Part of my intention in sharing a little bit more about sermon-writing this summer is to spell out some of my process. It’s helpful for me to see it all in one place, and it might just be helpful to you—whoever you may be.

I don’t share as one who has reached a level of expertise in sermon-writing or -delivery. In fact, I am partly documenting my own process so that might review it at a later time to see for myself how I have developed. Comments are welcome.

I start with translation.

To some, that might sound like an obvious place to begin. To others, that might sound unnecessary: “Aren’t you just going to use a standard translation in the worship service anyway?”

Yes, for my sermons on the songs associated with Moses throughout Scripture, I do plan on using the English Standard Version, but any good translator or translation will admit that a knowledge of the original language brings insight that simply cannot be communicated fully in translation. That’s one reason why translators have footnotes and “study Bibles” and why we have commentaries and—not to put too fine a point on it—why we have sermons.

Another good reason to do translation for preparing a sermon is particularly evident in Deut 32.1–43, which is next up in my schedule. The number of allusions to other biblical texts, especially Genesis and Exodus, is astounding. Poetry in general has a higher “information density” than prose, and all the more when the words and phrases are allusive. The surface of this water is at some points clear, allowing a glimpse at the world beneath, and at other points reflective, shining with the light of the sky above. This “Song of Moses” very intentionally and clearly points backward (as interpretation) and forward (as prophecy) in the history of God’s covenantal dealing with his people. (As a side-note, I like to define the kind of prophecy found in the Bible as “God’s before-the-fact interpretation,” not just a bare statement of future events.) All Scripture has this backward- and forward-allusive power because it all has one Author, and some passages like this “Song of Moses” seem to be especially powerful in this way.

Yet another reason for doing translation work can be discerned by taking a look at any published English translation of Deut 32.43. The CSB2020, ESV2016, and NIV2011 all have several footnotes on the verse in their standard issue Bibles, not even the study Bibles. (I was downright shocked to find the footnote-happy NET2019 had no notes on this verse!) Without venturing too far into the weeds of text criticism, here I only intend to point out that a knowledge of biblical languages can at the very least make an interpreter cautious about proclaiming too much. Even though I am not a skilled enough text critic to adjudicate all the proposals for the original text, I can see the messiness. As a result, I know what not to do: at this point in my life, I know better than to spend too much time trying to expound the intricacies of a verse that is still partly opaque. It is better, for the purposes of a sermon, to get the gist and move on.

Oh and by the way, Deut 32.1–43 happens to be some of the most difficult Hebrew that I have encountered in the Bible so far. There is a lot of “getting the gist and moving on.” I have studied three semitic languages, but I would be lying if I did not admit that I have relied heavily on my lexica.

I jot down first reactions.

There’s nothing very sophisticated. I just write down what the text seems to mean, how it seems to be structured and flow, how it connects to Christ, what some applications might be.

The Gist

In the case of Deuteronomy 32.1–43, I am noticing that there is a retelling of Israel’s adoption by God. It certainly reflects the near past described in Exodus–Numbers. But it also points back further, even to the creation of the heavens and the earth. For example, in Deut 32.10–11, God finds infant Israel “in a howling wasteland [תהו] of a desert” and protectively “hovers” (ירחף) over Israel as a bird over its chicks, and those two very rare words also occur in Gen 1.2, where the newly created earth is described as a “wasteland” (תהו) and where the Spirit of God “hovers” (מרחפת) in anticipation over the waters yet dark and undivided. The story of Israel’s adoption is also told in a way that prophetically outlines Israel’s future through the exile and an unspecified vindication from exile.

Christocentrism

If one follows the prophetic history, then it’s the end of the song that most clearly points to the coming of Christ. Yet it does so in a way that might induce a churchgoer steeped in happy-go-lucky American evangelicalism to squirm, to say nothing of those who have only ever heard the illusion-crafting of liberal theological traditions. You see, the messianic promise of the serpent-crushing Son of the woman (Gen 3.15) manifests here in the language of God’s self-referential oath to slay his enemies and so avenge the blood of his people (Deut 32.39–43). It’s the theme of this vindicating vengeance that points most directly to Christ.

How so? Fast foward to the final hallelujahs of the book of Revelation. They come in the context of the holy ones rejoicing (Rev 18.20) for the destruction of Babylon who was guilty of the blood of God’s people (18.24; cf. 17.6). Specific mention is made of how God avenges the blood of his servants (19.2), who had cried out to him (6.10). While Christ’s own blood was shed to save his people (1.5; 5.9; 7.14; 12.11), in the end Christ’s robe will be red with the blood of his enemies as he treads them in the winepress of God’s wrath (19.13–16; cf. 14.20; Isa 66.2–3). Christ is the final Judge who vindicates God’s people by meting out justice, by destroying the enemies of God. For this vindication Moses calls the people to give praise to God.

A Few Applications

The applications that initially occur to me—all before looking at a commentary—I usually divide into categories to clarify my thinking. Then later on, those artificial categories usually collapse back on to each other. The categories here are not exhaustive, nor are they static, but they are the ones that arise for me as I think about the end of this “Song of Moses.” They are usually quite generic, and the more time that I have had to work with a sermon, the more I am usually able to bring them into greater specificity, though specificity depends somewhat on the text.

If I have a place to grow as a sermon-writer, it is in specificity of application!

• Our underestanding and confession of the truth about God, God’s Word, ourselves, Christ, salvation, and the Church:
  • God has a plan for all history. Election is going somewhere.
  • God’s discipline and God’s salvation are not mutually exclusive.
  • God’s choice to save is for his own name’s sake (see esp. Deut 32.26–27).
  • Salvation of God’s chosen people comes through judgment of his enemies.
  • Christ is both Savior and Judge. God is righteousness in both judgment and mercy. (And it is worth reminding Christians in the American evangelical context that a proclamation of judgment is appropriate. We are missing a repeated message spanning both Testaments if we try to make the plan of God bloodless.)
  • Rejoicing is a proper response both to salvation and to ultimate judgment. (I say “ultimate” judgment because we live in the age in which that judgment is suspending so that we may work to gather in those who are being saved; we are to take no pleasure in the wicked person’s death as such, for God himself takes no pleasure in it [Ezek 18.23; 33.11].)
  • The christocentricity of Scripture does not mean an articifical allegorizing or “spiritualizing” (as if the OT is not already spiritual) of the text. Often, the OT points to Christ by showing what is missing, what is awaited, what is required to make the whole plan work out in the end. And often, passages point more to one aspect of Christ’s person and work. As noted above, the end of the “Song of Moses” points straightforwardly to what is connected to the consummate coming of Christ in his estate of exaltation (the “second” coming) while his work in the estate of humiliation (the “first” coming) is a gap between law and vindication that remains opaque in the Mosaic period of revelation.
• Our obedience to God’s commands:
  • It is possible for those who claim a connection to the elect people not to be elect themselves. Many who cry to the Lord with their mouth are far from him (e.g., Matt 7.21–22; Luke 6.46; Rom 2.13; Jas 1.22).
  • Salvation by grace is inseparable from a covenantal relationship with God. Even in the covenant of grace we have obligations to obey God.
  • Vengeance belongs to God (Deut 32.35; Rom 12.19; Heb 10.30). And all the more for Christians in the administration of the new covenant, we are not the ones who will dole out punishment to unbelievers. Our mission is, with all the means given to us, to save them from the winepress of God’s wrath while there is still time.
  • Personal gripes, grudges, and vendettas arise from a heart that does not trust in God to be both righteous Judge and merciful Savior. All of these desires for vengeance can be put into perspective as we recall that vengeance belongs to the Lord and that we ourselves should have been the objects of wrath but are to be spared because of Jesus’s death. The avenger has passed us by, so who are we to take vengeance into our own hands? Etc.
• Our reliance on Christ’s obedience and intercession:
  • The demand for loving obedience next to Israel’s failure reveal the need for one who is complete obedient. And Israel’s failure is like our own individual failures. None of us has loved YHWH our God with all our heart or all our soul or all our strength (cf. Deut 6.5). All of us, in our own resources and efforts, are doomed to inherit not the blessings but the curses of the covenant-relationship—those curses being summed up in the first curse theatened, death (Gen 2.17; cf. Deut 30.15).
  • The only way that we can find the mercy and clemency sketched in Deut 32.26–27, the only way that we can avoid being reckoned among those who meet YHWH’s vengeance described in vv. 34–38 and vv. 41–43—the only way is not spelled out in Deut 32. There is a kind of gap in the logic, an empty spot in the painting, a mystery not yet revealed to Moses. The mystery is located in the person and work of Jesus Christ (cf. Rom 16.25; Eph 1.9; Col 1.24–27; 2.1–3). For this reason, it is right to say that “law was given through Moses; grace and truth came to be through Jesus Christ” (John 1.17).
  • Only by a reliance on Christ and his perfect obedience can we bridge the gap between the holy commandment and the blessing that is its reward. (On this doctrinal point, I am pleased to recommend Brandon D. Crowe’s forthcoming Why Did Jesus Live a Perfect Life? [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021].)

I consult the obvious scriptural connections.

One can already see how this step is interconnected with the initial thoughts on connections to Christ in the previous “step.”

I have written before about my doctrine of Scripture, and specifically my views of the christocentricity of all Scripture. The earliest and best “commentaries” you will ever find on Deuteronomy are found in the rest of the Bible. No technical commentary series can hold a candle to the apostles and prophets, let alone Christ. Even if they don’t walk through Deut 32 verse-by-verse as we in post-Renaissance scholarship are accustomed to do, the themes and language of the “Song of Moses” are everywhere.

I anticipate a fair amount of connection to the language of the book of Revelation. That is fitting, too, since this short series of songs associated with Moses will end up in Rev 15.3–4, “the song of Moses the slave of God and the song of the Lamb.”

I consult commentaries, introductions, and monographs.

Up until this point in the list of interpenetrating “steps,” I have used lexica, concordances, cross-reference systems (like those found in the margins of certain Bibles), and confessional materials (e.g., the Apostles’ Creed, the Westminster Standards). But I have not yet made use of standard technical commentaries, the kind that proceed verse-by-verse.

For the sermon on Deut 32.1–43, I am consulting the following commentaries:

• Craigie, Peter C. The Book of Deuteronomy. NICOT. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976. Technical, Evangelical
• Fernando, Ajith. Deuteronomy: Loving Obedience to a Loving God. Preaching the Word. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012. Homiletical, Reformed
• McConville, J. Gordon. Deuteronomy, ApOTC. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002. Technical, Reformed
• Nelson, Richard D. Deuteronomy. OTL. 2002. Repr., Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2004. Technical, Critical
• Tigay, Jeffrey H. Deuteronomy: The Traditional Hebrew Text with The New JPS Translation. The JPS Torah Commentary. Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society, 1996. Technical, Jewish
• Walton, John H., Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000. Background, Evangelical

I plan to draw a bit from other reading, most of which is from my training in seminary:

• Beale, G. K. and D. A. Carson, eds. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007.
• Crowe, Brandon D. The Path of Faith: A Biblical Theology of Covenant and Law. ESBT. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2021.
• Dempster, Stephen G. Dominion and Dynasty: A Theology of the Hebrew Bible. NSBT 15. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004.
• McConville, J. Gordon. Grace in the End: A Study in Deuteronomic Theology. Studies in Old Testament Biblical Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993. This book has helped to orient me to the big picture of Deuteronomy and deuteronomic (in distinction from deuteronomistic) theology.
• Redd, John Scott. “Deuteronomy.” Pages 133–57 in A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the Old Testament: The Gospel Promised. Edited by Miles V. Van Pelt. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016.

I am now trying to create the habit of looking at at least one “pre-critical” commentary or homily or treatise. These resources are becoming more and more available for general audiences, though I happen to have the advantage of four libraries besides my own. For this sermon, I plan to draw from one of the two hundred(!) sermons in

• Calvin, John. The Sermons upon the Fifth Booke of Moses called Deuteronomie: Faithfully Gathered Word for Word as He Preached Them in Open Pulpit; Together with a Preface of the Ministers of the Church of Geneva, and an Admonishment Made by the Deacons There. Also There Are Annexed Two Profitable Tables, the One Containing the Chiefe Matters; the Other the Places of Scripture Herein Alledged. Translated by Arthur Golding. London: Henry Middleton, 1583.

I draft.

I usually write a full draft, and then start over for a second draft, pulling paragraphs from the first draft but generally changing the organization. The third draft is usually a cleaned up and shortened version of the second.

So far, before a first draft, I already decided to rearrange the way that I read the text. My sermon will focus on the last portion of the “Song of Moses”—that is, just Deut 32.36–43. I will read the whole song, but I will intersperse brief bits of summary in between the following chunks of text:

• Verses 1–3
• Verses 4–6
• Verses 7–9
• Verses 10–14
• Verses 15–18
• Verses 19–25
• Verses 26–35

And then the bulk of the sermon will treat the remaining verses. I have never introduced a text in this way. Maybe I am taking too much of a risk as a “guest preacher.” I will likely revise my choice before I deliver the sermon.

May the Lord bless this preparation, and may he prepare for his blessing the hearts of those who will hear.