The challenge of preaching whole books of the Bible

I’ve never been one whos likes to get in a rut. I’m that way with many things, and preaching is no different. My coworkers and I talk about the sermon series that we want to preach, but each one determines the final product. We rotate the preaching here at Impacto Bíblico, and each one usually preaches a 4-6 week series.

When I choose a series to preach, I usually think of two main criteria. First, what does our congregation need in this moment? We try to have a balance between book series from the OT and NT, series from different genres, and topical series. The other factor that I consider is what will challenge and stretch me as a Christian missionary and as a preacher.

The last series I preached was called The Way of Wisdom. I preached one message on each of the four wisdom books: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and Job. Where did I get such a crazy idea? Well, I heard a conference session done by Dr. Pierre Constant from Toronto Baptist Seminary on preaching. He talked about how D.A. Carson had taught him to preach whole books. By preaching a whole book the congregation is exposed to its most important ideas and gains an understanding of the whole Bible. Before listening to that session I was considering preaching a series on Ecclesiastes. After pondering the idea more, I decided to give our church an orientation to the wisdom books. It would be more relevant to their needs at this point, as many of them were not familiar with any of those books (and also need wisdom for many complexities in life here).

How did the series go? Overall I enjoyed the preparation and the delivery of the four messages. I had preached on Proverbs in Chia, so I was able to stitch together two sermons into one to preach on the foundation of wisdom and the process of wisdom. The people received the message on Ecclesiastes very well. I tried to lead them to think about how futile our lives are without Christ. The message on Song of Solomon was perhaps the most relevant because I took the first fifteen minutes to talk about Heb. 13:4 and the importance of marriage. Very few people in our church are legally married. I think that two-thirds of the adults manifested their desire to get right with God in that area. The last message on Job was the hardest to prepare. Imagine preaching on 42 chapters in one message! It was perhaps the most “classroom sounding” of the four sermons, but at least people were exposed to the sovereignty and greatness of God as the main theme of the book, not our problems.

On balance, I think that the series was helpful to our people and to me. I find myself meditating more on Job or on Ecclesiastes than I did before. That definitely can’t hurt.