There’s a question you need to answer every time you prepare a sermon: Does the sermon text govern only what I say, or does it also govern how I say it?
If you’re committed to biblical exposition I doubt you’ll have any hesitation answering the first part of the question. Of course the biblical text should drive the content of the message. But the second part of the question may be less obvious. In fact it may be a question you have never really given much thought to.
Should the structure of my sermon mirror the structure of the text itself? Should my sermon outline and organization reflect the order and organization of the passage I am preaching from?
That’s the question.
Some refer to this as textual mirroring or textual conformity.
What We Mean by Textual Conformity
Let’s be clear: textual conformity is not the same thing as textual fidelity. By “fidelity” I mean saying what the text says, accurately representing what the passage says and means by what it says. This is non-negotiable for any expositor, but it’s a separate question from the structure one.
Textual conformity goes further. Here’s how David Helm defines expository preaching:
Expositional preaching is empowered preaching that rightfully submits the shape and emphasis of the sermon to the shape and emphasis of a biblical text. (Expositional Preaching, 13)
In this way of viewing of exposition the sermon does not come to the text with a pre-determined structure. The text provides the structure. The preacher’s job is to represent it, not redesign it.
But is that always the right standard? Is that always possible?
Three Ways to Define Expository Preaching
One reason the textual conformity question is complicated is that people use the term expository preaching in different ways (I’ve written about this here.), and the answer you give to the conformity question depends partly on which definition you are working from.
Some people define expository preaching etymologically. The word “exposition” comes from the Latin expositio, which has the idea of setting forth or exposing. On this view, expository preaching is simply preaching that exposes and explains the text. It is explanation-centered. It sounds like a running commentary, working through the text verse by verse, word by word, bringing everything to the surface. Under this definition, you are preaching expositorily as long as you are explaining the Scripture. In one sense this approach mirrors the structure of the text, since it moves from verse to verse, but in actuality, the structure of the passage is often lost in the micro-level details.
Others define expository preaching morphologically, in terms of its form. In the expository form, both main points and subpoints come from one text, one literary unit. The sum and substance of the sermon, its structure and its argument, are drawn directly from the passage. This stands in contrast to the textual sermon, where main points come from one text but subpoints range freely outside of it, and the topical sermon, where the preacher determines the topic, selects the texts, and governs the organization of the whole message.
It is more common today, however, to define expository preaching philosophically, as an umbrella term for any truly biblical preaching, regardless of the form it takes. On this view, you could even preach a topical sermon expositorily, as long as the individual passages are handled in a way that is true to the author’s intent and the text’s context.
I prefer to define expository preaching in terms of form. That means any discussion of expository preaching must wrestle with more than content. It must engage with the text’s form and its relationship to the sermon’s form.
Here’s the dividing line: Does your definition of expository preaching include anything related to structure? If we define expository preaching simply as “the point of the passage is the point of the sermon,” then there is no obligation to structure our sermons in a way that re-presents the structure of the text.
However, my brief, working definition for expository preaching is this: the Christ-centered explanation and application of a biblical text that represents its structure, argument, and purpose. The key word is represents. The sermon does not just extract ideas from the text. It reflects the text. But what does it reflect? Its how (structure) and its why (purpose), not just its what (argument).
The Case for Textual Conformity
Here are four arguments for making textual conformity your default approach.
1. The Structure of a Text Is Not an Accident
This is a fundamental point. The biblical authors were not arranging their material arbitrarily. They were skilled writers and rhetoricians operating within ancient literary traditions, and the way they arranged their material was deliberate and purposeful.
Form communicates emphasis. The biblical author arranged his material rhetorically to put certain things first, to build toward certain conclusions, to withhold certain statements until they had maximum impact. When you reorder that material, you are making a decision about what matters most, and that decision may not align with the decision the Spirit-guided author made. You may be inadvertently muting what the author was emphasizing.
2. Following the Text Protects Against Importing Your Own Agenda
Every one of us has tendencies – favorite themes, doctrines we gravitate toward. For those of us who are pastors, pastoral concerns are always at the forefront. These are not bad things in and of themselves, but there is a danger when those tendencies begin to drive the structure (and therefore emphasis) of our preaching.
Topical preaching is the form most vulnerable to this, as I mentioned earlier, because you are the one choosing the topic, choosing the texts, and choosing how to organize the message. There is a lot of you in that process. But even in expository preaching, if you impose your own structure on a text, you can end up distorting its emphasis.
Textual conformity is a guardrail against that kind of drift. When you follow the text’s structure, you follow the author’s emphasis (convey through the structure), not your own. You are constrained to deal with what the text deals with in the order the text deals with it. The Spirit’s emphasis in a passage is harder to override when you have committed to representing the passage’s structure.
This doesn’t mean you have no voice or personality in the sermon. Obviously you do. But there is a difference between your rhetorical choices serving the text and your choices replacing it.
3. You Are Teaching Your People to Read the Bible
This argument is one I find compelling from a pastoral standpoint, but I didn’t fully appreciate until I had been preaching for a while.
Your people are watching you model how to read Scripture. They are seeing, week after week, how a careful reader moves through a text, what the structure reveals, how the argument builds, where the weight falls. And if your sermon outline mirrors the text’s structure, then when they sit down with their Bibles on Monday morning and read that same passage, they can replicate what they saw you do.
That is an enormous gift. The goal of preaching is not to produce people who are dependent on the preacher for their understanding of Scripture. The goal is to equip people who can open their Bibles and read it for themselves.
When your sermon outline feels like it could only have been produced by someone with a seminary degree and a clever mind, you may be undermining that goal. I want people to leave saying, “I see how this works; I could trace that same movement in my own reading.”
I don’t want my preaching to be a form of wizardry. I want it to be a window through which people can see the text for themselves.
4. It Rescues You from Predictability
There is a practical benefit to textual conformity that preachers often overlook. It keeps your preaching from becoming formulaic.
Most preachers, if left to their own devices, will drift toward a preferred structure. Three points and a poem, right? An introduction that sets up a problem, two or three points that address it, and an application that lands the solution. Alliterated main points in parallel grammatical form. These are not necessarily bad structures. But when you stamp the same structure on every biblical text regardless of what that text is doing, you may be failing to represent the amazing variety of God’s self-revelation.
The Bible is not formulaic. A Pauline argument is structured differently from a narrative episode in Acts, which is structured differently from a lament psalm, which is structured differently from a proverb. When you let each text shape its own sermon outline, your preaching takes on the variety that Scripture itself has. Each text has its own logic, its own movement, its own shape.
This type of exposition is eager to avoid imposing a foreign structure on the Word of God. Rather it seeks to represent the Word of God in the form God gave it.
The Case for Flexibility
If everything I have just said is true, then the question naturally arises. Should a preacher always follow the text’s structure, in every case, without exception?
Perhaps this will surprise you, but I don’t think so.
1. Some Texts Are Genuinely Difficult to Preach Sequentially
Not every biblical text translates naturally into a sequential outline. Some texts are structurally complex in ways that would require significant background explanation before a congregation could track the argument. Some texts are cyclical rather than linear, revisiting themes rather than advancing through a logical progression.
Romans 5 is a good example of a complex text. The argument in verses 1 through 11 moves through a series of clauses and sub-clauses that are interconnected in ways that are easier to see on the printed page but hard to track in real time as a listener. A strictly sequential treatment of that passage might leave your congregation more confused than helped.
Psalm 63 is an example of a cyclical text. David moves between expressions of longing and trust, then back to longing, then to praise, in a pattern that does not have a simple linear logic. If you preach it section by section, treating each section as a separate point in a sequential argument, you may end up obscuring the emotional and theological arc of the psalm rather than representing it. The psalm is doing something through its cycles, not in spite of them.
Sometimes providing your own structure for a complex or cyclical text, for the sake of clarity, is not a departure from faithfulness. It’s consistent with your calling as a communicator.
2. Your Listeners Are Not the Original Audience
Biblical texts were written to specific people in specific historical and cultural contexts. And they were written in specific literary genres shaped by ancient conventions that aren’t always natural for twenty-first century listeners to follow in real time. A Pauline diatribe, an apocalyptic vision, a Hebrew lament psalm are forms that worked powerfully in their original contexts. But if we simply replicate the surface structure for modern listeners, it may not work the same way or have the same effect.
The rhetorical strategy you use to communicate the meaning of a text to your congregation is a pastoral decision you have to make. Sometimes that decision will look like following the text’s structure closely. Sometimes it will look like finding a structure that helps your audience receive the text’s meaning more effectively. Perhaps some of this is similar to the differences in Bible translation philosophies between form-based and meaning-based translations.
Consider a text structured inductively, building toward its main conclusion. You could follow that structure and let the argument build toward the payoff at the end. Or you could state the conclusion first, then walk your audience through the passage showing how that conclusion is established. Both are legitimate choices. The first honors the text’s rhetorical strategy. The second serves a congregation that may need the framework before it can track the argument. Which is better depends on the passage, the occasion, and the people you are preaching to. That is a pastoral judgment, and I don’t know that there’s any formula for it.
3. Time and Rhetorical Clarity Are Real Constraints
I have preached ten-minute messages and forty-five-minute messages; the constraints are different for each. Working through the argumentative structure of a complex Pauline paragraph section by section in ten minutes is often not possible. Something has to give. And I think what gives in that case should be the complexity of the structure in favor of making the author’s argument clear.
There are also basic rhetorical principles that might lead you to override strict sequential fidelity. Unity is one of them. A sermon needs a single, clear organizing idea that everything else serves. If following the text’s sequence produces a message that feels fragmented, like a collection of separate observations rather than a unified argument, something has gone wrong. The fault may not be in the text but in the way the structure has been handled.
Progression is another principle. A sermon needs to move somewhere. If following the sequence produces a sense of treading water, if the same idea seems to keep recurring without development, the congregation may disengage because of the repetitiveness.
Simplicity is a third principle. If strict sequential preaching requires so much scaffolding and so much cross-referencing between sections that the main idea gets buried, the structure is not serving the sermon.
None of this means abandoning the text. It means being a thoughtful communicator as well as a faithful interpreter.
Genre Matters More Than We Sometimes Admit
One of the things that complicates the textual conformity question is that different genres of Scripture are structured differently, and those structural differences have real implications for how you preach them.
New Testament epistles are generally structured around extended arguments. Paul is making a case, and the sequence of that case matters. The movement from premise to evidence to conclusion to application in a Pauline letter is not arbitrary. It’s the logic of persuasion. When you preach an epistle, following the text’s argument usually means following the text’s sequence, because the sequence is the argument.
Gospel narratives are structured as stories. Jesus acts and speaks, and the sequence of his actions and words is part of how the story communicates. The narrative builds through scenes, often with rising tension and a moment of resolution or revelation. Textual conformity with a gospel narrative typically means telling the story in its order, because the story’s movement conveys its meaning, particularly at the intersection of the crisis/climax and resolution.
Old Testament narrative is similar in some ways, but adds the complexity of typological and redemptive-historical development. You’re dealing with a story that points forward to Christ, and the Christ-centered reading of the text may require you to draw connections that go beyond the text’s own immediate structure. The narrative sequence can guide the sermon’s movement, but the sermon also needs to go somewhere the text’s immediate horizon doesn’t take it on its own.
Poetry and the Psalms are different again. A psalm does not have a logical argument in the same way an epistle does. It has an emotional and lyrical arc, often structured around repetition, intensification, and reversal. Perhaps it is wise here not to follow a logical sequence but to follow the emotional movement of the psalm. Where does it begin? What is the turning point? Where does it arrive? The structure of a sermon on a psalm should probably reflect that arc.
Wisdom literature presents yet another challenge. Proverbs does not have an argument to follow. It’s more like an accumulation of observations. Here, a topical or thematic approach that synthesizes the chapter’s observations around a dominant theme is often more faithful to the genre than strict sequential conformity.
All that to say this: Let the genre shape your default posture. For epistles, lean toward following the argument. For narratives, follow the story. For psalms, follow the emotional arc. For wisdom texts, organize thematically. Textual conformity looks different depending on what kind of text you’re working with.
Where I Land
Because I try to teach students how to prepare expository sermons, and because I try to preach expository sermons week after week, I think about this issue of sermon structure a lot.
At present here’s where I land. This would be my general counsel to preachers: Deviate from the text’s structure only when you have good rhetorical reasons.
To put it positively: If possible, follow the flow of the text. Make that your default, knee-jerk approach unless there is a genuinely good reason (genre, audience, time) to go a different direction.
But the impulse to reorganize should always be interrogated before you act on it. Ask yourself honestly: Am I making this clearer, or am I making it mine? Is this reorganization serving the text’s message, or am I quietly rearranging the text’s emphasis to match my own?
Here’s an example. Psalm 1 is structured inductively. The thesis, the summary statement about the two ways and their two destinies, comes at the very end in verse 6. The psalm spends verses 1 through 5 describing the blessed man and the wicked man before revealing in verse 6 that the Lord knows the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked will perish.
Textual conformity would follow that inductive movement. You would walk through the description of the blessed man, then the description of the wicked man, and arrive at verse 6 as the conclusion. The congregation experiences the psalm the way a first-time reader experiences it.
A slight deviation would be to start the message by referencing verse 6, establishing the two categories up front, and then moving back through the psalm with those categories and that contrast in view. The reason for that deviation would be purely rhetorical. Some congregations will track the description in verses 1 through 5 better if they already know what the two categories are. Others will find the arrival at verse 6 more impactful if they did not see it coming.
Which approach is better? It depends on the congregation and the occasion. What matters is that the decision is a conscious rhetorical decision made in service of the text’s meaning first and then in the interest of the listener. What we should avoid is simply starting with a preferred prefabricated structure and superimposing that on the text without regard for how it impacts fidelity to the text and clarity/impact for the audience.
Practical Guidelines
Here’s some practical guidance for implementing textual conformity in a way that serves your preaching.
You Do Not Need to Give a Technical Lecture
Following the text’s structure does not mean turning your sermon into a Bible study on the structure of the passage. Does your congregation really need to know that verses 1 through 3 form the protasis and verses 4 through 6 form the apodosis of a conditional argument? Maybe (though not using those terms)? But what’s more important is that understand the major movements of the text and how they relate to each other.
Communicating structure to a congregation is a different skill from the structural analysis you might do in preparation, although that study is foundational for being able to explain the structure clearly and simply. The goal is not to expose your exegetical process but to help your people follow the text’s logic in a way that’s natural and accessible. You can do that without all the technical vocabulary (like epexegetical, although that’s a fun word to say).
Main Points Can Be Applicational
One practical question that comes up is whether the main points of a sermon have to be worded as exegetical statements or whether they can be cast in applicational language. My answer is that applicational main points are fine, as long as they genuinely represent what each section of the text is doing.
There’s a difference between taking the exegetical meaning of a section and recasting it in language that addresses your congregation directly, and taking your own applicational agenda and finding a section of the text to attach it to. The first is good communication. The second is imposing your own outline on the text, which is exactly what textual conformity is meant to prevent. The test is whether you can go back to the text and show how the applicational point is actually rooted in and derived from that section of the passage.
Cross-References Should Go Out to Come Back In
There’s nothing wrong with bringing in cross-references and other passages in the course of preaching a text. But the way you use those cross-references matters. The cross-reference should go out from the text in order to come back around to the text, illuminating the passage you’re preaching rather than displacing or overshadowing it.
Show the Original Structure Even When You Deviate
When I do deviate from the text’s structure for rhetorical reasons, I try to make a point somewhere in the sermon to show the congregation how the passage is actually laid out. Sometimes this is a slide that diagrams the structure. Sometimes it is just a sentence or two where I say, here is what the author is doing in this section and how it relates to what came before.
The reason I do this is that even when I have deviated from the structure, I want my congregation to know that there is a structure and to have some sense of what it is. I want them to feel the constraint of the text, even when I have adjusted its sequence for rhetorical reasons.
The Bigger Picture
I’d like to end with something that goes beyond the mechanics of sermon structure, because I think the textual conformity question is directly related to the question of authority.
When you consistently follows the text’s structure, you’re making a statement every week about who’s in charge of the sermon. You’re saying, by what you do, that the text determines what gets emphasized, what gets developed, what gets the most time, and in what order your listeners encounters the message. The text is in the driver’s seat in every conceivable way.
But if you consistently impose your own structure on the text, even when the intent is faithful and the exegesis is careful, you may be making a statement you don’t intend to make. You might be suggesting that your judgment about how to organize the material is better than the original’s.
Pause. I have already argued that there are legitimate reasons for structural adaptation, and I believe that. You are not necessarily being unfaithful when you make conscious, justified rhetorical decisions to adapt the text’s sequence for the sake of clarity or impact. That’s not always equivalent to imposing your own agenda. That may be the best way to serve your congregation while remaining faithful to the author’s intention.
But there is a difference between a preacher who defaults to following the text and adapts when he has good reason, and a preacher who defaults to his own structural and rhetorical instincts while completely ignoring the text’s structure and its contributions.
From my experience as a preacher and listener of expository sermons over the decades, I would argue that the discipline of textual conformity, practiced over years, shapes you, the preacher, as much as it shapes your sermons. It trains you to come to a text asking “what is the author doing here and how,” rather than starting with the question of “what can I say about this text?.” It forms in you a posture of submission to the text that carries over into every kind of preaching you do, including the topical or thematic messages that do not lend themselves to tight sequential conformity. Once you’ve internalized the instinct to follow the text, you bring that instinct with you everywhere.
That is why, in my preaching courses, I insist on the expository form as the foundation. Learn to do this well first. Master the constraint and develop the muscle. And then, when you’re in a position to adapt the text’s structure for rhetorical reason, you know what you’re deviating from and why.
Learn to dribble the ball first. The behind-the-back stuff can come later.