The theme of the sermon is a proposition, or a statement, expressed in a few words. Yet Phelps, in his book of well-nigh six hundred pages, The Theory of Preaching, devotes eighty-two pages (pp. 282-364:) to a discussion of the proposition, or the theme, of the sermon: its definition, necessity, substance, and form. Why? Because of the importance of the sermon theme. The theme is the sermon in nuce; the sermon is the theme unfolded, or developed
