Catherine Booth was a Wesleyan preacher from the 1860s. When
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compared to the McDill , Catherine 12 Essential Skills of Great Preaching
relates to bridging from text to sermon. She used sermon authority which
is “the connection of the sermon with a text is its basis for
authority.”2There are four types of authority. “The sermon has direct
biblical authority when its central idea and purpose are the same as that
of the text. Indirect biblical authority comes to the sermon when a
secondary theme of the text is the main idea of the sermon. Beyond that
the sermon has only casual biblical authority or even corrupted biblical
authority when it does not reflect the central idea and purpose of the text
at all.” Catherine’s preaching was known to have been prompted by the
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Holy Spirit, her belief in the authority of the Bible, and based her sermons
upon Scripture. Catherine would use direct biblical authority in her
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sermons.
Robert Murray M’Cheyne was a Presbyterian minister in 1830-40s. While
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in college,M’Cheyne would explain the Word of God to his classmates,
classmates that looked forward to hearing God’s Word. He based his
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sermons upon “communicating truth to the simplest hearer.” M’Cheyne
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embodied the skill of Naming the Text Idea. He was able to master the
language of the text and bring the truth to his parishioners. The skill he
used was being able to understand the message behind the text and
communicate it to his hearers in the best words possible to understand
