Dr. James Lince on Sermon Preparation

"Textual, topical, or word studies are the common result whenever the deductive approach to sermon preparation is used.

"Many, if not most [pastors], prefer to read the Bible and prepare their sermons with their own convictions already in mind.  All they ever need to prepare a message is a scriptural text that appears to support their own personal convictions.  Unfortunately, their convictions are usually nothing more than religious ideas flying around their minds looking for a place to land.  So they are forced to find a verse to light on just to prove that they have a biblical basis for what they are preaching.

"Many preachers choose to preach topical sermons because they do not require any real effort to dig down into the text for all the hidden insights - the golden nuggets of truth that are there for the picking.  It is much easier to do a broad overview of some topic and come up with a basic outline that restates a generally known biblical truth...This is what I call quick and easy, in other words, lazy preaching...Consequently, many of tghe brethren have been living on stale bread for years now because their pastors have only used textual, topical, and word studies as a basis for their preaching..."