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This book fills an important niche, nicely bridging the gap between homiletics and hermeneutics. Scott Duvall and Danny Hays teach hermeneutics at Ouachita Baptist University and found themselves so dissatisfied with the textbooks on offer that they decided to write their own, Grasping God’s Word. Soon thereafter, Duvall and Hays’ colleague, Terry Carter, had a similar concern about the field of homiletics. Discussion ensued, leading to the publication of Preaching God’s Word, a nice meld of the twin concerns of interpretation and preaching. This is, in fact, the strength of the book. Here one finds solid interpretive teaching coupled with the basic principles of biblical preaching. The result is a fairly simple, introductory approach to the preaching of the Bible from a reasonably traditional perspective.
This book, best pitched toward a college or first semester seminary course in preaching, acknowledges the existence of more creative forms of the sermon (inductive, narrative, etc.), but tends to default towards a point plus illustration, linear approach to sermon form. The second and third sections of the book take the theory to various broad biblical genre, strengthening the practical nature of the book.
This book gets the job done. It is a pretty good place to start for people who want to handle the Word well, while communicating clearly and effectively.
Outline:
Part 1: Developing and Preaching a Biblical Sermon
1. Preaching a Biblical Sermon
2. Discovering Biblical Truth: The Interpretive Journey
3. Preaching the Meaning in Their Town
4. Exegeting the Audience
5. Communicating the Meaning in Our Town
6. Applying the Biblical Message
7. Illustrating Biblical Truth
8. Delivering a Biblical Sermon
Part 2: Preaching the New Testament
9. Preaching Letters
10. Preaching the Gospels and Acts
11. Preaching Revelation
Part 3: Preaching the Old Testament
12. Preaching Old Testament Narrative
13. Preaching the Law
14. Preaching the Prophets
15. Preaching Psalms and Wisdom Literature
Excerpt: “What did I need to learn? Well, where does the list end? How do I exegete a text? At that time the word “exegete” never entered my mind but the concept did. How do I put information into a sermon? How can I say it so it makes sense? Where can I find those illustrations pastors use every Sunday? What should I be trying to accomplish with my sermon? How long should I preach? How should I deliver the message? Questions like these plague all beginning preachers and many veteran ones as well. So what about the answers?”
“Are there others struggling as I did? We see student preachers every year with the same questions. They do what I did – just imitate what they have seen and heard, sometiimes from bad role models. How can they find the answers and improve their preaching? We offer in this book one way it can be done. We believe Preaching God’s Word will help all preachers by providing a hands-on approach to sermon preparation, beginning with solid biblical exegesis and culminating in a well-crafted sermon that communicates the greatest story every told to doay’s audience. (16)”