How to Preach the Lectionary: A Pastor’s Guide

Many churches are discovering the practice of reading from a lectionary. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, and Anglican churches have historically used formal lectionaries, but the practice is growing in other Protestant church bodies.

I’d like to help you make the most of the lectionary by understanding what it is, how it works, and how you can use it in your church today, particularly by helping ministers preach the lectionary.

What is a lectionary?

In its essence, a lectionary is an orderly arrangement of readings from Holy Scripture, mainly intended for public worship services. There have been a variety of lectionaries throughout church history. Lectionaries can be a basic consecutive reading plan, or they can be arranged according to theological or liturgical themes. Some are daily lectionaries, while others are based around Sundays and other holidays throughout the year. Many lectionaries today are arranged for a three-year cycle. Older lectionaries were annual. There are even Psalter readings that repeat monthly.

For some Christians, the choice of lectionary is decided at the ecclesiastical level. Others will make the choice individually. In every case, the goal of the lectionary should be to read, understand, and apply the Scriptures in the life of faith.

A brief history of lectionaries

The world in which the Christian church emerged already had some fixed times for corporate prayer (Acts 3:1) and a rudimentary liturgical reading pattern (Acts 13:15; 15:21).¹ While there is no evidence for any precise Christian liturgy in the first century, we do see both services for daily prayers and formal eucharistic celebrations by the fourth.² There were seasonal lectionaries by this time.³ Complete annual lectionaries can be dated shortly afterward to around the fifth century.⁴

The Roman lectionary eventually became the standard lectionary for Western Christendom. This held constant until the twentieth century. Today, the lectionary with the widest use is the Revised Common Lectionary, which is itself based upon the Roman Catholic lectionary produced in conjunction with the Second Vatican Council.

While many readers might assume that the lectionary is therefore a Roman Catholic artifact, both the Lutheran and Anglican churches retained the historic lectionary. For example, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer combined the yearly Communion service readings with a new daily lectionary. Mostly the product of Thomas Cranmer, the Book of Common Prayer’s daily lectionary reintroduced consecutive canonical readings along with a psalm-reading cycle that completed the entire Psalter every month.

Those Reformed churches more closely aligned with the Swiss Reformation tended to discard the use of formal lectionaries, opting instead to read through the Bible in a consecutive fashion (lectio continua). The Westminster Directory for Public Worship represents the climax of this movement, recommending the practice of consecutive readings of Scripture as the only acceptable Sunday practice. This expression of the Reformed churches tended to only make recommendations for Sundays, with the practice of daily readings left to the individual reader’s discretion.

Over time, a great deal of diversity arose, even among churches that use lectionaries. Today, it is not uncommon for churches within the same denomination to use different lectionaries or none at all. On the other hand, many of those post-Westminsterian churches are now using lectionaries.

How to understand your lectionary

In order to preach from the lectionary, you should understand how it works on its own terms.

There are daily lectionaries and Communion lectionaries, meant for Sundays and other holidays. While the Sunday (and other holiday) readings can certainly stand on their own, they are, in fact, arranged as components of a larger annual (or triennial) cycle. Even if not laid out in a canonically consecutive series, the readings usually do stand in some relation to the readings from the week before and the week to come. Learning what your lectionary is trying to accomplish throughout the year will help you know how to use it from week to week.

Learning what your lectionary is trying to accomplish throughout the year will help you know how to use it week to week.

The one-year lectionary

The historic one-year Communion lectionary is characterized by its simplicity. It has two halves, the incarnation cycle, running from Advent until Pentecost, and then Trinitytide, running from Trinity Sunday until the end of the church year. The incarnation “half” is itself split up according to the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter. These various seasons nonetheless relate to one another as they explain the humiliation and exaltation of Christ, teaching about both his person and work. Trinitytide moves to the work of God, the whole Trinity, in the life of his people, the church.

In this lectionary, each Sunday (or other holiday) offers one Epistle and one Gospel reading, held together by the theme of the liturgical season and also the ideals mentioned in the Collect of the Day. (A collect is a short prayer that is intended to bring together various thoughts and petitions.) The Collect of the Day is almost always based upon the theme of the liturgical season, and its major ideas are usually reflected in the Scripture readings which are joined to it. Often the Epistle contains the theological or moral lesson, and the Gospel shows how Christ fulfills the various relevant themes in his person and ministry. While first-time readers may not immediately perceive the unity, the controlling logic can usually be discovered.

For one example, consider the First Sunday after Epiphany. Epiphany is a season focused on the true manifestation of Jesus, his divine nature and full identity. The theme of the First Sunday after Epiphany is “service,” and this is meant in two ways:

1. our worship of God, and
2. our humble love for our neighbor.

Put even more simply, this service is the duty we owe to God and the duty we owe to our fellow man.

We can demonstrate this in the following way. The Collect of the Day, going back well into the Middle Ages, says:

O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee, and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The collect mentions “the prayers of thy people” and Christian duty, “what things they ought to do.” The readings are from Romans 12:1–5 and Luke 2:41–52. The Epistle reading emphasizes “a living sacrifice” and “reasonable service.” In other words, spiritual worship. The Gospel tells the story of the young Jesus in the temple. Surprising the doctors by his knowledge and his parents by his lingering behind, he declares, “I must be about my Father’s business.” We see, then, an emphasis on service to God.

Additionally, the Epistle reading teaches about humility, that a man must not “think of himself more highly than he ought to think.” The Gospel too has this lesson, as the divine Christ nevertheless returns home and “was subject unto” his earthly parents. A second theme, then, becomes evident. Following our service to God, we must also serve our fellow man, beginning with a humble desire to serve our neighbor and especially to respect those set in authority over us. Both of these themes relate to the season itself. As Epiphany reveals Christ’s glory, Christ also reveals the true worship of God and the ultimate example of humiliation in the exercise of divine love.

Finding the unity might be easier for some weeks than others, but it can almost always be done by starting with the concepts mentioned in the Collect for the Day and then identifying them in the biblical readings. From there, a reflection on the overarching theme of the season will add further detail and clarity.

As a brief summary, the themes of the seasons within the first half of the year are these:

• Advent remembers the first coming of the Messiah and looks forward to his second.
• Christmas commemorates the incarnation of God and the Messiah’s inheritance of the covenantal promises.
• Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of Christ’s full identity as well as the expansion of the kingdom of God to the gentiles.
• Lent is a season of mortification of the flesh in preparation for Easter.
• Easter, which should be understood as including Holy Week, focuses on the death and resurrection of the Messiah, along with his subsequent ascension to heaven and giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, all of which are the completion of his work and the equipment of his people for salvation and victory.

The two major criticisms of the historic one-year lectionary are its lack of Old Testament readings and the fact that a one-year cycle entails that only these texts are read each year. The first criticism can be mitigated by adding the daily office readings to the Sunday observance. In fact, the older Book of Common Prayer did exactly this, assigning Sunday “propers” to match the biblical readings at the Communion service. The Psalter, too, would be read on Sunday, and some major feast days were given proper psalms. Whether a single-year cycle is a strength or weakness is a matter of some debate.

Three-year lectionaries

In the twentieth century, new lectionaries were composed, largely out of a desire to expand the amount of Scripture that would be read in church. The Communion service also absorbed the Old Testament and Psalm readings, which had previously been a part of a separate service. This created one larger service with a greater variety of biblical texts. Typically, these lectionaries have an Old Testament reading, a psalm, a selection from the New Testament Epistles, and a portion from the Gospels. In order to include each of these in a single service, the length of each is shortened. These lectionaries also mostly adopt a three-year model. This means that books read in “Year A” are usually not read in “Year B” or “Year C.” This again allows for a greater variety of Scripture to be read in the public gatherings of the church, but it also creates complexity. Some liturgical books have retained the older collects which would have gone along with the biblical readings, but these no longer match the texts and so should usually not be used as thematic summaries.

While there are a variety of modern three-year lectionaries, the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) is the most widely used. It is often the original template from which other modern lectionaries begin. The RCL was itself based upon the work of the modern Roman Catholic lectionary, and so there is a large amount of continuity across denominational boundaries.

It too has a sort of overall logic which can help ministers make the most of it. The RCL attempts to combine both seasonal emphases and lectio continua throughout the Christian calendar. The major feasts set the parameters. The scriptural texts around these days are thematically united. They highlight the major ideals of the season and usually attempt to complement each other. As the weeks move further away from the particular holiday, the readings tend to become canonically consecutive. This is especially true for those parts of the church year which modern lectionaries call “ordinary time.”

The three-year scheme also has a logic to it.

• Year A calls for the Gospel of Matthew to be read, largely in consecutive order. It also prescribes Old Testament readings from the Pentateuch.
• Year B gives readings from Mark and the Old Testament historical books.
• Year C has Luke and the Prophets.

These readings are interrupted by various holidays, and the Gospel of John is interspersed throughout each year.

The strength of offering a larger span of Scripture brings with it a corresponding weakness. The length of each scriptural selection must be reduced, and even in the “consecutive” portions of the year, there are gaps and omissions. Further, the greater diversity of readings also creates a greater complexity. Attempting to do both a seasonally thematic project and a consecutive canonical survey at the same time can confuse the listeners (and readers) and lose the overarching unity. Laying out a comprehensive plan to address each of the readings for each of the years is no small task. There are 624 readings to choose from over the course of three years (not counting the alternative selections), which creates a truly dizzying number of potential textual combinations to consider.

How to preach from a lectionary

With a more comfortable understanding of the various lectionary options, here are some practical tips on how to use the lectionary in the ministry of the Word, especially in preaching.

1. Consistently

Choose a lectionary and stick with it. Jumping between different lectionaries or regularly making your own substitutions will greatly limit the effectiveness of using a lectionary at all. While intentional breaks can be helpful, you should plan to use the same lectionary for a series of years, if not for the majority of your tenure.⁵

Learn how your lectionary is meant to “work,” and then use it in that way.

Learn how your lectionary is meant to “work,” and then use it in that way. You might find it useful to preach from the Gospels for several weeks in a row, or even for the full year, so that you can demonstrate their logic. You might choose the Epistle readings for the next season or year.

2. Patiently

Lectionaries are designed to work over a longer period of time. You do not have to address everything in a single sermon. The text will come back around again in the future.

Additionally, the reading and hearing of the Word of God is an element of worship in its own right.⁶ Even if a portion of text is not preached, the fact that it was read in worship is itself substantial and effective. Strong lectors can share the burden with the preacher, thus allowing the lectionary to do its full work across the service.

3. Diversely

While lectionaries do prescribe the texts to be read in the service, they almost always offer more homiletic options than first assumed. Even with the one-year lectionary, there are two different texts and usually two (or more) major themes. This alone could provide four years’ worth of sermon material. If elements of the Morning Prayer service are added to this, then an additional Old Testament lesson and a set of several psalms further add to the set of options. The preacher is entirely within his rights to preach from any of these texts, even when strictly “bound” to the lectionary.

While consistency was a virtue mentioned above, preachers should cover all of the texts over an appropriate course of time at a church. One could easily go seven years or more without feeling the slightest temptation to repeat a previous sermon. An effective use of the lectionary will continually offer fresh presentations and appropriately contemporary insights.

4. Expositionally

In terms of theological significance, this point should actually be the first in consideration. After all, the very point of the lectionary is to open the Word of God to the people of God. Lectionary preaching should therefore always be grounded in scriptural exegesis. The content of the sermon should come from the biblical text provided. Even in the case of topical sermons, the support from the topic should be derived from the Scriptures, and this should be demonstrated in the sermon itself. Again, the lectionary is an arrangement of texts. These should therefore be the primary material for the sermon. Insofar as a preacher neglects the biblical texts that were read, he is also neglecting the lectionary itself.⁷

Expository preaching does not exclude symbolic or typological preaching. It does restrain it, however, and properly so. It requires the preacher to rhetorically “show his work” and allow the people to see how the Bible itself shows forth the symbols and arranges the types. A good lectionary does not discourage this work but instead makes it easier and integrates it into a more natural part of the overall service.

This principle also allows for the liberating and perennially appropriate option to “just preach the text.” On any given week, or during certain seasons of time, the minister might not know what to do with all of the various liturgical options. In such cases, he can simply choose one of the texts and preach it directly. If the lectionary has been composed well, then this approach will always “work” with the larger program. Just as a sermon on John 1 at Christmas is always a “Christmas sermon” by its very nature, so too is 1 Peter 4:7–11 an appropriate message for the feasts of the Ascension and Pentecost. Meditating on how any given text applies to a certain holiday has frequently deepened my appreciation of the lectionary and my understanding of the Scripture.

What does it mean to preach expositionally—and how do we do it? Tune into Dave Helm’s episode of Logos Live.

5. Intertextually

Even as a preacher strives for simplicity, one of the advantages of the lectionary is the way in which it brings different biblical texts together. This can be done by way of prophecy and fulfillment, by repeating patterns and types, or by illustrative examples, such as heroes and villains or dilemmas and solutions. Different lectionaries go about this project in different ways, and some are more successful than others. Finding the connections between the varying texts can help the pastor in his creation of his sermon. These connections often prompt a basic sermon outline or make the various big ideas easier to identify and demonstrate, as the biblical texts cast light on each other.

A preacher can make use of this intertextuality by choosing one text as primary and then referencing portions of the other texts. Occasionally, he might choose to balance each of the readings as subsets and then bring them together by way of the Collect of the Day.

6. Holistically

Finally, lectionary preaching should join redemptive-historical preaching with practical application. The person and work of Christ will be emphasized, as well as the fruits of his ministry in the life of the Christian. The historic collects usually do a good job of succinctly stating that the moral duties flow from the character of God in Christ. The preacher can use this to arrange his own sermon points.

Certain weeks will have a greater emphasis on one part or the other, but all will be present in some fashion. And again, the confidence in a long-term project will allow the preacher to emphasize some points in greater detail on one occasion, with the understanding that he will have another opportunity to emphasize other points.

Share your thoughts

How can one best preach from a lectionary? Join us in the Word by Word group to share your thoughts.

Conclusion

Using the lectionary is a worthy work that can greatly enhance the work and worship of our churches. And I hope that using the lectionary will also enable each of us to, in the words of Thomas Cranmer, hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest all holy Scriptures.

Resources for lectionary preaching

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• The Church Calendar: How It Helps Us Remember Our Story
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1. For a discussion of potential lectionary use in the synagogues of the first century, see Paul F. Bradshaw, The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship (Oxford, 2002) 37.
2. Paul F. Bradshaw, Daily Prayer in the Early Church (Wipf & Stock, 2008), 72.
3. Peter G. Cobb, “The Liturgy of the Word in the Early Church” in The Study of Liturgy, ed. Cheslyn Jones et al. (Oxford, 1992), 226–27.
4. Cobb, “Liturgy of the Word,” 227; Bradshaw, Search for the Origins of Christian Worship, 116; Paul F. Bradshaw, ed., The New Westminster Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship (Westminster John Knox, 2002), 274.
5. For those churches whose hierarchical leadership makes these decisions, preachers should honor their ecclesiastical commitments.
6. See Blake Adams, “Rightly Dividing the Word: Lectionaries and the Reading of Scripture as Worship,” Touchstone 38, no. 4 (July/August 2025): 11–14.
7. There have been and continue to be times when the sermon is not based on the lectionary texts but a different text entirely. I am not here criticizing this practice, but it does not qualify as “lectionary preaching.”