Sermons and Biblical Studies

David Lose Dear Working Preacher, In recent weeks we’ve been working together on helping our people take the biblical stories with them as they leave church, offering these stories as lenses by which to make sense of their lives in God’s world. This week offers an excellent chance to continue down this path. Rarely, in … Continue reading “Into Temptation”

Fred Gaiser “How shall they hear,” Paul wonders, “without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14 KJV). And I might add, how can we preach without reading? There is no “word” without words, and words must be fed and nourished and replenished through reading. True, oral tradition served for millennia, and it still has its place (“Jesus loves … Continue reading “The Preacher and the Library”

C. Clifton Black In a previous article, posted on this site last year while our normally alert editors nodded off, I proposed that the Second Evangelist may be the New Testament’s unsung comedian.  Exhibit A of my case was Mark 11:1-11, which in the other Gospels is Jesus’ triumphal entry to Jerusalem.  Mark sets up … Continue reading “Marklarkey II: Parabolic Tomfoolery from the Second Gospel”

Glen Bickford “Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was … Continue reading “The Gift of Silence: How I Lost a Vocal Cord and Found My Voice”

Jacob Myers “He who controls the pace, controls the victory.” Scrawled on a whiteboard in his office, we find Frank Campana’s training philosophy. Frank is a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) coach of some renown for his unorthodox training methods. Rather than employing the typical cadre of cacophonous heavy metal or rap beats to train his … Continue reading “Preaching That Flows”

Christian Piatt My first job in a church was as a music minister. I loved the senior pastor I served with, as did the congregation we faced every Sunday morning. He taught me a lot about worship, preaching and how to connect with people. One time we were at lunch, reflecting on the previous week’s … Continue reading “Preacher or False Prophet?”

Charlene Rachuy Cox I used to find it incredibly frustrating. The Sunday texts would be before me. I would diligently study them — analyze their historical context, tease out the challenges and possibilities within and between the texts, meticulously execute word studies, and while listening to the context of the community I served, seek to … Continue reading “Texts in Conversation: Preaching and Meaning”

Ron Allen It seems like a no-brainer. Yet preachers rarely seek direct input from listeners about how we might improve our preaching. What do people in the pews want from a sermon. A few years ago, a cadre of teachers of preaching sought to ask listeners what we could learn about preaching from them. We … Continue reading “Study Confirms and Challenges Preachers”

Susan Hedahl Welcome to the Sermonic Rhetorical Apps Shop!  Why visit? Two of the most famous early preachers of the Church — Augustine in the West and Chrysostom in the East — preached sermons that used a wide array of effective rhetorical apps. Rhetoric is the study of persuasive speech techniques. For millennia rhetoricians have … Continue reading “Rhetorical Apps”

Joy J. Moore Many sermons begin with a funny story or captivating movie image told right after the reading of Scripture. This is the hook — in homiletic technical speech — a way to capture the attention of listeners who have gathered from various quadrants of the community with a multiplicity of concerns ranging from … Continue reading “Preach Our Story, not Your Story”