to snow and cold. Winter is here for a while longer but soon the whistle pigs will speak, and we will have some idea of how long. 

    The title of January 2026’s final essay lays it all out. We aim for clarity in writing, thinking, and preaching. This clarity is a function of our cumulative lifetime of study plus our current weekly study. The dangers of maturity are different than those of youth, but of the same general character we have discussed throughout the month. Our personal system of language, choice of vocabulary, and propensity to clutter changes throughout our ministry but it is there in one form or another. 

    This week I close January with some exercises and goals that will hopefully encourage us all to work our language muscles. How we write and speak can be changed. We can improve. If we are approaching the tasks and opportunities of ministry appropriately, we will always be looking to grow and improve in every area of our work. We will need occasional reminders of specific actions we can take as well as goals we can aspire to that will improve our work. Not because we are being graded but because we stand in God’s stead to bear witness to the risen Christ and His saving grace. 

    Here are a few appropriate approaches to help each of us move towards engagement, effectiveness, and occasional eloquence—not for our own sake but for the sake of the evangel we bring. 

Repeat without Repetition

    Repeating what we say is essential for driving home our point and helping our congregation retain what we say. Repetition done poorly can lead to boredom and alienation. People are not stupid. They know when they are being patronized and talked down to. It is essential for us to learn to repeat our message using different words, phrases, and textures. 

    Hence, we return to the bigger picture of language, words, structure, and clutter. Looking up words to avoid repetition should not be an exercise that devolves into obscurantism. You’re not trying to be elusive, clever, or mysterious. Your goal is variety. You must make a practice of finding multiple ways to say the same thing, rephrasing and reformatting as well as choosing different terms. 

    There are times you want to be transparently obvious. There will be other times that you want to be stealthy and unpredictable. By the time you complete the sermon you want to have made the point, restated it reaffirmed it, and clarified it without your congregation feeling like you’ve simply said the same thing over and over again. 

Comprehension without Condescension

    We want people to understand, and we need to convey to them the fruit of our study. We have been trained and equipped to study scripture in ways that most members of our churches have not been. This is the opportunity for great reward, yet it also comes with great risk. We want people to “get it” without feeling like we’ve talked down to them. 

    We need to balance the content of our message with the connection of our message. This is particularly important when our studies have been personally engaging and fruitful. It is better for people to think that we are asking them to join us on our journey of discovery than merely showing them a photo-collage after the fact, insinuating that they missed something big and will just never understand this passage of scripture the way we do. 

    That kind of condescension was wholly absent from Jesus, creator of the universe, inventor of language, provider of scripture. We need to learn how to lead people to the water and give them a refreshing drink—not plunge their head into the trough practically drowning them in the overwhelming “truthiness” of what we say. 

    Those clutter reducing tools we discussed last week provide checks and balances on comprehension. Aim for compassionate understanding, Aim for comprehension that is based on a mutual search for the truth—with you leading the expedition into the text. 

Presentation Matters

    It is essential for an aspiring chef to learn how to move a meal from the hot stove where it is prepared to the comfortable table where it is served. Similarly, we don’t want to give our congregation the impression that we are all standing around the stove and you are forcing hot food into their unprepared mouths. The best gourmet meal approached in such a manner would be unappetizing. And sermons preached in haste that come out of the kitchen hot, without any thought as to how you will present the message will fall flat and tasteless regardless of the amount of toil you have expended. 

    Proper presentation that is pleasing to the ear and eye is the result of an exacting, measured, thoughtful, and consistent editing process. When you are preparing rough outlines and first drafts the goal is to get the thoughts onto paper (or into electrons) as quickly as possible, striking the iron when the creative heat is at its height and the metal is malleable. Those first instincts, those initial impressions, those sparks of inspiration--are for you. They are not and should not be intended for public consumption. You are gathering the ingredients, sifting and preparing, measuring and mixing. You are not ready to present your results until you have been over the ground several times revising, reducing, extending, adding, cutting, trimming, re-mixing, and finalizing the work through several purposeful drafts. And here’s where we must be careful. The more clever, well-spoken, well read, and experienced you are the greater your deliberation must be. There will be times you must excise things that seem eloquent and replace them with words that are less elegant but better suited to congregation and context. Your goal, my goal, our goal is not to be eloquent but to be understood. 

Habits of Communication

    On January 1 I offered an essay that described our year as a fresh sheet of paper. Sermons have been preached, lessons taught, studies led. Is your language more clear? Are your words more deliberate? Are your sermons better organized? The year is still young. We all have the chance to follow some basic habits of intentional communication that will enable us to do an increasingly better job of saying what we intend to say every time we open our mouths. 

    We don’t want to just be heard. We want to be understood. We want people to understand so that they can grow appropriately in their walk with Christ. We want the Word of God—as active and powerful as we know it to be, to be unencumbered by our choice of words, or obscured by clutter. Language matters. The very reality of language and thought itself—the Word—became flesh to “exegete God to us.” In your place, in your pulpit you represent  Jesus, the incarnate Word. Let’s take seriously this high calling to which we have responded.