Knowing Who Is Listening

1 Corinthians 9:22 is often quoted as though it were a marketing principle: find out what people want and give it to them. In context it means almost the opposite. Chapter 9 is the middle of a long argument about food offered to idols, and its subject is Paul's rights: to be supported by the churches, to take a believing wife with him, to eat and drink freely. He has the right and he gives it up: 'we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ' (9:12). Becoming all things to all people is not the preacher getting what he wants from the audience. It is the preacher giving up what he could rightly claim, so that nothing in him stands between the hearers and Christ.

And the principle has a limit, which Paul writes into the sentence. He becomes like one without the law, 'though I am not outside the law of God but am under the law of Christ' (9:21). He adapts his customs, his diet, his starting point, his manner and his rights. He does not adapt the gospel. Galatians shows what happened when he thought someone had crossed that line: when Peter stopped eating with Gentile believers for fear of those in the circumcision group, Paul opposed him to his face (Galatians 2:11-12). The difference between the two is the difference between giving up yourself for others and giving up the truth for yourself.

The modern word for this work is contextualisation. It was coined in 1972 by the Theological Education Fund, a body working on theological training in the global south, under the leadership of Shoki Coe, a theologian from Taiwan. It names the attempt to express the gospel in the forms, language and concerns of a particular people, so that it is heard as God's word to them and not as a foreign import. Andrew Walls, the British historian of world Christianity who spent years teaching in Sierra Leone and Nigeria before teaching in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, described two principles that every faithful contextualisation holds together. The indigenising principle: God accepts people as they are, in their own culture, and the gospel can be at home anywhere. The pilgrim principle: God does not leave people as they are, and the gospel puts every culture under judgment and makes believers in some way strangers in their own society. A sermon that keeps only the first becomes an echo of the culture. A sermon that keeps only the second becomes a foreign voice.

How far contextualisation may go is debated among missiologists, especially on the mission field among people of other religions, and this lesson will not settle that debate. But for the preacher in an ordinary congregation, the core is not in dispute. Know your hearers. Start where they are. Speak their language. Give up your own preferences for their sake. And do not trim the gospel to make it more welcome than it is.

The Inquiry's comparison of Paul's four speeches in Acts is the best introduction to this subject that exists. To the synagogue at Antioch, people who knew the scriptures, he argues from the scriptures. To the crowd at Lystra, farming people who had just tried to offer sacrifices to him, he quotes nothing and speaks of rain, harvest, food and gladness (14:17), the gifts they lived by and had never thanked the right God for. To the philosophers at Athens he speaks of creation, of the unity of the human race and of their own poets. To the elders at Miletus, men he had trained for three years, he speaks as a father, from his own example and with tears (20:31). Each speech is about the same God and the same Christ. Each is fitted to the people in front of him.

This means the preacher must study his hearers as well as his text. The phrase exegeting the congregation has become common in homiletics for this work, and Leonora Tubbs Tisdale's Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art (1997) gave it a fuller method, arguing that a preacher should read the symbols, stories, habits and values of a congregation as carefully as he reads the passage. You do not need a book for most of it. Visit people in their homes. Go to the funerals and the weddings, the hospital and the market. Listen to what people talk about after the service. Know what the harvest was like, what school fees cost, who has lost work, which families are quarrelling, what the young people are afraid of. Know the songs they sing, because those are their theology. Know which outsiders come, and why.

The aim of all this is not to tell people what they want to hear. It is to make sure that what God says to them reaches them. A sermon on anxiety from Matthew 6 must sound different to a congregation of office workers worried about promotion and to a congregation of subsistence farmers in a drought. The text is the same; its promises and commands are the same; but the anxieties it speaks to are not, and a preacher who does not know which ones are in the room will apply the passage to people who are not there. That is how sermons answer questions nobody is asking.

One honest warning. Knowing a congregation well creates its own temptation, which is to preach at particular people. When a preacher knows exactly who is quarrelling, it is tempting to aim a sermon at them. Resist it. Speak to the condition, never to the person; and if one person needs correcting, do it privately, as Jesus told his disciples to do (Matthew 18:15). A congregation that suspects its preacher of using the pulpit to settle scores will stop trusting the pulpit.

Many of the students of this course preach to congregations where most people are poor: where food is not certain, where medical care is far away or unaffordable, where work is hard to find and debt is ordinary. The Bible has a great deal to say to such hearers, and much of it was first written to people like them. Jesus said the Spirit had anointed him 'to preach good news to the poor' (Luke 4:18). James asked, 'Has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised those who love Him?' (James 2:5). A preacher to the poor is not preaching to the margins of the Bible's concern. He is preaching to its centre.

There are two opposite errors here. The first is to spiritualise material need until it disappears: to preach about spiritual hunger to people who are actually hungry, and to say nothing about their bodies. James is blunt about this: 'If one of you tells him, “Go in peace; stay warm and well fed,” but does not provide for his physical needs, what good is that?' (James 2:16). The second error is to promise what the text does not promise. Christians genuinely disagree about how God's blessing relates to material life. Those who emphasise God's desire to bless his people point to texts such as Deuteronomy 8:18, where it is the LORD who gives power to gain wealth, to John's prayer that his friend may prosper and enjoy good health (3 John 1:2), and to Paul's promise that God is able to make all grace abound so that his people have all they need (2 Corinthians 9:8). Many Pentecostal preachers add, with real force, that a gospel which speaks only of the soul has nothing to say to a mother whose child is sick, and that the Jesus of the Gospels healed bodies and fed crowds. Many church leaders and theologians across Africa, Asia and Latin America, Pentecostal and evangelical alike, have warned against teaching that God guarantees wealth and health in exchange for faith or giving, pointing to Paul's contentment in plenty and in need (Philippians 4:12), to his warning that those who want to be rich fall into temptation (1 Timothy 6:9), and to the faithful in Hebrews 11 who suffered and died poor. Whatever position you hold, preach what your text actually says, and do not promise poor people from the pulpit what God has not promised them in the text.

Practically, preaching to the poor means choosing illustrations from their world, not assuming cars, savings, holidays or bank accounts. It means applications that are possible for them: do not tell a day labourer to choose a job that allows time with his family; he has no such choice. It means treating poor hearers as the dignified, intelligent, believing people they are, not as objects of pity. And it means remembering James's warning about the seats of honour (James 2:2-4): a preacher who looks to the wealthy family in the front row while he preaches has already shown whom he thinks the sermon is for.

Grief is the other condition present in almost every congregation, and in some communities it is constant: through disease, violence, childbirth, accident and war. Paul tells the Thessalonians that he does not want them to 'grieve like the rest, who are without hope' (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Notice that he does not tell them not to grieve. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35), knowing he was about to raise him. Paul tells the Romans to 'weep with those who weep' (12:15). A preacher to grieving people must not rush to the comfort, explain the loss or tell people to stop crying. Job's friends did best in the seven days they sat on the ground with him and said nothing (Job 2:13); they did worst when they began to explain, and Job called them miserable comforters (16:2). Preach the laments; Psalm 13 and Psalm 88 are in the Bible so that grief has words. And preach the resurrection, which is the Christian hope, as a hope held by people who are still weeping.

Funerals deserve a special word. In many communities the funeral sermon is heard by more people, and by more people who do not attend church, than any other sermon in the year. It is not the moment for an evangelistic ambush, using the dead to frighten the living. Nor is it the moment to declare the dead person in heaven when you do not know. It is the moment to honour the dead truthfully, to grieve with the living, and to proclaim clearly and gently the hope of the resurrection in Christ for all who trust him.

Many students of this course preach where following Christ costs something real: a job, a family, a place in the village, freedom, safety or life. Some preach to believers who have come from another religion and whose families have rejected them. Some preach under governments that watch churches. For these hearers, a great deal of the New Testament needs very little bridging, because it was written to people in the same situation. 'Remember those in prison as if you were bound with them, and those who are mistreated as if you were suffering with them' (Hebrews 13:3). 'Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial that has come upon you' (1 Peter 4:12). John wrote Revelation as 'your brother and partner in the tribulation' (Revelation 1:9). The Hebrews had 'joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property' (Hebrews 10:34). A persecuted congregation hears these texts as letters addressed to them.

Preaching to suffering believers has its own errors. One is triumphalism: promising that God will always deliver from prison, sickness or death in this life, when Revelation 2:10 tells a church that some of them are about to be thrown into prison and calls them to be faithful even unto death. Another is the opposite: treating suffering as the measure of faithfulness, so that those who are not suffering feel second-class. Another is bitterness. Jesus commands, 'love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you' (Matthew 5:44), and Peter tells believers to give their defence 'with gentleness and respect' (1 Peter 3:15). A sermon that teaches a persecuted church to hate its persecutors has given the persecutors a second victory.

There is also a genuine question that persecuted churches face more sharply than others: how far to submit to an unjust government and when to refuse. Romans 13:1 says that everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities. Peter and the apostles said, 'We must obey God rather than men' (Acts 5:29). Christians across history have drawn the line between these texts in different places, and they still do. A preacher in a safe country should be slow to settle that question for believers in a dangerous one. A preacher in a dangerous country should settle it with his church's leaders, prayerfully, and should not expose his congregation to risk they have not chosen.

And there is a practical matter of safety. In some places, a sermon that names believers, meeting places or converts can endanger them if it is recorded, shared or reported. Think before you use an example, and before you allow a sermon to be recorded or posted. Use composites, change details, and never name a believer who could be harmed. The preacher's first duty to a persecuted flock is to feed it; his second is not to put it in danger by carelessness.

In most of the world, and in most of the Bible, the congregation includes children. When Moses commanded the reading of the law, he told Israel to assemble the people, men, women, children and the foreigners within their gates, 'so that they may listen and learn to fear the LORD your God' (Deuteronomy 31:12). Joshua read every word of it before the whole assembly, 'including the women, the little ones, and the foreigners' (Joshua 8:35). Ezra read the law before 'all who could listen and understand' (Nehemiah 8:2). And Paul, writing letters to be read aloud to the gathered church, addressed children directly: 'Children, obey your parents in the Lord' (Ephesians 6:1; also Colossians 3:20). He expected them to be in the room and to be listening.

So a sermon should be preachable to a mixed congregation. That does not mean preaching only to children, which would starve the adults. It means a few simple practices. Speak directly to the children at least once: children, this is for you. Use at least one illustration a child can follow, which the adults will usually enjoy most. Keep sentences short, which helps everyone. Explain words a child would not know, which also helps the adults who were too embarrassed to ask. Some subjects need care when children are present; scripture speaks of them truthfully, and so can you, but with discretion. Remember the old too: speak clearly, at a pace they can follow, and honour them in your tone. A preacher who teaches the youngest and the oldest well will rarely lose anyone in between.

Young people deserve particular thought, because in many congregations they are the largest group and the most likely to leave. They often have real questions, about faith and science, about other religions, about why God allows suffering, about how to live in a city or online, that the older generation never had to ask in the same way. A sermon that never acknowledges those questions tells them that the church has no answers. You will not answer every question in every sermon. But naming a question honestly, and showing how the text bears on it, is one of the ways a young hearer learns that the Bible can be trusted with his real life.

The guest preacher in another culture faces all of this in a harder form, because he does not know the congregation. Ask someone who does. Find out the customs: how long a sermon is expected to be, how the greetings are done, what is respectful in dress and gesture, how directness is received, how elders are addressed, what makes people laugh and what offends. In many cultures honour and shame shape how correction is heard far more than in the West; a direct rebuke that would be ordinary in one place can humiliate in another. Do not assume your own culture is the normal one. Use illustrations from the hearers' world, not yours, and if you do not know their world, use the Bible's. Paul became like a Jew to the Jews (1 Corinthians 9:20) because he had taken the trouble to know what that meant. A guest preacher who is willing to learn before he speaks has already preached something about the gospel.

This is the last step in building the sermon. You have the passage, main idea, need, skeleton, introduction, conclusion, illustrations, and language written for the ear. Today you test it against the people who will hear it, and then put the whole thing on one or two pages.

Step one: the congregation profile. Use what you wrote for the last Inquiry question. On a fresh page, write a short description of your congregation without any names: ages, work, education and literacy, languages, the main hardships of this year, the main worries of this month, how mature most are in faith, and whether outsiders or new believers usually come. Keep this page; you will use it for every sermon you preach to these people.

Step two: three hearers. Invent three composite hearers from your congregation, not real individuals: for example, an elderly widow who cannot read, a teenager with doubts, and a man who has lost his work. Read your outline through three times, once as each of them. Mark every place where that hearer would be lost, bored, hurt or left out. Then fix the worst of those places.

Step three: uses. Borrowing from the Puritans in lesson 1, add one specific application to each main move of your sermon, each addressed to a particular kind of hearer: to those who are grieving, to those who are tempted to give up, to those who do not yet believe, to the young, to those who lead. Not every move needs every kind. But every move should touch someone in particular.

Step four: checks. Look at your illustrations and applications for assumptions about money, education or culture that most of your hearers do not share. Add one sentence spoken directly to the children. If you preach where believers are in danger, check that nothing in the sermon identifies anyone, and decide whether it should be recorded. If you will preach as a guest, ask a local believer to read your outline and tell you what will not work.

Step five: the full outline. Now copy the whole sermon onto one or two clean pages, in this order. At the top: the passage, the main idea in one short sentence, and the need it meets. Then the introduction, with its first sentence written out in full. Then each move, as a full sentence, with its verses, its illustration and bridge sentence, its application to a particular hearer, and the transition to the next move. Then the conclusion, with the call written out in full and the way you will invite response. If you are using an interpreter, attach the interpreter sheet. This is your sermon outline. Pray over it. Module 5 will help you preach it, and the final lesson of this track will walk you through the whole process once more from the beginning.