By the end of step (1) we should have got to grips with the essentials of the passage. As we sit at our desk, we have a ‘text to explain’. If that is the end point, however, our preaching will sound like a lecture or commentary. To preach or teach a passage we must move beyond a ‘text to explain’ to having a ‘message to proclaim’. It’s good to keep the logic of this discipline clear in our working week. By Thursday we should have a ‘text to explain’, but by Sunday we must
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