In this engaging interview, professor Matthew D. Kim and SOLA Network editorial curator Aaron Lee discuss “The Big Idea Companion for Preaching and Teaching,” a book edited by Kim and Scott Gibson. The book serves pastors as a guide to approach different biblical passages by identifying the central “big idea” that shapes the sermon’s message. Kim explains that the big idea represents the main thrust of the biblical text, allowing listeners to take home a clear and applicable message.
Listen in on their interview as they talk about:
- How the book compilation process involved collaborating with contributors who understood the big idea philosophy deeply
- How the book is structured
- How preachers should use the book to prepare for sermons
You can watch the video here, on our YouTube page, or via our podcast.
Editor’s Note: Below is a lightly edited automated transcript of their conversation. There may be typos or grammatical errors.
Aaron Lee: Hi, everyone, this is Aaron for SOLA Network. And we’re here with Matthew Kim. You’re the editor of this book called The Big Idea Companion for Preaching and Teaching (Read Aaron’s review here). Can you explain what this book is? And maybe by way of introduction, you can actually explain what a “big idea” is.
Matthew D. Kim: Sure, yeah. Thanks, Aaron for having me on. I want to talk to you about the book The Big Idea Companion for Preaching and Teaching. And the subtitle is A Guide from Genesis to Revelation. And this is a book that I co-edited with my friend and colleague and mentor, Scott Gibson, and Dr. Gibson teaches here at Truett with me. And the book is really a resource that helps pastors think about different passages of Scripture.
So it is a beast of a book, it’s over 600 pages. And even still, we’re not able to cover every single passage of Scripture, but we do get to many of them. And some books have all of the chapters discussed and some don’t. And so there is a little bit. Basically, if we tried to do the whole Bible, it would have been like 1200 pages easily. So we couldn’t get to every single passage.
The big idea is really the main idea, that biblical text that drives the sermon, and it really shapes the sermon. So we’re trying to get the main idea, the main thrust of what the author is talking about, the biblical and divine authors. And then summarizing that for a preaching sentence that can really help the listener, take something home with them. And so you’re taking the main idea of the text, and then you’re helping the listeners apply it or think about it in a more modern way, so that they can go home and say, hey, the pastor was talking about this today. And you would say this is the big idea, which is the main homiletic or preaching idea.
Aaron Lee: The thing about it is that it is really boiling it down to one sentence. What is the history of that? Because not every preacher does that. When did you get introduced to this concept of a big idea?
Matthew D. Kim: Yeah. Yeah. Good question. I don’t know the original person who came up with it. So there was a preaching scholar by the name of ah, Grady Davis. And his book designed for preaching basically gave the idea of a seminal idea, a concrete idea. And later Hadden Robinson used that to create the big idea, philosophy, right? He’s not the only one. Brian Chappell talks about that, in his book, Tim Keller talks about having a main idea, that really is the thing that you’re trying to get your listeners to think about and apply in their lives.
So for me, I got introduced to that through going to Gordon Conwell seminary, and having Dr. Robinson as my professor, and as well as Dr. Scott Gibson. So those are the two people who really influenced me to think about just being clear. The whole point of big idea preaching is to be clear. It’s not a formula. It’s not a magic formula that you’re trying to get at every single week. Really, you’re just trying to make sure that the listeners have something tangible to hold on to, as they’re leaving the worship service.
Aaron Lee: Right. So you’re the editor of this book. And there’s various contributors to the different books in the Bible. What was the process like for that, to compile it all?
Matthew D. Kim: I can’t remember exactly how many months we spent on this. But what I was doing was I was trying to look for people who were either students of Dr. Robinson, or students of Dr. Gibson, and some of my former students, and people who are influenced by the big idea philosophy, whether they’re part of Dallas Seminary, or places that are… Denver Seminary… places where they’re basically, if we can call them disciples of Haddon Robinson. People who understood the philosophy, so some of them are friends, some of them are people that I’ve known over the years.
And basically, I just went out and solicited people that I knew, and asked them if they would contribute. And so the process was that, obviously, there’s 66 books of the Bible. And I gave them a choice, you know, which ones would you prefer to work on. And most of them are either teaching in a seminary or pastors who went on to teach at a seminary. So you have a mixture of pastors in the local church, as well as seminary profs who teach preaching. And basically I just said, Here are the options, which ones would you like? I gave them a range of options, and then they just chose whatever they wanted to work on.
Aaron Lee: What does it look like when you’re looking at everybody’s big ideas? I mean, is that a headache? Was there cohesiveness? Was there agreement?
Matthew D. Kim: Well, it was not easy. You know, any kind of academic or writing… editing requires what they call herding cats, basically, out there, and you need to bring them in. So some people were really good about turning it in on time, and others needed more time for various reasons.
But what we did, what Dr. Gibson and I did, was we combed through, and we obviously read through every single page, every chapter of the material that was brought in, and if there were any times where we wondered about, you know, could this big idea process be changed, or the book doesn’t just include passages of Scripture, we actually start out by having the writer give us the big idea of the book they’re working on, and then they give a brief commentary of how do you actually preach this. And so, ideas and for themes and sermon series and sermon topics, they are brought out as well.
We see it as a preaching resource that can really help pastors, thinking about, are there any new ways of preaching this book? Are there any things that we’ve I haven’t thought about, that I might be able to include? And so there are a number of different ways to use the book. And we hope that it will be helpful as a resource.
Aaron Lee: Yeah, this book, it’s an older book, but it got my attention at the right time. And when I realized that you were the editor of it, it would seem like a no brainer, and I got to talk to you about this. I recently started preaching. And I don’t know if the last time we talked if I was preaching at all. I was mainly teaching Sunday school, but I’ve been preaching consistently now. And this book has been invaluable for me.
But one question that I had for you is should our big ideas be the same? Do they need to be the same? Why don’t I just scratch mine and just use what yours is? Or what the book has? Can you speak to that? Because that’s sometimes an issue that beginning teachers like me would have. How would you help me with that?
Matthew D. Kim: Let me rephrase in the introduction, and I set out by saying, we’re not all going to agree.
Aaron Lee: You did say that, you did.
Matthew D. Kim: There’s a way to handle the text properly. And if we’ve been trained in a particular tradition, you’re looking for: what is the author talking about? That’s the real subject question that we’re looking for. And then also, what is the author saying about that? Which is a compliment answer. So for example, I tell the students all the time, only God knows if you got your main idea right.
Because only God knows whether the human author and the divine author came together and what they really meant by it. I mean, we’re looking at it over 2000, sometimes many more, 1000 years later. So one other way to look at it is we can do an arm wrestling contest. And we can figure out here’s mine, and here’s yours, you know, who’s going to win.
But that’s not the point. The point is really prayerfully and maybe even consulting with others and thinking through: is this the right interpretation? And if it’s not, how can I make it sharper? So we think that this book is not obviously something that you would plagiarize or say, here’s the idea from whoever you’re talking about.
Rather, we’re encouraging pastors, and saying do your homework. And if you feel stuck, or if you think this book in that particular passage would help you really narrow down the focus, get it as concrete as possible. So we’re not advocating by any means to take shortcuts or use this as a cheat sheet. It is really about helping the preacher think through. Are there some things that I haven’t considered? And if there are, maybe I can look at this resource that way?
Aaron Lee: Yeah, that’s true. In the book, you said that everybody should do their own Bible study. This is not a shortcut. Definitely do your own hermeneutic and exegesis to get your own Bible study down. I did want to ask you a follow up question to that.
What’s the best way for preachers to use this book? If I have a passage, if I have a text in front of me, should I consult the big idea first or The Big Idea Companion first? How much time do you think I should give the text before I consult? What would you say?
Matthew D. Kim: Yeah, good question. I would say that what might help is to read that section on: How do you select a passage and divide it up? That might be helpful to get some ideas going, especially if they’re familiar books. I think the contributors do a nice job of giving you the layout of… here’s some things that have been done. Here’s some things to consider.
Once you’ve done your homework, if you’ve been trained in the languages… use them. If you haven’t been, then look at multiple translations of the English or whatever language is familiar to you. And then I would say, do your homework, do the best, you can pray about it, write something down. And then after you’ve consulted it, maybe even talk to your pastoral staff. If you’re on a preaching team, there are many different resources that we do have.
And then I would say, later on in the week, maybe like, Tuesday, Wednesday, if it’s a good time for you to just check in to say, hey, I want to see what maybe Scott from Denver Seminary thought about that book, or Mary Horst, who teaches at Calvin, you know, what did they think about that text? And then there’s something to bounce your ideas off of.
Aaron Lee: I want to end this on an encouraging note. Maybe there’s some preachers and they’re tired. And maybe they haven’t been able to put in the amount of time or the amount of work. How can this book help them? And how would you encourage them to find the time to do the proper study? And to really get that preaching fire back and sticking to the text?
Matthew D. Kim: Yeah, well, you know, for me, I’ve been watching what’s been going on in preaching in the last several years. But in the last decade or so, there’s been a real movement toward preaching psychology and culture, and telling good stories, and being a humorist and being a comedian and keeping people entertained. And that, I believe, has been a real detriment to many pulpits. And we haven’t taken the time to elevate the text.
If we say we have a high view of Scripture, then what the author in the biblical world was talking about, and why they wrote it, that should be essential, including, of course, Jesus Christ, and the triune God. So for us, as preachers, we don’t want to make ourselves the hero of the story, or make the sermon all about us in our church.
We want to make sure that the text is grappled with, and so that whatever resources we can use, we want to be able to see what the Bible really intended. And as you know, Aaron, the Bible is sufficient. Right? It’s sufficient for 2000 years later, and it’s going to be sufficient for another 2000 years if Jesus hasn’t come back. So I would say to return to the authority of Scripture.
Haddon Robinson used to say that we are to submit our thoughts to the scriptures, not having this scripture submit to us and what we think. And I think the more we can just spend time with the text… I know people are busy. There are a lot of bi-vocational pastors out there. And there are pastors who are preaching, like yourself, you’re a preacher. And so time is limited, I get that. But at the same time, we want to do the best we can so that the more we interact with the text, the more it’s going to get soaked into us.
That’s the process. So that we’re not just preaching a text that we glossed over, or looked at a little bit. But we were really seeing how the scripture was speaking to us. And then how did we apply it? And then Haddon Robinson’s classic definition that preaching is about us applying it first. And then from us, we try to apply it for the listener. So there’s this constant, going back to the text that I think is being lost in a lot of churches. And I’m hoping and Dr. Gibson is hoping that we’ll get back into the Bible and ask that question: What does the Bible say?
Aaron Lee: So good. I can’t think of a better way to end that. Thank you so much. Matthew Kim, everybody. And the book is The Big Idea Companion for Preaching and Teaching. My review is up on the SOLA Network. I’ve been using it for every sermon, and I plan to keep using it as well. Thank you so much for the resource. And thank you for your time again.
Matthew D. Kim: Thanks, Aaron. It’s great to be with you. And I just want to say a quick word to preachers that it is not easy. It is a slog sometimes but God is going to use you as you faithfully serve Him. So thank you for your service to the kingdom.