text, the hearers will likely raise the question, whether the preacher really said what the text means. 2. The preacher is to preach on some Biblical theme. Every proper text offers one or more good themes. There is no better way to arrive at such a theme than to draw it from a definite text. A simple way is to summarize what the text says. Another way is to present a central thought of the text, in a formulation which opens up the entire text. But let us suppose I have a theme for which I cannot