The C. I. T. of the Text

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The “Heart” of the Passage

At the heart of a paragraph should be one cardinal thought: It is what I (and many other homileticians) call the “central idea of the text” (CIT).
The central idea of the text is channeled through the original purpose or intent of the biblical author. Once the preacher understands that ONE dominat idea, then he can begin to contemporize the central idea by create a thesis statement (how the ancient text relates to the modern listener). The Thesis takes you into the homiletical aspects of the sermon preparation process.

The sermon, as a living word from God to his people, should make its impact on them then and there. They will not remember all the details. We should not expect them to do so. But they should remember the dominant thought, because all the sermon’s details have been marshaled to help them grasp its message and feel its power.

The proposition of the message, derived from a solid CIT and Thesis statement (see chapter 4 of Crossing the Homiletical Bridge) answers the question, What is the sermon about? ... Whether a sermon has two points or ten points, it must have one point, it must be about something (it must propose something).

"The first thing in making a sermon, the sine qua non, is the idea. There can be no sermon that was not first preceded by an idea or a theme."
John Killinger,
Fundamentals of Preaching, 44

I have a conviction that no sermon is ready for preaching, not ready for writing out, until we can express its theme in a short, pregnant sentence as clear as crystal. I find the getting of that sentence is the hardest, the most exacting, and the most fruitful labour in my study.
J. H. Jowett,
The Preacher: His Life and World, 133

Haddon Robinson says ideally each sermon is the explanation, interpretation, or application of a single dominant idea (C. I. T) supported by other ideas, all drawn from one passage or several passages of Scripture. He notes that sermons fail because:

a. They have too many ideas; but more often they deal with unrelated ideas.
b. Preachers may conceive of sermons as a collection of points that have little relationship to each other.
c. Fragmentation; little more than scattered comments based on words and phrases from a passage.

Get to the heart of the passage first and foremost, then all else will become quite easy.