Preachers are like scouts that go in front of their traveling companions, search out the territory ahead and return to report on what they found.   Scouting Scripture involves several disciplines such as:     

• looking at the context in which a given passage occurs in a whole book (letter, gospel),     
• checking the ancient languages for nuance and meaning lost on the way to English, 
• considering ancient cultural customs and social structures to see how a given passage would have been received and understood in its own time,
• recognize literary forms that indicate meaning (i.e. how is a parable different than a proclamation than it is to a straight narrative, etc), 
• how does a given passage flow (or not) with other passages in the the same book, 
• how does the passage contain information unique to itself or similar to other books and why is that so and how is that demonstrated, 
• how does the passage fit (or not) into the overall context of the Bible itself,
• how does the text speak directly (if it does) to a current event/experience.  

The resources for scouting are found in my library in my office and online.  It is amazing the amount of information that is hidden between the covers of books.  I have and will heavily critique the supposed literalism, fundamentalism, and concretism of biblical use deployed by others.  I am opposed to such an outlook be that in any world religion or atheism, arguably the most literal of all religions (different topic for later). Note the use of “supposed literalism.”  As I and many others have utterly and irrefutably demonstrated over and over again, no fundamentalist is ever consistent and always applies such an approach only as it suits their presumptions.  Such an approach to sacred text dishonors the text itself and is disloyal to the cause of Christ and is in  opposition to the example and witness of Jesus. Worst of all, it compromises our witness to Christ and makes it that much harder to offer a witness in our daily lives, quite apart from the bigotry and cruelty such an approach spawns.    Finally, I tire of the argument as much as you do hearing me offer it.  
And perhaps worst of all, I spend way too much time discussing why we don’t apply a given text literally which robs us of time to discuss and offer positive insights into how a text can be meaningful and empowering right now.  This becomes a defensive approach and has a longer term possibility of undermining the authority and power of our Scriptures.  So to heck with that!   My solution is to say on any given sermon on any given text:  
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“We offer our observations on Sacred Text with the consistency of integrity and authenticity relying upon the God-given benediction on little grey cells and a heart turned to Christ, and a soul afire with the Holy Spirit. You are welcome to disagree."

Scripture commentary >