The sermons in his book, Sermons with Insight, were preached during the time when Pastor Zimany was a Lutheran minister. The sermons present religious language as metaphorical. Sermons include efforts to get a congregation active in certain areas. However, his primary criterion for inclusion was to offer understandings and approaches that the fundamentalists and others do not take. Some of the sermons provide examples of how and what Jesus says literally can apply to us figuratively. For example, “bear fruit” means “do good deeds.” Some of them deal with what it means to be saved and how we can change, finding transformative power, sometimes through self-sacrifice, and being born again, perhaps after singing “I surrender all.” Other sermons point out the value for us of Jesus’ presence on earth, by which he made the love of God real and near, demonstrating the value of believing in God especially among those who needed love most, people whom no one else cared about, namely, outcasts, sinners, and scoundrels, giving them a sense of acceptance and self-worth and thereby expressing what God is like, how God acts, and what God is concerned about.

When we come across passages in the Bible that don’t seem to make complete common sense, the best thing to do is to ask what spiritual truth the passage might be teaching or symbolizing. The sermons do that. They give suggestions on how and when to follow rules. In the presence of chaos, rules can be a source of salvation, because rules can provide order and direction, so that we can know where we stand.

The sermons depict Jesus as the imprint of God’s being. That means that Jesus’ behavior shows exactly the way God wants us to behave. His teachings are the same as God’s tea at we “see” things differently. The sermons also explain the ancient understanding of words that are important in the Bible.

One of the sermons offers an explanation of the Trinity. The sermon begins: “It’s all Jesus’ fault. If he hadn’t taught and behaved in such an outstanding way, after he was gone and his followers asked, ‘Who was that masked man, anyway?’ and their answer was, ‘Why, he was actually God in the flesh!’ — if that hadn’t happened, the doctrine of the Trinity would not have been developed.” Another sermon offers proof of the existence of God. Others show the value of noticing what something is not saying, providing interpretations of phrases that Jesus used. And they present positive views of the Ten Commandments.

Literal accounts in the Bible show that Scripture was written years after the actual events, while still applying to us today. One minor example is that, in his day, Jesus was called “Master,” or “Rabbi,” or “Rabboni.” He wasn’t called “Lord.” “Lord” was a title used by Greeks and was applied to Jesus when Christianity spread out of Palestine into Greek-speaking areas.

Some sermons consider why the disciples followed Jesus (the book presents ten reasons), along with why stories developed about Jesus and how they apply to us today. They explain what the phrase “Word of God” means and they show how the Word of God cuts through our present understanding.