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COHESION AND COHERENCE IN SELECTED SERMONS OF CHURCH LEADERS: 

ARCHBISHOP OBINNA AND LATE PASTOR BIMBO ODUKOYA 

 

Chika Queen Ude 

Department of English Language and Literature 

Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, Owerri 

E-mail: chykad2002@yahoo.com  

 

Abstract 

Although religious discourse has been given research attention, language as used by Christian leaders 

especially in Nigeria has not enjoyed wide linguistic investigation. This work is poised to investigate 

the texture of selected Christian sermons by notable church leaders with a view to laying bare the 

cohesive ingredients these leaders have used to bring about texture and coherence in the sermons and, 

as a result, command large followership among the Christian faithful. Two sermons each of 

Archbishop Anthony Obinna and (Late) Pastor Mrs. Bimbo Odukoya are purposively selected and 

some utterances were subjected to descriptive analysis relying on insights from the Hallidayan 

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Analysis reveals intricately woven and coherent texts which 

are only made possible as a result of the church leaders’ unique deployment of such cohesive 

ingredients as reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion in the texts. With 

these linguistic tools intricately deployed, leaders are able to command ample followership while 

discharging their spiritual duties. The paper affirms that cohesion and coherence are necessities for 

preachers who wish to command spiritual leadership among their followers.  

Keywords: Cohesion, coherence, church leaders, Christian sermons 

 

Introduction 

Discourse occurs when two or more individuals or groups engage in a conversation, whether spoken 

or written. Discourse is concerned with language in action: the way it is used by the speaker and what 

the speaker uses it to achieve in the listeners. For a language to be appreciated, it has to be 

meaningfully strung together. This can only happen when there are devices present that make the 

parts hang together towards achieving the speaker's intention. These devices are the discourse 

structures which refer to those elements or features employed by the writer or speaker, in order to 

make the readers or hearers make sense of what is read or listened to. These elements make a text, 

written or spoken, to be recognized as well-constructed, as opposed to those that are jumbled or 

incoherent and so, the language user knows if communication has successfully taken place. 

 

The ability of an efficient language user to interact or communicate in a given context, variety/style or 

register influences others to respond or react in a particular way. Different social groups thus 

manipulate language to suit their communication needs. The convincing and persuasive effect of 

language during communication is most predominantly noticed in such genres as Legalese, 

Journalese, political speeches and religious speeches. Religion usually changes the status of any 

associated language. Religious language gives an aura of sanctity even when its intention is to 

communicate certain messages as it tries to persuade its audience. An instance of religious language is 

sermon, which is the focus of this research work.  

 

Quite a large body of research has been carried out on religious speeches (sermons) by religious 

leaders across different world religions.  Some of these works include Bahago (1999), Onoja (2010), 

Gibbs (2010), Esimaje (2012), Hyles (2015) and, Acheoah and Abdulraheem (2015). Although these 

works are concerned with linguistic investigation of such sermons, none has been specifically devoted 

to the study of the coherence and cohesion in sermons of religious leaders. Further, none has been 

preoccupied with studying church leaders’ sermons in Nigeria along different Christian ideologies. 

Therefore, this paper fills this gap as the researcher seeks to study oral discourse in the form of 

sermons of Archbishop Anthony Obinna, a male catholic priest and (Late) Pastor Bimbo Odukoya, a 

female Pentecostal preacher in an attempt to investigate the features or tools that bind discourses 

together as meaningful whole. These two individuals are famous leaders of their denominations with 

massive followership. This study examines how these church leaders have been able to deploy 

mailto:chykad2002@yahoo.com


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70                  Ude 

language to relay scriptural messages to their followers over time while still maintaining a firm hold 

on their numerous followers, by looking into the preachers' linguistic choices in order to characterize 

or analyze the patterns of linguistic ties that bind linguistic items together. Further, this paper 

examines how the cohesive ingredients have been deployed by the preachers to bring about coherent 

structures in the sermons. It is our hope that investigating the patterns of cohesive ties in the sermons 

yields rewarding insights into the nature of the internal structures of sermons and enrich our 

understanding of the role of language in the discourse between church leaders and followers.  

 

Sermons as Religious Discourse 

Sermons in the broad sense are presentations on religious themes. They often contain moral appeal. 

They are generally believed by Christians to be divine or inspired messages presented in churches by 

authorized persons among the faithful community. In the catholic environment for example, a sermon 

is understood as homily. It is delivered by priests, bishops or deacons during the holy mass. The 

homily is patterned on passages from the bible, both the old and new testaments. Specifically, a 

sermon is a message from God, which is intended to be heard or read, and to have an immediate, deep 

and lasting impact upon the listeners or readers. The word sermon has its origin in a Latin word 

'sermo', which means a stab or a thrust. This indicates its purpose which according to Ephesians 6:17 

is to pierce the heart of the hearer with "the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God" (NKJV). 

By this, preachers often use words that arouse strong emotions in the hearts of their listeners in order 

to achieve expected response. 

 

Preachers use language in sermon delivery either for "the conversion of sinners, or the instruction of 

Christians, and is usually manifested as encouragement, motivation, exhortation, persuasion, rebuke, 

correction or warning" (Onoja 70). To achieve the expected reaction during sermon delivery, 

preachers employ different linguistic resources; they must ensure that the message is conveyed 

clearly, and they must seek out and utilize acceptable words by which to convey the message and; 

make the words easy to be understood. Rowland notes that a religious sermon is "a word of God, a 

sacred and sanctimonious creed to be accepted without question or doubt of authenticity" (105). A 

sermon is usually an oral address based on scriptural truth contained in the bible, "elaborately treated 

and with a view to persuasion" (Gibbs 139). The characterization of sermons usually pitches the 

preacher and the audience in asymmetrical position with the former on the higher plane. 

Consequently, sermons are often delivered without any appeal to the hearers' sentiments, personal 

opinions, ego, status, culture or expectations, while the congregation is expected to accept without 

doubt or bear any grudge against the preacher on the topic preached. Berg calls this “an assault” 

(Onoja 71) since at the pulpit, the clergy has immunity, giving him or her authority to use their 

sermons as they deem best. The congregation only responds to the speech when called to do so. 

 

Features that characterize sermons as outlined by Gibbs are thus: they are oral or spoken address, not 

something to be read, but heard; they are to the popular mind, which means that it should be couched 

in language which can be understood by all present; and they are upon scriptural truth contained in the 

bible. This eliminates those thousands of so-called sermons that are nothing but a disquisition upon 

the most recent scientific discovery, and sermons from other religions outside Christianity. It is 

elaborately treated, that is to say, the passage is carefully analyzed, the real meaning of its words 

explained, its truth illustrated and the lesson applied.  

 

For Gibbs, sermons are strictly oral and, this is supported by Adam who views them as specific 

religious stylistic composition, which is determined for oral presentation (10). However, sermons are 

not only oral but can also be written. They are not just for Christians but also for other religious 

groups. On the preparation of sermons, Hyles notes that "the language of the preacher is his (/her) 

trowel, his hammer, his (/her) scalpel and the conveyor of his (/her) feelings" (89), and so, it must be 

well structured to articulate the idea as found in the scriptural text, as succinct as possible, in order to 

be understood and to persuade the hearers. This, one could say, definitely makes sermon preparation 

an uphill task. 

 



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Preachers have a variety of sources of activities around them to choose ideas from, but cannot just 

include every idea they come across into a sermon. Rather the preacher should be selective about what 

is included in the sermon and when, as these shape the sermon. A preacher can only achieve this by 

using a sermon structure. Every part of the sermon must be connected to another for a better 

understanding on the part of the readers or listeners. It is this type of unity within a text that shows 

that the text is properly structured. Sermons are structured, coherent and meaningful when the words 

and sentences that make them up are all linked one to another in a fashion that corresponds to 

conventional formulae. Although there is no single mould into which all sermons should be poured, 

all sermons should follow basic guidelines for the sake of clear and relevant communication. 

 

Theoretical Considerations 

The study rests on some principles of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). MAK 

Halliday argues that “language is a resource for making an indefinitely expandable source of meaning 

potential” (16). For SFL, language is a social semiotic resource with which language users accomplish 

their purposes of expressing meanings in context (Eggins 1). Eggins adds that SFL views how people 

use language with each other to accomplish everyday social life. This points to the fact that SFL 

accounts for the way language works in a social and cultural setting and sees language as a meaning 

potential that its users draw upon to construe meaning. The theory fuses language and the social 

context in which it is used. 

 

One of the great strengths of Halliday’s theory is its applicability to text analysis. The analysis in this 

present study has been largely limited to the textual meta-function of language, which is the text-

forming component in the linguistic system. The textual meta-function is concerned with cohesion on 

which this research work is based. Cohesion is a potential for relating one element of a text to another. 

It pulls the parts of a text together that they all appear as a unified whole. Halliday and Hassan assert 

that “cohesion is the means whereby elements that are structurally unrelated to one another are linked 

together, through the dependence of one another for its interpretation” (27). The cohesive devices 

provide inter-textual and intra-textual resonance that bind discourse together. According to Halliday 

and Hassan, these text-forming agencies are drawn from a number of areas of the lexico-grammatical 

system, and they make up the non-structural components of the semantic system (28 - 29). 

 

Cohesive devices are tools used to hang pieces of language together and when a text is properly held 

together as a unit, it is said to be cohesive. According to SFL, the cohesive devices that bind texts 

together provide inter-textual and intra-textual resonances that tie discourse together. Halliday 

postulates that each element in a language is explained by reference to its function to the total 

linguistic system. In other words, each part is interpreted as functional with respect to the whole.  

In this paper, the focus of the researcher is mainly the textual function of language since our goal is to 

investigate the patterns of cohesion in the texts under study. This way, we shall be examining how and 

to what extent the church leaders have deployed the cohesive devices in their sermons, how and to 

what extent the sermons are inter-textually and intra-textually tied together and, to what extent 

coherence has been achieved in the texts under study. To achieve this, our focus shall be on such 

cohesive ingredients as reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion. 

 

Data Collection Procedure 

Data for this study are four (4) church sermons delivered by Archbishop Anthony John Valentine 

Obinna, the Catholic Archbishop of Owerri Archdiocese, Imo State, and (Late) Pastor Mrs. Bimbo 

Odukoya of the Fountain of Life Church, Lagos both in Nigeria. The researcher collected these 

sermons as already recorded oral presentations through the tape recorder. These were transcribed for 

easy and detailed analysis. For ease of analysis, sermons of the Catholic Archbishop have been tagged 

AJVO 1 and AJVO 2, while those of the Pentecostal preacher are tagged PBO 1 and PBO 2 by the 

researcher. 

 

 

 

 



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Data Presentation and Analysis 

In this section, the analysis shall focus on the following cohesive devices - reference, substitution, 

ellipsis, conjunction and lexical devices - and how they have been deployed by the preachers to bring 

about textuality in the sermons. 

 

Reference in Church Leaders’ Sermons 

Reference is used profusely in the texts under study. Below are a few examples from the texts:  

 

AJVO I 

i. For they listened to Him and many who were possessed cried with a loud voice and they who were      

   paralyzed or lame were healed.  

The above is drawn from the Bible reading and the church leader decides to begin his sermon with 

this expression. From the above, ‘they’ refers to the people who were following Jesus Christ in the 

reading while ‘Him’ refers to Jesus Christ. These reference items are exophoric since they refere to 

characters outside the text. They are used by the leader to shift the attention of the followers to events 

during the life of Christ. 

 

AJVO II 

i. 1This light represented here by the lumen Christi, the light of Christ, which was lighted on Easter, 

Easter vigil, reminding us that Christ is the light of the world. 2That is why we honour this paschal 

candle. . . . 3That is why we have symbols conveying spiritual messages and we use them forever. 

From the above excerpt, 'this light' points cataphorically to the 'paschal candle' in sentence 2, which in 

turn is an exophoric reference item since the item itself is not in the text of the sermon. It follows the 

demonstrative 'this' to show that it is something present and known to the people present at the 

occasion. The pronoun ‘us’ in sentence one points forward towards ‘we’ which appears once in 

sentence two and twice in sentence three. In sentence 3, 'them', points anaphorically to the word 

'symbols'. The reference items in the above refer to objects either out of the text or objects to be 

further referred to. Therefore, it appears as if the church leader is concerned with intimating members 

of new happening, event or information. In another example, we have: 

 

PBO I 

i. You must understand that when the devil wants to set a trap for you, he's gonna let somebody do 

something to you that will make you yourself think that unforgiveness is what they deserve. 

Here, the reference item ‘You’ points forward towards three other ‘you’ within the sentence, the last 

of the ‘you’ being emphasized by ‘yourself’ while ‘he’ in ‘he’s’ points backward towards ‘the devil’. 

Further, ‘they’ points anaphorically to ‘somebody’. One may say that the church leaders have 

mindfully made ample use of personal references so that their audience can individualise the message 

and feel involved.  

 

Conjunctions in Church Leaders’ Sermons 

AJVO I 

Well, I was relaxed as everything went through peacefully with the President of Palestine 

welcoming graciously the Holy Father. So, while the Holy Father is in that land, the holy land, 

here I am in Samaria as one of the apostles . . . I take the position of John in your midst while the 

Holy Father takes the position of Peter in Palestine at this moment. 

 

'Well' is a conjunctive item, a continuative because it serves to indicate that what follows is in 

response to a preceding item. It is seen to introduce an explanatory comment. In this case it links and 

introduces a continuation of the speaker's utterance after a brief pause of laughter from his audience 

and the feeling of the speaker as he watched the video clip of the Pope's visit to Palestine. The use of 

the causal relation 'so' forms a cohesive chain, pulling the Pope's visit and the Archbishop's together. 

The preacher uses it to connect these visits to that of Jesus' apostles in the Bible or, the coming of 

Christ into the world as read prior to the sermon. 'At this time' is a conjunction which shows temporal 

relations, indicating the actual time of the event. We have another example in AJVO II: 



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73                  Ude 

Blessed are you if you suffer for the sake of Christ, but if you suffer for the sake of stealing or sin, 

then it's no use. 

 

In the above, there is the use of 'but', an adversative conjunction which presents a contrary view to the 

preceding idea. 'Then' which presents a causal and conditional effect hints at the fate of those who 

suffer for the sake of sin. Again in PBO I, we have: 

Now if you notice God speaks about love being a commandment; and when you are talking about 

commandment, you are not giving the person a choice. You are telling the person 'this is what you 

have to do.' . . . if I say to you, 'this is an instruction' . . . maybe you might decide, 'well, I don't 

want to obey that instruction'. But if I say to you, 'this is a commandment', it means you have no 

choice. 

 

The church leader begins her speech with the conjunctive item 'Now' to link her next expression to the 

Bible passage previously read. The conjunctive 'Now' links the two expressions by its intonation 

pattern. It opens a new point of argument in the speech. The next sentence begins with an additive 

'and' which is used by the speaker to elaborate more on what commandment really means. There is 

also the use of a conjunctive item 'well' as a continuative. Its use in the text seems to give the 

addressee a freedom of an option. The adversative 'but' introduces a contrary option, pointing to the 

Biblical fact that to love is a commandment, which must be obeyed, and not an instruction, which is 

optional. From the examples in this subsection, conjunctions have been used by the church leaders 

primarily to link items together but specifically to add new information, to show contrast, to indicate 

time and reason for speeches/actions. 

 

Lexical Cohesion in Church Leaders’ Sermons 

Lexical Cohesion has also been used profusely in the texts of church leaders. The following are some 

instances: 

AJVO I 

i. All will be vanity. Vanity on vanity, all is vanity. 

ii. So, when people abuse you for being faithful, for doing right, for seeking to live in a chaste way, 

in an upright way, in an honest way . . . don't you worry . . . . 

In (i) the lexical item 'vanity' is reiterated. This is for the purpose of emphasis for a more forceful or 

stronger sermon by the church leader. In (ii), 'doing right', 'a chaste way', 'an upright way' and 'an 

honest way ' are lexical synonymies especially in the context of a religious sermon. They are all 

included in the meaning of 'faithful' which can be taken to be their super-ordinate. They are all used 

emphatically too to buttress the importance of holy living. In AJVO II, we also have: 

i. Adoration of God, because of His glory, because of the immensity of His goodness, the immensity 

of His benevolence, the immensity of His forgiveness. 

 

In the above sentence, the lexical items 'benevolence', ‘forgiveness’ and 'goodness' are synonyms. 

They constitute lexical synonymy used by the church leader to emphasise the idea contained in their 

meaning. There is also the repetition of the word 'immensity'. Both the lexical synonymy and the 

repetition are used to drive home or emphasise the greatness of God’s attributes. Another example in 

this section as seen in PBO I: 

So, if I say that I want to love, I'm going to work against my flesh; I'm going to work against my 

desires; I'm going to work against my passion. 

 

From the above, the terms 'passion' and 'desires' are lexically synonymous given the religious context 

in which they are used. 'Flesh' is a superodinate, which includes passions and desires. There is also the 

reiteration of the expression 'I’m going to work against'. This is done on purpose for emphasis. By 

using lexical synonymy and reiteration, the church leader repeatedly emphasises what believers must 

do in order to love in a Godly way.  

 

Ellipsis and Substitution in Church Leaders’ Sermons 

There are instances of ellipsis in the sermons, where items which recoverable are omitted completely. 

Some examples are presented here: 



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74                  Ude 

AJVO I:        You have the message of eternal life, and we have come to believe (^). 

PBO I:       The Bible says, ‘every desire that I have, whatever I want God to do to me, or  do 

for me, He’s willing to (^). 

 

PBO II: Any man that is smart must make sure that he has affairs without his wife  knowing (^) . . . 

When you’re having extra-marital affairs, the wife at home must not know (^) 

 

In AJVO I, the end of the sentence is an instance of ellipsis. The expression ‘the message of eternal 

life’ has been ellipted to avoid a redundant expression. This type of ellipsis is called the nominal 

(object) ellipsis. In PBO I, we see an instance of verbal ellipsis where the verb ‘do’ is ellipted. In 

PBOII, there are two instances of ellipses. The first is the ellipsis of a nominal clause ‘that he has 

affairs’. This is an example of a clausal ellipsis. The second another clausal ellipsis of ‘you’re having 

extra-marital affairs’. Ellipses as used here are usually employed to avoid redundancy in expressions 

and make the expression come together as a coherent whole. However, there is a very sparse use of 

substitution all through the sermons. This perhaps is because the speakers have employed other 

cohesive devices mostly for the purpose of emphasis. Below is an instance of substitution from PBO 

I: God said to me, "who is God in your life?" I said, 1"You are the One". 

As seen in the sentence above, 'One' is a substitute for 'God'. It is a nominal substitution, pointing 

anaphorically to ‘God’. The substitute is used to achieve economy and variety in the choice of words. 

It also functions as the main word which it replaces. 

 

Collocation in Church Leaders’ Sermons 

Collocations are lexical items that co-occur or appear close to one another in discourse. Their 

proximity in a discourse contributes to the texture of the text. The cohesive effect of these pairs of 

words is not because they share any semantic relationship per se but because they share the same 

lexical environment. Normally, any two lexical items or more tending to appear in similar contexts 

will generate a cohesive force since the mention of one tends to bring to mind the other. A number of 

collocations which have helped to generate texture have been identified in the texts and presented 

below. 

 

(AJVO I) – Holy Spirit . . . God . . . Jesus Christ . . . Lord . . . son . . . Father . . . devil . . . saints; Pope 

. . . Holy Father . . . apostles . . . Peter . . . John . . .; Jews . . . Gentiles . . .; Baptised . . . confirmed . . . 

Holy Communion; Sin . . . eternal life . . . judgement . . . vanity . . . humanity . . . universe; Soldiers . . 

. swords . . . guns. 

 

(AJVO II) – Christ . . . Father . . . God . . . Lord . . . Holy Spirit; Light . . . darkness . . . lumen Christi 

. . . Easter . . . Paschal candle; Humanity . . . world; Redemption . . . Salvation . . . Prayer; State . . . 

land . . . nation . . . Nigeria; Wining . . . losing . . . election . . . vote . . . regime . . . governance ; 

success . . . failure; police . . . army . . . civilian; Heaven . . . kingdom . . . earth; Bread . . . food; Holy 

. . . sin . . . truth . . . evil; Women . . . men; big . . .small; friends . . . enemy; hands . . . feet. 

 

(PBO I and PBO II) – man... woman... male... female... husband... wife... ladies... girls; lies... truth... 

sin; God... Lord... Father... Spirit... Jesus... devil; Alleluia...Amen; born again...christian; 

honesty...deceive...trust; courtship...marriage...dating; blessing... curse. 

 

Conclusion 

This work has examined the internal structure of Christian sermons delivered by selected church 

leaders in Nigeria with a view to exposing the cohesive devices used by these leaders to enhance 

texture and coherence in the sermons while determining the extent the devices have helped the leaders 

in commanding large followership among the Christians. Descriptive analyses of sermons of 

Archbishop Anthony Obinna and the Late Pastor Mrs Bimbo Odukoya reveal intricately woven and 

coherent texts which are only made possible as a result of the church leaders’ unique deployment of 

such cohesive ingredients as reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion.  

 



AJELLS: Awka Journal of English Language and Literary Studies, Vol. 8 No. 1, 2021 
 

75                  Ude 

These cohesive devices have been specifically used to achieve emphasis, to avoid redundancy, link 

ideas, to direct attention, give information, show contrast, indicate time and show reason for certain 

speech/ actions. With these linguistic tools intricately deployed, the messages become clear and 

understood by the faithful, while the leaders are able to command ample followership while 

discharging their spiritual duties. The paper affirms that cohesion and coherence are necessities for 

church leaders and preachers who wish to command spiritual leadership among their followers. 

 

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Esimaje, A. U. (2012). A corpus based lexical study of sermons in Nigeria. English 

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Cipriani, A. C. (2002). Power in Religious Discourse: A Discourse Analysis of Two  

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Eggins, S. (2004).  An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics. London, UK:  

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