Preaching always occurs within a particular context. As such, the sermon functions as a culturally-embedded testimony to the timeless truth of the text. But the sermon rises out of the unique experiences and life of the local body of disciples. The careful practitioner will listen closely to the conversations and cadences of the body, making every effort to couch the message in culturally relevant terms. The best preaching aims to take seriously the church’s embedded culture in order that the Living Word might be given a proper hearing in that particular context. As we’ve already stated, preaching occurs in community.

If preaching occurs within the context of community, preaching must rightly be understood as the process of interpretation that occurs between the text and the community of faith. The sermon becomes the bridge between church and Word. It has been said that the preacher spends the week in the Word, looking for the message to bring back to the congregation on Sunday. Attention to exegesis and background studies take place here. We rightly ask the question, “What did this Word mean in its original context?” before moving to the question of application in the present. In this manner, the preacher becomes the interpreter of the text to the congregation.

But this is only half of the truth. The sermon that aims only to interpret the historical-critical issues of the text is no sermon at all. It may be properly understood as a lecture or a teaching but a sermon is something more than this. The sermon, in service to the worship of the congregation, is an encounter between the Living God and His church as facilitated by the Living Word in scripture. In a very real way, the sermon is but one conduit for God’s transformative presence in the community of faith. And where God is, transformation occurs. The text must be given voice so the Living Word can interpret the congregation. The greater balance of interpretation that occurs in a sermon is not Greek or Hebrew; it is the interpretation of a body of disciples that occurs when the Living Word is given voice in worship (Romans 12.1-2). The sermon allows the congregation to imagine itself anew in light of the revelation of the Word. The church orients herself to this imaginative process of renewal. By living into the world imagined in Scripture, the church interprets herself through the lens of the Living Word. This is the work of the preacher: to give voice to the Living Word in order that the church might interpret herself in light of the one who makes all things new (Revelation 21.5).