I remember the first time I was asked to speak to a youth group. I was determined to give them the Word. I studied my passage. I did detailed word studies. I read commentaries. I prepared my notes and I spoke passionately. But it was hard for anyone to figure out what my talk was about. I had a hundred things to say, and I don’t think anyone remembered any of them. It was like I was trying to squeeze everything into one message in case I didn’t get another chance to speak. Well, it turns out, I didn’t get another chance. I wasn’t invited to speak to that group again, and in retrospect, it’s obvious why. I thought that the goal of a message from the Bible was to tell people what the Bible says and how it applies to our lives. But I was missing a crucial step that’s essential to avoid losing people as you speak. I didn’t realize the importance of organizing my talk around a central idea. Let me share why that’s important and how you can do it.

1. Pack the snow into a ball before you throw it

Anyone who’s been in a snowball fight knows that you don’t accomplish anything by trying to lob a bunch of individual flakes at someone. It’s only as you gather the snow, pack it tightly together, and throw it as a hard, round ball that people run and take cover. Often when people start off teaching from the Bible, they take the time to study what the individual verses of the Bible say but not how they fit together. The talk ends up sounding like a random collection of thoughts. Some of those thoughts may be interesting, but because the speaker never worked to relate them to one another, it feels confusing, disjointed, and hard to follow. Just as an essay needs a thesis, a message from the Bible needs a central idea. Everything in the talk should support it and flow from it. If a central idea is so important, how do you come up with one?

2. Look for the hub that connects all the spokes

The central idea of a message has to come from the Bible itself. Ideally, you want to study a single passage and find the central idea that it expresses. The problem is that at first, the passage may seem to be saying many different things. The first step is to look for a theme. There may be many thoughts expressed in the passage, but as you read and re-read, it’s usually possible to identify an over-arching topic. You’re looking for the hub that connects all the spokes in the wheel. Is the passage about anger or hope or love or obedience? Once you’ve found the theme, try to line up what the passage teaches about that theme. I usually write out the passage’s thoughts about the theme and then try to discern what question they’re answering about it. Does the passage tell us when to get angry, how to cling to hope, where to find love, etc.? Once I understand the theme and the question about that theme that the passage is seeking to answer, I still don’t have the central idea yet. There’s one more step.

3. Limit the legs on your stool and express them clearly

Once you identify the theme, and the question that the passage is seeking to answer about that theme, you still need to articulate the answer that the passage gives to the question. That answer will typically consist of several points that are like the legs of a stool for your central idea. As you read Luke 11:5-13, for example, it’s clear that the passage is talking about the theme of asking. While it starts off with a discussion of bread, it goes on to talk about prayer and especially asking God for more of the Holy Spirit’s work in your life. As you study the individual sections, they seem to be answering the question of how we should ask for God’s filling or how we should pray for the Spirit’s work. The answer the passage gives is shamelessly (vv. 5-8), persistently (vv. 9-10), and confidently (vv. 11-13). The central idea of the passage seems to be that God invites us to pray for the filling of His Spirit shamelessly, persistently, and confidently. I might simplify this further to make it more memorable and just say God invites us to pray shamelessly, persistently, and confidently.

When you see a 9-verse passage summarized with a 9-word statement like that it may be sound trite. There was a time when I would have pushed back wanting to say something deeper or more profound. The details of your message can go deep, but the central idea, your thesis, should be as simple and clear as possible. If your entire message builds, expands, and relates to that simple idea it can become rich, powerful, and memorable.

Next time someone asks you to give a talk at Sunday School or to a youth group or seniors meeting, work at finding the central idea of your passage and try to express it as simply and clearly as you can. If you can stay focused on trying to say one thing rather than a hundred things, people will be able to follow you and better hear what God is trying to tell them. May God give you help as you do!

In awe of Him,

Paul