You’ve been there. You’re mapping out next year’s preaching calendar, you know you should spend more time in the Old Testament, and then the hesitation hits. Not quite fear. More like, “Where would I even start with this?”
That pause is incredibly common. Most pastors feel confident in the New Testament. Christian living, the Gospels, Paul’s letters. Familiar ground. But when it comes to generating old testament sermon series ideas, there’s a real confidence gap. The material feels foreign, the stories are layered, and the theological questions multiply before you even get to the sermon outline.
Here’s what’s easy to miss, though: your congregation doesn’t know the Old Testament well enough to catch your stumbles. They’re opening their Bibles to that crunchy part that still has the gold lining on the edges. Even straightforward observations from the text land with real weight because the material is so unfamiliar to them.
That unfamiliarity is a gift, not a threat. And “get a few percent better each year” is a far more honest goal than “master the Hebrew Scriptures by fall.”
The Real Challenges of Preaching the Old Testament
Nobody benefits from pretending old testament preaching is easy. It’s not. But naming the obstacles clearly is the first step toward working through them. There are at least three that trip pastors up.
Theological Challenges
Which Old Testament commands still apply to the church today? When God tells Jeremiah, “I know the plans I have for you” (Jeremiah 29:11), is that a promise you can hand your congregation on a Sunday morning? What about moments where God seems to act differently than in the New Testament, like the Spirit “rushing upon” people rather than permanently indwelling them? Or Rahab’s deception being treated positively when Scripture forbids false witness?
These questions don’t have tidy answers. That’s part of what makes them worth preaching through. A congregation needs to see a pastor who wrestles with the hard parts of Scripture, not one who quietly skips to Romans.
Cultural Challenges
The world of the Old Testament is foreign territory. Slavery, concubines, violent conquest, idolatry as literal image-making. None of this shows up in your average Tuesday.
The skill is in bridging the gap without flattening it. The underlying heart issues — idolatry, injustice, the abuse of power — haven’t changed, even if the expression looks wildly different in the 21st century. When Exodus 32 describes Israel melting gold to make a calf, the modern equivalent isn’t a golden statue in someone’s living room. It’s whatever a person trusts more than God for security, identity, or meaning. That’s the move from a pulpit: name the ancient practice, then surface the version sitting in the room.
And some passages are just going to be hard. When Samuel hacks Agag to pieces in 1 Samuel 15, there is no cozy way to land that illustration. That’s fine. Developing the pastoral muscle to navigate genuinely difficult texts is part of the calling.
The “Why Bother?” Challenge
Someone in the congregation will eventually ask why the church should spend weeks in the Old Testament when Christians are under the new covenant.
The short answer: the first church’s Bible was the Old Testament. When Paul told Timothy that “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16), he was talking about the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus himself said he came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). Much of the New Testament, especially Revelation, becomes nearly incomprehensible without Old Testament literacy. And there’s a bonus: wrestling with difficult OT material builds real credibility with the skeptics sitting in the back row. They can tell when a pastor doesn’t flinch.
Dynamics Every Preacher Needs to Understand
Understanding the Old Testament goes beyond knowing the stories. There are structural and literary dynamics baked into these texts that, once they click, change how you preach old testament sermons entirely.
Non-Linear and Chiastic Structures
Pastors who’ve spent years in Paul’s letters are trained on a linear structure: greeting, theological argument, “therefore,” application. The Old Testament doesn’t work that way.
Many OT books use chiastic structures. Think of it like a sandwich: the most important content is in the middle rather than building toward the end. In Judges, for example, the central story (Jephthah) sits at the heart of the book, not at the climax. Reading for a crescendo at the finish means missing the author’s actual emphasis. Resources like the Bible Project can help surface these patterns visually, whether you’re encountering these structures for the first time or just need a refresher. Once you start spotting them, they show up everywhere, and they unlock meaning that’s completely invisible in a straight-line read.
Intertextual Connections Across Books
Old Testament authors deliberately echo earlier books. This is one of the dynamics that rewards patience, because these connections only emerge after years of living in the broader narrative.
Consider the end of 2 Samuel. It mirrors the book of Judges: concubines, left-handed violence, a man with long hair setting fires, rape. The author is making a devastating theological point. The king was supposed to fix everything. Israel got the man after God’s own heart, and it still stinks. Everyone is still doing what’s right in their own eyes.
That kind of payoff only happens when a church has been immersed in the OT story over time. And when a pastor surfaces it for the congregation, it’s electric.
Preaching Christ from the Old Testament (Without Forcing It)
Over the past two decades, voices like Tim Keller and D.A. Carson have helped a generation of preachers see all of Scripture pointing to Jesus. That’s a genuine gift to the church.
But it can be overdone.
David and Goliath maps cleanly to Christ fighting on behalf of his people. The end of Judges? Not so much. Cramming Jesus into that text feels forced. It becomes an awkward, shoehorned pivot that the text doesn’t actually support. Some call it a “Jesus juke.” Whatever you call it, the congregation can feel it.
A better approach to preaching christ from the old testament: let the failure and disappointment of the text do its own work. Let it point to the need for Jesus rather than artificially inserting him. Not every old testament sermon needs a crescendo into a gospel presentation, but every sermon should connect to the larger story, whether through themes of salvation, the character of God, or the picture of what life looks like apart from him.
Some churches have even adjusted their liturgy during OT series, moving communion before the sermon because not every Old Testament text ends on a high note. Some old testament sermons end in disappointment. That’s theologically appropriate, and it’s okay to let the congregation sit in it.
This article is drawn from a conversation on the Preaching Through Podcast. Listen to the full episode for more on navigating Old Testament texts.
Old Testament Sermon Series Ideas to Get You Started
Enough theory. Here are specific old testament sermon series ideas organized by length, so whether there are four open weeks or forty, there’s something worth putting on the calendar.
Short Series (3-5 Weeks)
For a first old testament sermon series, starting small is wise. These books are manageable, familiar enough to give a congregation a foothold, and rich enough to reward careful study.
- Jonah. A chapter per week. Mission, compassion, God’s heart for enemies. Four weeks, clean structure, a story everybody recognizes but almost nobody has really studied.
- Ruth. Redemption in the middle of Judges-era chaos. Beautiful narrative, natural bridge to the gospel.
- Psalm 23. A deep dive on a familiar psalm. Most people think they know this one. They don’t.
- Isaiah 40. God’s comfort. Two to three weeks of some of the most powerful poetry in all of Scripture.
- The Joseph Story (Genesis 37-50). Providence, suffering, forgiveness. Cinematic storytelling carrying profound theological weight.
Mid-Range Series (8-12 Weeks)
Once some confidence is built, there’s room to stretch.
- Genesis 1-11 (topical approach). Science, human dignity, work, rest, gender, sexuality, evil, suffering, judgment, diversity, purpose. Justin Anderson’s Confronting Jesus framework is one way to structure it, pairing each topic with apologetics resources like Rebecca McLaughlin’s work and addressing the questions people in the seats are already asking.
- Isaiah 40-55. The servant songs and comfort poetry. Dense, beautiful, and pointing to Christ in ways that don’t require forcing the connection.
- Daniel 1-6. Exile and faithfulness in a hostile culture. Stop before the apocalyptic material in chapters 7-12. Six chapters, six stories, and extremely relevant to the cultural moment most churches find themselves in right now.
Longer Series (15+ Weeks)
For the deep end:
- Genesis. The whole book. It’s a commitment, but a congregation that spends serious time here will understand the rest of the Bible differently on the other side.
- Exodus. With flexibility on how deeply to treat sections like the tabernacle instructions or the Ten Commandments.
Topical Approaches: Summer Psalms and Proverbs
Summer is a natural window to experiment.
- Summer Psalms. Select five to seven psalms across genres: worship, lament, even imprecatory. Give the congregation the full emotional range of the psalter. Lament psalms in particular give a congregation emotional and theological tools to endure hard seasons, the kind most churches have been navigating for several years now.
- Proverbs. Either Proverbs 1-9 as a unit, or a thematic series covering the tongue, money, and relationships.
Worth knowing: Psalms and Proverbs have an unusually low barrier to entry for people who aren’t yet Christians. “Ancient wisdom” has real cultural appeal, and the Psalms speak directly to pain. If you preach to people in pain, you’ll always have an audience. These books work as a front door, meeting people where they actually are and drawing them deeper into the rest of Scripture.
Practical Tips for Your Preaching Calendar
Knowing how to preach the old testament is one thing. Actually doing it with any consistency is another. That’s where a preaching calendar earns its keep. “Calendar” might mean a spreadsheet, a planning app, or a conversation with one other leader. The format matters less than the intention.
A calendar makes it possible to plan a sustainable rhythm: a short Old Testament series after a long New Testament run. It allows building on previous work. (The 2 Samuel/Judges connection above? That kind of intertextual payoff only happens when a church has preached through Judges years earlier.) And it removes the pressure of mastering everything at once. Incremental growth beats heroic ambition every time.
The plan isn’t the power. The Spirit is. But God has a long track record of working through preparation, through faithfulness, and through pastors willing to open their Bibles to the parts that make them nervous.
“For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The weight of old testament preaching doesn’t rest on the pastor. It rests on the God who delights to save people through faithful, imperfect proclamation. Pick a book. Put it on the calendar. Start before you feel ready. Your congregation doesn’t need a perfect Old Testament scholar. They need a pastor willing to open the whole Bible and trust that God will show up in the text. He always does.
Looking for help with the week-to-week work of sermon preparation? Start here: How to Prepare a Sermon.
