Bipolar Preaching in the Creation of Sermons
The next pattern is Bipolar preaching. This is a pattern that derives from the work of the 19th century preacher from England named F. W. Robinson. In this method you seek to find truth in the dialectic between two opposing ideas. You don’t try to harmonize them but you create an interplay between them.
This method is almost like the Dialectic method we described before. In the dialectic you take an thesis which is ideal and then a antithesis which is a partial truth that attacks the ideal in some way and then the sermon is a synthesis of the two perspectives. This method might have a synthesis, but you have two partial truths. The ideal emerges from the interplay of these two partial truths.
These two views can be different perspectives in the scripture itself. For example you might take Paul and James understanding of justification by faith and talk about their different perspectives and their different groups that they were writing to and how that effects their presentation. You also might use it to talk about a doctrine. Instead of apparently different perspectives in the scripture itself, you also might look at different interpretations of the doctrine or scripture. For example, one might look at the doctrines of justification and Sanctification from the angle of a Calvanist versus an Arminian.
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