What Is Lectio Continua? How to Preach Through a Book of the Bible

Lectio continua, Latin for "continuous reading," is preaching through a book of the Bible passage by passage, in order, week after week. Next Sunday's text is simply the passage that follows this Sunday's. It is the name for what pastors mean when they say they are "preaching through Romans" or "working through Mark." Below is where the term comes from, why the practice serves a congregation, its limits and the fair alternatives, and a plan for your next series.

What does lectio continua mean?

Lectio means reading and continua means continuous. The term describes how sermon texts are chosen: the book sets the order, and the preacher takes the next unit each week. Its usual counterpart is lectio selecta, "selected reading," where the preacher or a lectionary chooses a passage for each Sunday.

Lectio continua is related to expository preaching, but the two are not the same. Expository preaching describes how a sermon handles its text: the main point of the passage becomes the main point of the sermon. Lectio continua describes the sequence. A sermon in a book series can still wander away from its text, and a sermon on a passage chosen for a special Sunday can be thoroughly expository. A pastor who preaches through a book is usually trying to do both.

Where does the practice come from?

Working through whole books is older than the Reformation. Among the church fathers, John Chrysostom's ninety homilies on the Gospel of Matthew and Augustine's 124 tractates on the Gospel of John move through those books passage by passage.

The church also developed lectionaries: schedules that assign particular readings to each Sunday and festival, following the church year. The Consultation on Common Texts, which maintains the Revised Common Lectionary, notes that lectionaries were already in use in the fourth century.

When Huldrych Zwingli began preaching at the Grossmünster in Zurich in 1519, he did something unusual for his setting. Instead of basing his sermons on the customary appointed readings, he expounded whole books of the Bible continuously, according to the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland. Philip Schaff's history records that he started with Matthew, moved on to Acts and the Epistles, and in about four years had preached through the New Testament except Revelation. Schaff adds that Zwingli probably used Chrysostom's homilies on Matthew for that first series, a direct line from the early church to the Reformation pulpit.

The Westminster Assembly applied the same principle to the public reading of Scripture. Its Directory for the Publick Worship of God (1645) asks that all the canonical books be read over in order, "that the people may be better acquainted with the whole body of the scriptures," and that the reading ordinarily resume the next Lord's Day where it ended. That provision concerns reading rather than the choice of sermon texts, but its reasoning carries over to the pulpit.

Why does preaching through a book serve a congregation?

It aims at the whole counsel of God

Paul told the Ephesian elders, "I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27, ESV). The Westminster Larger Catechism uses that language for the minister's task: he is to preach "faithfully, making known the whole counsel of God" (WLC Q. 159). No method guarantees faithfulness, but working through books over the years is one ordinary way to keep the whole Bible before the people, not only the passages a preacher would pick.

Hard texts are not skipped

In a book series, the text chooses the topic. Genealogies, imprecatory psalms, warnings against falling away, and passages on money, anger or church discipline all arrive in their turn. You have to preach them, and the congregation knows you did not choose them to aim at someone. When a passage about conflict in the church comes up the month after a dispute, everyone knows it came up because it was next.

The people learn to read the Bible in context

Week by week, the congregation sees each passage inside the argument or story of its book. They learn how Paul builds a letter, how a narrative turns, how a prophet's oracles fit together, and they can read ahead. A small group or Sunday School class can study the passage the church heard on Sunday, which is the idea behind sermon-based small group questions.

It guards the preacher

A series keeps you from circling back to favorite themes, and it settles the weekly question of what to preach. Study can begin early in the week with a known text.

What are its limits, and what are the alternatives?

Lectio continua has real weaknesses, and pastors who practice it should name them:

• Long series can lose people. Two years in one letter, preached in small units, can blur the book's argument instead of clarifying it.
• Visitors arrive in the middle. Someone who comes for the first time in week thirty needs a sermon that stands on its own.
• Pastoral needs do not wait. A death in the congregation, a public crisis or a season of conflict may call for a particular text.
• Not every book is a continuous argument. Proverbs and the Psalms are collections, and many preachers select or group them by theme.
• Proportion can suffer. A pastor who always preaches New Testament letters may go years without the prophets or the Old Testament narratives.

Each alternative has strengths of its own:

• Lectio selecta. The preacher chooses a passage for a particular Sunday, need or occasion, and can answer what the congregation is facing that week.
• Topical or doctrinal series. A series on the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer or a catechism gathers what the whole Bible teaches on one subject. The Heidelberg Catechism was divided into fifty-two Lord's Days in 1563 precisely so that one could be explained in an afternoon service each Sunday of the year.
• The lectionary and the church year. Churches that follow a lectionary read appointed passages tied to the Christian year, which gives whole churches a common pattern of proclamation. The Revised Common Lectionary runs in a three-year cycle, with a year each for Matthew, Mark and Luke. It reads those Gospels semicontinuously and offers a semicontinuous Old Testament track for the Sundays after Pentecost, so continuity matters there too.

For many Reformed pastors, lectio continua is the ordinary diet and the other approaches are occasional. That is a pastoral judgment about what usually serves a congregation best, not a command of Scripture.

How do you plan a series through a book?

1. Choose the book

Ask what the congregation needs, what you have preached in recent years and what is missing: Old Testament and New, narrative and letter, Gospel and prophet. For a first series, a shorter book such as Ruth, Jonah, Philippians or 1 Peter lets you and the church learn the rhythm before you take on Genesis or Romans.

2. Divide it into preaching units

Read the whole book in one sitting, several times. Outline it from its own structure, not from the chapter breaks, which are not part of the original text. A preaching unit is a passage with one main idea: in narrative, usually a whole episode; in a letter, often a paragraph. Write one sentence for each unit's main point. If two units say the same thing, merge them. If one unit holds two ideas, split it.

3. Set the length, and preach long books in parts

The number of units sets the length, but the congregation's attention matters too. Long books are easier to follow in parts: Genesis as the early chapters, then Abraham, Jacob and Joseph; Romans as chapters 1 to 8, 9 to 11 and 12 to 16; Mark in two halves. Between parts, a short series from another genre gives the church a change of diet, and each new part gives newcomers a natural place to begin.

4. Keep momentum

• Open each sermon by locating the passage in the book: where you have been and where this text sits.
• Restate the book's purpose regularly, so the series has a direction.
• Show how each passage, in its place in the history of redemption, points to Christ, so the series moves toward him instead of repeating itself.
• Keep units a reasonable size. Lingering on one verse for weeks is sometimes right, but it should be the text's decision, not a habit.
• Publish the schedule so people can read the next passage at home.

5. Plan the pauses

Before the series begins, put every unit on a calendar and mark the Sundays that will interrupt it: Christmas and Easter if your church observes them, baptisms, ordinations, guest preachers and your own vacation. Leave a buffer Sunday or two for the unexpected. After a pause, pick up with the next passage and a short recap.

6. Prepare the congregation

• Announce the series a few weeks ahead and ask people to read the whole book before it starts.
• Preach or teach an introduction to the book: author, setting, purpose and structure.
• Give out a one-page outline or reading plan.
• Align small groups and Sunday School with the sermon text, so the church studies one passage together each week.

What to do this week

• Choose the book for your next series and read it through twice, in one sitting each time.
• Sketch its structure and mark provisional preaching units, with one sentence for each main idea.
• Put the units on the calendar, decide where a long book divides into parts, and mark the Sundays that will interrupt it.
• Tell your elders what you plan and why.

Once the series is mapped, your weekly preparation can settle into a steady rhythm, like the one described in How Long Does It Take to Write a Sermon?

If you want help with the planning, the sermon preparation workspace in Hokmah Expositor plans a series of four to twelve messages with theological unity and Christological progression. You review and develop each sermon's structure, and for each sermon it can generate a small group guide and a Sunday School Bible study aligned with it. The developed sermons can later be gathered into a series e-book. For a long book, plan each part as its own series. What it drafts is material for you to examine; the choice of book and the preaching stay with you.

Sources

• Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 159, Orthodox Presbyterian Church, online edition: opc.org/lc.html
• Christian Moser, "Zwingli, Huldrych," Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (Historical Dictionary of Switzerland), version of 2012, revised 4 March 2014, in German: hls-dhs-dss.ch
• Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume VIII: Modern Christianity, The Swiss Reformation, section 11, Christian Classics Ethereal Library: ccel.org
• John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 10 (1888), New Advent: newadvent.org/fathers/2001.htm
• Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 7 (1888), New Advent: newadvent.org/fathers/1701.htm
• A Directory for the Publique Worship of God, "Of Publick Reading of the Holy Scriptures," 1651 printing, Internet Archive: archive.org/details/directoryfo00west
• The same section of the Directory (1645), transcription, Ligon Duncan: ligonduncan.com
• Heidelberg Catechism, introduction, Christian Reformed Church in North America: crcna.org
• The Revised Common Lectionary, Consultation on Common Texts: commontexts.org/rcl
• Introduction to the Revised Common Lectionary, Consultation on Common Texts (PDF): commontexts.org