Delivery of the Sermon
Text: Acts 14:1
Series: Restoration Sermons
Date:
Speaker: Ed Rangel
Location: Waupaca Church of Christ
Bible Version: NASB 1995
Sermon Type: Topical
Learning Objectives
By the close of this lesson the hearer should be able to:
- State the text-based principle for why delivery deserves careful attention — what Acts 14:1 reveals about Paul's method.
- Identify the three methods of sermon delivery and evaluate at least two advantages and one disadvantage of each.
- State which method the outline recommends as the most effective and explain why.
- List at least four of the five cautions for delivery and explain the problem each caution prevents.
- Explain the relationship between method and preparation — why good delivery does not substitute for good preparation and vice versa.
Thesis
A good sermon may be poorly delivered; a weak sermon may be skillfully delivered. The delivery is not the sermon — but it is the instrument through which the sermon reaches the hearer, and an instrument poorly played loses the music. The preacher who has prepared well must also learn to deliver well, and the delivery method should be chosen not for convenience but for effectiveness.
Burden
Acts 14:1 records that Paul and Barnabas "so spoke that a large number of people believed." The burden of the sermon hangs on those two words: so spoke. The result was a large number who believed. The manner of speaking and the result are connected. The method of delivery is not an academic preference — it is the bridge between the prepared sermon and the persuaded hearer.
Introduction
"In Iconium they entered the synagogue of the Jews together, and spoke in such a manner that a large number of people believed, both of Jews and of Greeks" (Acts 14:1). The text does not describe what Paul said; it describes how he said it: "in such a manner" — so as to produce belief. The manner of delivery was not incidental to the result; it was constitutive of it. A different manner might have produced a different result.
The principle is not mysterious: the same truth, delivered well, reaches the hearer; delivered poorly, it reaches only the ear. The content of the gospel does not change based on the method of delivery — but whether the hearer receives it does. The preacher who dismisses delivery as secondary has not attended to the evidence of Acts 14:1.
I. The Importance of Delivery
Four reasons establish why delivery requires deliberate attention.
Study the best way to present the sermon. The question is not "what is the most comfortable method for me?" — it is "what is the most effective method for the sermon and the audience?" Different sermons require different presentations. A sermon on a complex doctrinal subject may benefit from careful, deliberate reading; a sermon pressing for immediate response may require the freedom of extemporaneous delivery. The preacher who has only one method cannot match the method to the need.
Different methods may be used. The variety is permitted and should be cultivated. The preacher who reads every sermon has closed off the possibilities that other methods offer; the preacher who never reads has closed off the precision that a carefully written text can provide. The skilled preacher uses the method the moment requires.
Keep in mind the purpose of the sermon. The purpose is persuasion — not impression, not display, not the delivery of information. Every decision about method should be governed by what will most effectively move this audience toward the sermon's conclusion. The method that impresses the educated and leaves the ordinary hearer cold has served the wrong purpose.
Speak in the most effective way. "Effective" is not synonymous with "engaging" or "dynamic." The most effective delivery is the one that most thoroughly serves the movement of the hearer from where they are to where the gospel calls them to be. Sometimes that requires intensity; sometimes it requires simplicity; sometimes it requires silence.
II. Methods of Delivery
Three methods have been used throughout the history of Christian preaching, each with its proper advantages and limitations.
Reading a Sermon
Advantages: Reading requires writing, and writing requires more thought than speaking without preparation. The written text compels precision — the preacher cannot escape into vagueness when the text must be fixed on paper. The written sermon allows the preacher to choose the exact style of expression: the words can be weighed, the rhythm considered, the ambiguities resolved before the sermon is delivered.
Disadvantages: Reading trains the preacher to be dependent on the manuscript. The preacher who reads well from paper may be helpless without it — unable to speak without the text before them, unable to respond to the unexpected, unable to depart from the prepared text when the moment calls for departure. Reading also requires much time — both the time of writing and the time of reading aloud, which is slower than extemporaneous speech. And reading at its worst renders the preacher incapable of quick-thinking: the mind follows the page rather than reading the room, and the moment when a different word or a longer pause was needed passes without the preacher noticing.
Reciting from Memory
Advantages: Memorization carries all the advantages of writing, and adds to them the training of memory itself — a discipline with broad value beyond the pulpit. The memorized sermon can be delivered without a manuscript, which frees the preacher's eyes from the page and allows genuine contact with the congregation.
Disadvantages: Memorization shares the primary disadvantage of reading: the preacher is imprisoned in a prepared text, unable to depart from it. The additional disadvantage is the temptation to display oratory — to perform rather than preach, to invite admiration of the delivery rather than conviction about the truth. And the investment of time required to write and then fully memorize a sermon is the largest of any method.
Extemporaneous Speaking
Advantages: Extemporaneous speaking — not to be confused with speaking without preparation, which is simply unpreparedness — means that the preacher has prepared the content and the structure thoroughly but has not fixed the exact words. The preacher enters the pulpit with a fully prepared mind but without a written text to follow. This method aids quick-thinking: when the unexpected occurs — a heckler, a question, a moment when the congregation's engagement suddenly deepens — the extemporaneous preacher can respond without being derailed from the prepared argument. The preacher is not dependent on external helps. The method appeals to the popular mind: audiences sense when a preacher is speaking directly to them rather than reading at them or performing for them. The preacher can change the form of expression as the moment requires — using a different illustration, a simpler phrase, a longer pause. And the extemporaneous preacher can be perfectly natural: the delivery can match the person, rather than performing a written text.
Disadvantages: The primary danger is the tendency to neglect preparation under the false assumption that speaking freely means speaking without work. Extemporaneous delivery that has not been preceded by thorough preparation is not freedom — it is vacancy. The well-prepared extemporaneous sermon cannot easily be preached again exactly as delivered, since the precise words were not fixed. The preacher who cannot quote accurately is a disadvantage in contexts where exact quotation matters. And extemporaneous delivery increases the risk of blunders of speech — the wrong word, the incomplete sentence, the thought that loses its way before it arrives.
III. Cautions
Five cautions govern the delivery of any sermon, regardless of method.
Avoid using "I." The frequency of "I" in a sermon is inversely proportional to its effectiveness. The sermon that centers on the preacher's experiences, opinions, and observations has moved the audience's attention from the text and the hearer to the speaker. The preacher is the vehicle, not the content. The preacher who is constantly visible in the sermon has made the vehicle more prominent than the cargo.
Avoid repetition of "beloved" and similar fillers. The word that is used too often loses its meaning. The preacher who begins every sentence with "beloved" has reduced the word to noise — the audience hears it as a verbal habit, not as an expression of genuine regard. Any verbal filler — repeated transitional phrases, habitual expressions of enthusiasm — dilutes the moments when the phrase would have genuine force.
Avoid reference to family and self. The preacher's family did not volunteer to be sermon illustrations; making them so is a violation of their privacy and an imposition on the congregation's goodwill. More fundamentally, personal references regularly shift the audience's attention to the preacher rather than to the text. The exception is the controlled illustration of personal experience that genuinely serves the text — but the control is essential.
Do not imitate the personality of others. The preacher who has been shaped by a great preacher may feel the pull toward imitating that preacher's style, cadence, or mannerisms. The imitation is never as good as the original, and it prevents the development of the preacher's own voice. The congregation that listens to an imitation of someone else's style does not receive the authentic person who was called to preach to them.
Quit when through. The conclusion of the sermon is the sermon's destination; when the destination has been reached, the sermon is over. The preacher who continues after arriving at the conclusion is driving past the address. The hearer who was ready to respond at the moment of the conclusion becomes distracted, confused, or annoyed by the continued talking. Finish strong; then stop.
Application
The application from this outline is not directed primarily at the congregation but at every person in the room who has any responsibility for teaching: Sunday school teachers, Bible class teachers, parents who teach their children, elders who exhort their congregations. The principles of delivery are not the exclusive property of the professional preacher.
For the congregation: recognize what good delivery is and is not. Good delivery is not necessarily dramatic or eloquent. It is the delivery that best serves the movement of the hearer toward the truth. When you sense that a sermon has reached you — that the words connected with something that needed to be reached — you have encountered good delivery, whatever method was used to achieve it.
Conclusion
"So they spoke that a large number of people believed" (Acts 14:1). The text does not say "they preached the right content, and therefore people believed" — though the right content was certainly present. It says they spoke in such a manner that people believed. The manner was part of the result.
The preacher who has invested everything in preparation and nothing in delivery has half a sermon. The preparation is the foundation; the delivery is the structure that stands on it and becomes visible to the world. Both are required; neither replaces the other.
Invitation
Paul spoke "in such a manner" that people believed. Belief is the beginning, not the destination. Those who believed in Iconium had still to respond to what they believed — to repent, confess, and be baptized for the remission of their sins (Acts 2:38). The sermon that produces belief has succeeded at its first purpose; the invitation that follows presses that belief to its completion.
Word Study
| English Term | Greek Term | Basic Meaning | Usage in This Sermon | Sermon Significance | Key Texts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| So spoke / In such a manner | houtōs lalēsai | To speak in this way — houtōs (in this manner, thus) + lalēsai (aorist infinitive of laleō, to speak). | Used in Acts 14:1: "they spoke in such a manner (houtōs) that a large number believed." | The manner of speaking is specifically identified as the condition for the result. The word houtōs points backward at something already described or implied — a manner of speaking that was clear, direct, and adapted to its audience. Delivery is built into the text. | Acts 14:1 |
| Extemporaneous | ex tempore (Latin) | Out of the moment — ex (out of) + tempore (ablative of tempus, time). Free, spontaneous speech that arises from the moment rather than from a fixed text. | Used as the name for the third method of delivery: speaking freely from thorough preparation. | The Latin phrase reveals the concept's core: the words arise from the moment, not from the page. This does not mean without preparation — it means the preparation has become so thoroughly the preacher's own that it can be expressed freshly in any given moment. | (Conceptual — Latin) |
| Persuasion | peithō | To persuade, to convince, to win over — producing not merely intellectual agreement but volitional movement. | The goal of all three delivery methods, and the standard by which delivery is evaluated. | Delivery that does not produce persuasion — however elegant or technically accomplished — has not met the standard the text establishes. Acts 14:1 connects the manner of speaking directly to the result of believing: the delivery served the persuasion. | Acts 14:1; II Cor. 5:11 |
| Quit / Finish | (Conceptual) | The discipline of stopping when the argument is complete — refusing to continue past the sermon's destination. | Used in the cautions section: "Quit when through." | The discipline of finishing is as important as the discipline of beginning. The preacher who cannot stop has not fully grasped the sermon's shape — they do not know where they are because they do not know where they were going. | (Conceptual — homiletics principle) |
Scripture Interlock Table
| Theme | Boles' Outline | Supporting Scripture |
|---|---|---|
| "So spoke that a large number believed" — manner of delivery matters | Intro. | Acts 14:1 |
| Purpose of sermon — to convince and instruct | I.3 | Matt. 28:19-20 |
| "Preach the word" — urgency and manner combined | II.3 (method) | II Tim. 4:2 |
| "I am not ashamed of the gospel" — preaching directly, without performance | III.1 (avoid "I") | Rom. 1:16 |
| Baptism for remission — belief pressed to its conclusion | Invit. | Acts 2:38 |
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Converted from H. Leo Boles, Outline 146. Primary text: Acts 14:1 (stated by Boles). OCR corrections: "Trnins" → "Trains"; "Tendency LO" → "Tendency to"; "lll." → "III." This is part of the four-sermon homiletics series (145-148). Doctrinal audit: extemporaneous speaking recommended without disparaging the other methods; the caution about avoiding "I" developed as both a practical and theological point — the preacher is the vehicle, not the content; no delivery method elevated above the standard of persuasion; invitation retains full obedient response (Acts 2:38).
