Subscribers have the opportunity to participate in discussion forums, post sermons and offer helpful critique to others. Archived feature articles will also be available to subscribers.
A six-month free subscription is available through a key that can be found on the CD bundled with Kent Anderson's Choosing to Preach. >>
This book will help you.
I know, most of us preach Old Testament narratives pretty much like we preach New Testament narratives. That is to say that we read the story, look for a few principles that we can use, and then try to apply them. Often the narrative becomes a jumping-off point where the sermon ends up bearing little resemblance to the text.
This is a shame. Certainly, principlizing narratives is a way by which we can get to the relevance of a text without resorting to the moralizing and allegorizing that tempts the lazy preacher. Yet, narratives offer more than just principles. The stories in the Bible provide a powerful opportunity for the preacher to help the listener taste and smell the humanity in the text. By connecting listeners with the lifeblood of the characters in the Bible, we humanize the Scriptures, reducing the "entrance requirements" for those who would really like to hear from God in his Word.
Steven Mathewson understands this. It is a wonderful book because it helps the preacher do serious exegetical work in the text while still retaining the narrative character of the text. Mathewson wants preachers to treat narrative according to its character as story. He is particularly helpful in assisting preachers to think about what it means to handle Hebrew narrative as a distinctive genre. His work is increasingly necessary for preachers who have to speak to crowds of listeners that care as much about an encounter with the text as they care about an explanation of the text.
The book is practical. It is written in a way that will satisfy the scholars without confusing the average preacher. He offers a ten step model for preparing sermons from OT narrative texts. This is followed by a series of five sermons by well known preachers like Donald Sunukjian, Paul Borden, Haddon Robinson, and Alice Matthews. He also includes interviews with the preachers. Predictably, the sermons don’t always live up to the promise given in the first half of the book. Nevertheless, reading them will serve as a helpful clinic for people who haven’t seen the inside of a homiletics class for a while.
Having read the book, I determined to put Mathewson’s advice into practice through the construction of a series of three sermons based on 1 Kings 17-19. You can find the results at preachingtoday.com under the title "The Elijah Chronicles." I credit Mathewson with providing me the kind of direction that led to some surprising and helpful insights. As an example, I always thought that chapter nineteen was about listening to God through getting quiet enough to hear his still small voice. Mathewson’s approach to studying the text brought me a whole new, and more accurate insight. If the text was about listening to God, the still small voice didn’t accomplish anything more than the fire, the wind, and the earthquake. Elijah is just as angry after all the dramatics as he was before. If, as Mathewson’s method lead me to conclude, the text is about God’s provision of others (like Elisha) to carry the load when we are feeling discouraged and alone, we have a message that will preach.
There is an "art" to preaching Old Testament narrative. Mathewson helps us to improve our homiletic brushstrokes. He helps us help others hear from God within his Word.