Parts and Wholes 8.28.2025

     A sermon or discourse is a whole thing that has constituent parts. Those constituent parts can be considered from the standpoint of the text or the standpoint of the presentation. Preferably both the text and sermon will share the basic structuring elements which is the best indication that the text is rightly exegeted and faithfully expounded. 

    One of the best advancements of postmodernism (yes, there are some), is the recognition that virtually all communicated data is embedded within or at least, comes to our attention with, significant metadata. In our reading of scripture, the foremost example of this, at the simplest level, is that we both read and cite scripture by chapter and verse; acknowledging that each is not a part of the text. They are metadata that helps to organize the text so that it can be more easily approached and understood. An attendant result is that it greatly facilitates the translation of the Biblical text into other languages. 

    Some metadata is, in a very real sense, preliminary even to the text itself. The parts of speech, the syntactical connections, and the discourse characteristics are constituent parts of language apart from which nothing could be spoken, or written, or understood. 

    Now we have computerized analytical tools and much of the power they put in our hands is a matter of expanding and exploiting an ever-expanding trove of metadata. The grammatical codes embedded in a grammatical database, or the discourse and “reported speech” markers available in contemporary tools are not there to take the place of the unvarnished text but help the exegete to understand the text at a more specifically granular level. Which is good. But you and I still need to understand the languages to responsibly use the available tools. 

    For preaching that means leveraging those tools to aid us in making a clear distinction between the parts of a discourse and the whole. A sermon is a single “thing”, yet if it is to be effective it needs to subdivide into logical, coherent parts all reinforcing a single argument which delineates the intent of the author. If we don’t carefully consider this “parts/whole” question then we may understand a text and have difficulty in explaining it or more importantly, being understood. The goal is not just a good explanation—the goal is understanding that leads to application and even life reformation. The compositional tool that enables us to record and comprehend the analytical process of considering a whole text in light of its parts is an outline. 

    Of all that you have ever read or heard about preaching the concept of an outline has likely been a central issue. Contemporary preaching likes to focus on narrative presentation or relies upon audiovisual components to take the place of traditional outlining, but whether you use a mind map, a traditional outline, or storyboard your message you are still leveraging metadata to delineate structure. Or not. If not, there is a pretty good chance you are rambling. 

    There are a couple of elementary concepts that help understand what an outline is and how it helps to organize information. This organization is necessary for both incoming (what we read, see or process) and outgoing (what we say) information. 

Skeletal outline

    In looking at a text we can think of an outline as a skeleton. It is the bones upon which the message hangs. Let us consider this verse (this process scales to larger texts, of course).

“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”” (John 8:12 ESV)

A skeletal outline for this text might look something like this:

▪ Identifying the Light

▪ Following the Light

▪ Accepting the Light

As a skeletal outline it is a framework for understanding. It structures without overwhelming. It is not a whole sermon, the outline does not explain everything. It is a pathway for explanation and gives the listener guidance for hearing. A skeletal outline is not the only option

Containment outline

    We can also think of an outline as showing how the parts of a text are contained within the whole. A skeletal outline is a more ground up approach, a containment outline works from the whole to the parts. In composing a sermon, address, or lesson it can be productive to consider both kinds of online in preparing. It has been my experience that difficulty in producing the scaffolding of a skeletal outline is often overcome by beginning again and thinking in terms of containment. 

    I understand that some readers may think that this is going on and on about irrelevancies. My take is simple. After many years of working through the text of scripture, after preparing and preaching many sermons from the same texts, after learning and exploiting the tools available to us, one of the greatest risks is becoming stale. Sometimes this is nothing more than boredom with the task. Sometimes it comes from always using the same strategies to overcome difficulty with texts. It can be compositional sclerosis. To do the work well requires rethinking things. Rethinking assumes thinking. That’s why we do the work. 

    We need to conceive of our messages as incorporating both kinds of outlining. The Skeletal form builds content from parts until one can grasp the whole. The containment form envisions the whole as being the tapestry from which the parts can be identified and understood. Any information driven endeavor includes both wholes and parts and we need a combination of tools to understand this relationship completely.