Using Sermon Archives

Imagine you're studying a passage of scripture like John 15:1-8 as you prepare your next homily. You've consulted your commentaries, tracked down themes, and performed in-depth word studies on important terms, but now you want to see how other preachers and teachers have handled this text. With Verbum, you can quickly explore homilies and sermons to see how the passage is discussed and applied.

Note: Available in a Verbum Max subscription and in legacy packages Gold and above.

There are a number of ways in which you can find homilies relevant to the passage or topic you're working on:

1. Using the Factbook
2. Using the Passage Guide
3. Using the Topic Guide
4. Using a Sermons Guide Section
5. Finding Homilies of Interest within a Specific Homily Archive

 

Using the Factbook

Enter the Passage into the Factbook and select an appropriate entry from the dropdown menu.

 

Note that you will need to select a passage recognized by the Factbook which may not be exactly the one you are working on. Select the "best-fit" option from the dropdown menu and then scroll down to the Sermons section:

 

Expand the entry relating to the preacher you're interested in and click a sermon entry so you can read and reflect on it.

 

Accessing Homily Archives from the Passage Guide 

Another way to get access to tagged homilies is through the Passage Guide and there are two main ways to do this:

1. Directly from the passage you have been studying
2. From the Guides menu or Command Box

To open the Guide from the passage:

1. Select the relevant portion of text
2. Right-click to open the context menu
3. Click Reference on the left
4. Open the Passage Guide from the right of the menu

 

To open the Guide from the Guides menu or the Command Box:

1. Either click Guides > Passage Guide or type open pass in the Command Box then select Open Passage Guide in the Guides section.
   
2. Enter John 15:1-8 in the passage box (you can also abbreviate the Bible book to speed up your passage entry).

 

Whichever method you used to access the Passage Guide, you can now scroll down and expand the Sermons section. Here, you can expand the entry you're interested in and open a homily for study and reflection.

 

Note: This also has an entry called Sermon Documents that contains any homilies (prepared in Verbum) you have preached on this passage. You can review these homilies in exactly the same way as described above.

Accessing Homily Archives from the Topic Guide 

The Topic Guide provides similar information about Sermons in your Sermon Archives but is linked to a specific topic. Again, you can open this Guide from either the Guides Menu or the Command Box. Once you have done so, enter a topic of interest and choose from the various options:

 

This populates the Guide with information relevant to the topic, including the Sermons Section.

 

They won't all relate to the particular passage you're focusing on but they can provide helpful insights and further ideas on the topic.

 

Using a Sermon Guides Section

Another option is to use a standalone Sermon Guides section. This can be a very useful approach if you want to link a quick-look homily capability into your study layout.

Open the Guide section from the Guides Menu, ensuring you select the one from the Bible Reference Guides area:

 

Then add it to a Link Set with the Bible you are using for study:

 

Now, if you change the reference in your Bible to start focusing on another passage, the Sermons Guide section will be updated to track it, ensuring that relevant homilies are only a click away.

 

Save this as a Layout, along with other standard commentaries and reference material, so you can use it again when preparing for your next homily.

 

Finding Homilies of Interest within a Specific Homily Archive 

As an alternative to using the Factbook Tool and Guides, you may want to explore a specific Homily Archive (or set of them). To do this you can use a Books Search on a Homily Archive, or examine a specific Homily Archive by either browsing its table of contents or using an Inline Search.

 

Books Search

1. Start a new search by clicking the Search icon in the toolbar:
   

2. Click the link on the left to open the resources dropdown menu:
   

    

3. Enter the name of the preacher you're interested in and select the appropriate Homily Archive
   

   Note: If a particular Homily Archive is comprised of more than one volume, the Basic Search will display each resource as a separate result, but it will also group them into one searchable unit.
   
   

4. Type your search term and press Enter.
   

5. Click any of the search results to open the Homily Archive to that place in a homily
   

 

Exploring a Specific Homily Archive 

1. Open your Library and type a preacher’s name in the search field.

   

2. Click a resource to open it in a new panel.

   Note: This approach will only allow you to search within the open resource.

To browse the table of contents:

1. Open the Contents menu by clicking the navigation menu icon .

2. Scroll down the Table of Contents until you find the date or other index that you are interested in

    

 

To conduct an Inline Search:

1. Click the Inline Search icon and type a word or phrase in the search field. Verbum displays every hit in context, letting you choose which homilies to examine in more detail.
   
2. You can adjust the Display Range to determine whether the Inline Search just shows the sentence that contains your search term or if you want to see more of the context - such as the surrounding paragraph or the entire article