Read Acts 15:39 slowly. Luke reports that the contention between Paul and Barnabas grew so sharp that they parted, and that Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus. Luke does not say who was right. A preacher still nursing a broken friendship can hear permission to cut people off. A preacher who fears conflict can rush past the verse to something warmer. The text is the same in both cases, and in both cases something other than the text is deciding what the sermon says. Softening a hard passage and hammering it look like opposite mistakes. They come from the same place.
The pastors and teachers in these Jude 3 Project conversations name both pressures. Chaz Smith, who retells the stories of Scripture in an animated web series, describes the softening pull he sees as culture grows more hostile to the name of Jesus: "a temptation can be to shrink back or compromise or water down the truth of the gospel or try to sidestep certain difficult questions in order to save face, save a reputation, self-preserve." Dr. Darrell Hall, speaking on preaching across generations, traces where hammering often comes from. He says listeners can tell "when a speaker is using emotionalism or spiritual manipulation because they're ill prepared or because they are a spiritual bully". One protects the preacher's reputation. The other covers for poor preparation or a need for control. Neither starts with the passage, and a middle volume between them would not fix either.
What fixes them is a set of habits that keep the passage in charge. Across four connected movements you will practice them on one passage you choose. You will notice what you bring to the page, let genre and the narrator decide what the passage claims, change your approach for a particular room while guarding that claim, and preach the hard text whole with a plan of care around it. Each movement hands something to the next, so the final sermon plan depends on the first page you write. Work alone over a month or with a preaching team over four meetings.