Have you ever left church feeling that the sermon was just a little too up in the clouds? Murray Capill has too. Thankfully, though, he teaches homiletics for a living, and so he has more recourse than most of us. He took a couple of sabbaticals from his professorial post in Geelong, Australia, and penned The Heart Is the Target: Preaching Practical Application from Every Text (P&R Publishing, 2014).
But recognizing that Scripture has work to do in the world is not enough; the preacher must fill his reservoir by thought, information, observation, and personal walking with God. Then he must deliberately preach to the four faculties of the soul: the mind, the conscience, the affections, and the will. Application is for all of these, not just the will. It’s also for all kinds of hearers, and preachers should directly address the unconverted, the doubting, the mature, the guilty, and others, thus...