The Reformation (15th-16th Centuries)

I envision the era of the Reformation commencing with the life and works of Martin Luther and concluding sometime near the end of the Reformation. I say this tongue in cheek, however I must hasten to add that it is as difficult to mark the end of the Reformation as it is to explain the movement because in some profound ways the Reformation is still alive and well. Semper Reformanda was not just the cry of a generation but a vision of life in Christ that has persisted to this day, and all the more in light of the fact that the official teaching of the Catholic Church, though far removed from the days of Leo X, is yet a long way from a biblical soteriology and ecclesiology.

Having said that, David Larsen envisions the century following the Reformation (chronologically defined) as “the ripening maturity of biblical preaching” (Larsen, 199-248). I find this description both accurate and helpful in that the seventeenth century presents us not with novel developments but with maturing movements that have their roots in the Renaissance and late medieval period. Thus, I suppose I will roughly define the limits of the Reformation from the day Martin Luther nailed his ninety-seven theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg to somewhere near the dawn of the seventeenth century.

The Reformation is an extraordinarily complex movement that exploded in the midst of an extraordinarily convulsive time of history. It is the result of an intricate nexus of historical factors such as the Great Schism and the Conciliatory Movement of the eleventh century; the growing secularization and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church; the burgeoning intellectual developments of the Renaissance and humanism; the various and serious doctrinal challenges that were confronting a church that could no longer suppress the ideas of its opponents; the decline of feudalism and the corollary destabilization of Europe and therefore the better part of the world; the technological advances that brought forth the printing press and modes of travel that allowed Europeans to venture out and encounter strange and foreign peoples along with their ideas and their gods; the Black Death which in the last forty years of the fourteenth century alone killed some 30-50% of the population of Europe so that the world’s population is said to have decreased from about 450 million to 350 million people by A.D. 1400 (McManners, 326-329).

This web of historical phenomena (and more) gave rise to an era of reforming movements which came from top and bottom, rich and poor. There were in fact many “reformations” prior to the Reformation so that we must envision even the Catholic Counter-Reformation as part and parcel of a long history that reaches back beyond the life of Martin Luther. There had been a very long struggle between those who knew and sought after God and longed for the church to fulfill her calling, and those who sought to use the church for personal or political purposes. The difference in the sixteenth century is that the rhetoric was applied, the talk became action, and the action became revolution—exactly why this is so and why this explosion occurred when it did is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps God had grown impatient with his unfaithful Bride.

With regard to the history of hermeneutics and homiletics, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli and other leading lights of the era were agreed in their rejection of the allegorical method and the mysticism that had developed because of it. “We would not be exaggerating greatly if we described the progress of biblical exegesis as the gradual abandonment of allegorical interpretation” (Silva, 52), and this progress gained massive momentum in the sixteenth century. Indeed, the Reformers passionately argued for the primacy of “the plain meaning of Scripture,” and its general perspicuity, which implied, among other things, that the common Christian could understand the Bible and should thus have it available in a language they could understand. Underneath this conviction was the belief in the priesthood of all believers who as such had a right to private interpretation in the context of Christian community.

Furthermore, the Reformers rejected Aquinas’s articulation of nature and grace, and thus blew the trumpet of grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone on the basis of Scripture alone. They believed, as did the early church, that the appropriate context for the interpretation, proclamation, and application of the Word of God is the church, and in this way consciously dealt another blow to the remaining vestiges of Scholasticism and the more minor movements it spawned.

As Silva has aptly noted, “It is no exaggeration to say that the sixteenth-century Reformation was, at bottom, a hermeneutical revolution” (Silva, 77), and revolution is not too strong a word. By the grace and power of God, this generation of faithful believers turned the world upside-down mainly by returning to a more orthodox view of the Word of God which they then courageously applied to their social context in a number of ways. Surely, God had ripened the times for men and women such as these, and surely there have been those in every age who have been faithful to God and boldly stood for truth, and surely the heroes of the Reformation were hopelessly flawed and broken and made countless errors which were at times tragic and egregious. Yet we can and should celebrate the days in which God caused the various chains thrown upon his Word to be loosed again.

To get a feel for the careful position on Scripture carved out by some of the Reformers of this era, consider the following statement taken from The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, Paragraph VII:

"The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical; so as, in all controversies of religion, the Church is finally to appeal unto them. But, because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God, who have right unto, and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded, in the fear of God, to read and search them, therefore they are to be translated in to the vulgar language of every nation unto which they come, that, the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship Him in an acceptable manner; and, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, may have hope." 

This masterful statement clearly communicates that while the Reformers sought to make a clean break with the abuse of tradition, they did not desire to break with the tradition itself (Silva, 96). Rather, they reached back over time, to Antioch and Augustine, and affirmed a view and use of Scripture that has indeed caused the Word of God to dwell more plentifully among the peoples of the earth.

We should not be surprised that the return to a more biblical view of Scripture and its uses led to a renaissance of biblical preaching of which we are direct heirs. As Larsen has noted, the “Protestant Reformation…must be seen as one of the most fertile and forceful times of biblical preaching” because the “Reformers subscribed to a view of scriptural authority which made biblical preaching a necessity” (Larsen, 142). If the Bible is the living Word of God, and if God has commanded that Word to be proclaimed in all the world, then woe to the church if we do not preach the Word in season and out of season (2 Tim 4:1-5). To be sure, the church’s view of the Bible determines how the church will appropriate the Bible, and so we have need to give thanks to God for those faithful servants who have handed down to us a more orthodox view of the Bible. 

Late Middle Ages (13th-15th Centuries)

I envision the late middle ages commencing with the life and work of Thomas Aquinas and concluding with the life and work of Marin Luther. It is beyond the scope of this blog to adequately summarize and analyze the works and influence of Aquinas and his relationship to Augustine. I can say that Scholasticism eventuated in a novel and formal separation between hermeneutics and homiletics as the former increasingly became the purview of the academy and was thus increasingly approached as a science rather than as a spiritual discipline. As for the Bible, “Before the twelfth century, the Bible had been a monastic text; now it became a professional text for clergy and their teachers” (Chris Ocker, in McKim, 20).

This unfortunate development combined with the development of natural theology, spelled disaster for the Scholastic movement, and to some extent for the church. Without going into the details, the influence of Aristotle upon Aquinas led him to advance the already extant idea of the division between nature and grace such that, by means of general grace, the natural world and philosophy became valid sources of revelation right alongside the Word of God and theology. “Aquinas recognized that salvation was dependent upon revelation, but he also fixed the relationship of theology to natural philosophy” (Goldsworthy, 112). So, this idea was not new with him, but it became entrenched through his work.

One of the implications of this teaching was what Aquinas called the analogia entis (analogy of being) by which he and the Scholastics argued that the Creator and his creation, particularly humanity, are bound in an ontological union so that the knowledge of God, in some senses, does not require revelation. Because of the effects of sin, this knowledge must be aided by grace but, for Aquinas, human beings remain fundamentally united with God. This does not mean that we have no need of salvation through Christ, but it does mean that human thought has the potential of being a valid source for revelation (see Goldsworthy, 101-119).

In this way, the Catholic Church came to believe in, and promote, a “twofold way of grace and nature in virtue of revelation on the one side and of a ‘profound structural similarity between nature and supernature’ on the other, i.e., through the operation of a twofold alliance, the one set up by the participation of the creature in being and the other by the restitution effected in the reconciliation in Jesus Christ” (Jacques de Senarclens in Goldsworthy, 113).

This teaching formed an ideal launching pad for the Renaissance and the humanism that was endemic to it. The belief that humanity was not hopelessly fallen but instead capable of being conduits of revelation gave rise to a spirit that may have seemed liberating and joy-producing, but was in fact a form of idolatry and rebellion (see Goldsworthy, 101-119). And this spirit did in fact relegate the Bible to a secondary place in western culture such as had not been seen since the days of Constantine. The veneer was there but the core was rotting.

Yet God is faithful, and along the way he sent many servants to seek his face, love his Word, and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ with joy, boldness, and good effect. Among them were the early Mendicant Friars, John Wycliffe, John Huss, and Girolamo Sirvonarola each of whom was used of God, in one way or another, to “punch holes in the darkness” of this era (Larsen, 128; see also, 95-139; Brown, 3-31).

Hermeneutics and Homiletics: Early Middle Ages (5th-13th Centuries)

I envision the era of the early middle ages commencing with the life and works of Augustine, and concluding with the life and works of Thomas Aquinas who was the leading light among the Scholastics. Indeed, after Augustine, there is little novel work until Aquinas, if there is any at all, for through his writings, and especially On Christian Doctrine, his hermeneutical method grew in prominence until it became the norm. This does not mean that every exegete in the early middle ages unthinkingly embraced Augustine, but it does mean that whatever smatterings of alternatives there were failed to gain a foothold.

In some ways, this was a good thing but it eventuated in a subtle and growing division between exegesis and spirituality so that the former was envisioned as proper to the literal sense of Scripture and the latter as proper to the spiritual senses of Scripture. “It follows that so long as this conception of Bible studies holds good, we shall have many commentaries containing little exegesis” (Smalley, 2). And for this era, this is indeed the case.

In fact, after the death of Remigius of Auxerre, about 908, there is no important commentary, and a dearth of even compilations, for about a century and a quarter. Holy abbots, as their biographers tell us, were still devoted to lectio divina, and we have unverifiable references to their study of Hebrew; they left very little written exegesis. The cathedral schools, which were improving their organization at this time, did as little for biblical studies as the monastic. It is a dramatic pause in the history of Bible studies and we should miss its significance if we explained it away as the demoralizing effect of war and Viking invasion. They certainly made scholarship difficult; but the real reason was a shift of interest. The Cluniac and other tenth-century religious reformers emphasized the liturgy at the expense of study (Smalley, 44-45).

This was a tragic development, but God is faithful. Among other lesser movements, the early twelfth century Victorines, led by Hugh, Richard, and Andrew of Saint Victor in France, revived the discussion of hermeneutics and insisted that though the Bible does contain a literal sense and an allegorical (or spiritual) sense, the former is more important than, and is the foundation of, the latter. “Hugh patiently explains that the literal sense is not the word, but what it means; it may have a figurative meaning; and this belongs to the literal sense. To despise the literal sense is to despise the whole of sacred literature” (Smalley, 93). Hugh’s “great service to exegesis was to lay more stress on the literal interpretation relatively to the spiritual, and to develop the sources for it” (Smalley, 102).

With this revived articulation of what was essentially Antiochene hermeneutics (though Hugh would not have known or said that), also came a fusion of spirituality and scholarship. Previous to this time, a division had developed between monks who prayed and scholars who studied. Now, along with several other movements (or Orders, as they were called), the Victorines sought to combine robust spirituality with disciplined scholarship. They succeeded in this endeavor so that the following generation, led by the trifecta of Peter Comestor, Peter the Chanter, and Stephen Langton, spent their lives promoting and prospering this “novel” approach (Smalley, 196).

In this way, the Victorine program made practices such as lectio divina acceptable to Paris intellectuals who then pressed their approach into what was essentially an academic lecture course. This was truly novel in history of the west, and eventually gave rise to such leading lights as Anselm and Ralph of Laon who made the first concerted effort toward a systematic theology and provided the inspiration and impetus for Thomas Aquinas’s mammoth Summa Theologica (Smalley, 49, 196).

Movements like the Victorines, then, provided the impetus for the development of universities where the Bible, spirituality, and the natural world were approached in an increasingly intellectual manner. This development, called Scholasticism, was further fueled by historic movements that forced prominent scholars to flee from the east and settle in the west, bringing with them vital, ancient texts that had been all but lost to the west. Among these works were the writings of Aristotle which were banned and burned by the church, but which were eventually enshrined in the official teaching of the church via the writings of Aquinas. In Aristotle, Aquinas saw a model for envisioning the world and organizing truth that was, to his mind, superior to Plato. Aquinas did not reject Augustine (who admired Plato), but he astutely modified Augustine’s approach.

Hermeneutics and Homiletics: The Early Church (1st-5th Centuries), Part 2

As I mentioned in the last post in this series, Origen of Alexandria exercised an extraordinary influence over western exegesis by developing and promoting a Christianized version of the allegorical method of interpretation. While his erudition and production of materials is laudable, his philosophy was and is contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore, as he grew in influence, a counter-movement arose in Syrian Antioch (north of Jerusalem near the Mediterranean coast) to defend the gospel that it might continue to be proclaimed throughout the earth.

About one century before Origen rose to prominence, Theophilus of Antioch developed a Christianized approach to hermeneutics that would pave the way for a sound response to him. This approach was more influenced by Jewish exegesis, and to a lesser extent Aristotle, than by Philo, Plato, and Hellenistic allegorization.

On the basis of that approach, Diodore of Antioch issued a penetrating critique of, and alternative to, the allegorical method in a key work entitled, What is the Difference Between Contemplation [theoria] and Allegory? In this work, Diodore rejects the excesses of Alexandria but not everything that came out of Alexandria. That is, his work was more corrective than divisive. Then, for example, in his introduction to the Psalms, he distinguished between historia (the historical background), lexis (the literal sense), theoria (the fuller sense that is discerned through careful exegesis, understanding of the lexis, and contemplation), and allegory. He rejected allegory as a valid method of interpretation because in actual practice the proponents thereof tended to divorce the allegorical sense from the literal sense and thus do violence to the text. He did, however, retain the spiritual sense (theoria) because, in agreement with the broad consensus of the church, he argued that there is indeed more to the Scripture than the plain meaning of the words. But this “more” is always inseparably united with the literal sense so that one may build upon the literal but one may not go beyond the literal.

One convenient way of summarizing the difference between these two schools of thought is this: whereas Alexandria looked at Scripture and saw two meanings, Antioch looked at Scripture and saw a double-meaning (Goldsworthy, 98). The former often tends toward flights of fancy, while the latter preserves the vital relationship between type and antitype without making mincemeat of the literal sense (see Bray, 105-107; Dockery, 103-128; Hall, 156-176).

Unfortunately, there were some at Antioch who pushed the literal sense too far and also made mincemeat of the Scripture and Christian theology. Most important among these is perhaps Nestorius whose Christology was rightly rejected as heresy, and whose shadow largely spoiled what otherwise would have been the lasting legacy of Antioch. But God is faithful, and he caused leading lights such as Athanasius, Jerome, and Augustine to rise up and correct the excesses of Alexandria as well. Augustine in particular, though he did not go as far as I would have liked in rejecting allegorization, popularized a modified approach to hermeneutics and homiletics that would guide the church for centuries to come.

Following the lead of John Cassian (Dockery, 158), Augustine argued for four senses of Scripture: the literal, the allegorical, the tropological (moral), and the anagogical (eschatological). For him, this meant that there is a fourfold meaning to every text that, on the foundation of the literal, expresses faith, love, and hope. He insisted on the importance of the literal, and though he sometimes strayed from his own principles and sadly misinterpreted this or that text, he was eminently more faithful to the text than Origen. His approach dominated the world of hermeneutics and homiletics throughout the middle ages, so much so that the entire era seems to be a series of footnotes on Augustine.

Reflecting on the era of the early church as a whole, Hall helpfully articulates four lessons we should learn from them: on the whole, (1) they read the Bible holistically as one book in two testaments, (2) they read the Bible Christologically as a singular message rooted in the person of Jesus, (3) they read the Bible in community, and (4) they read the Bible within the context of a life of prayer, worship, and spiritual formation (Hall, 191-200). We would indeed do well to humbly learn of them and follow their lead in these several ways.

Hermeneutics and Homiletics: The Early Church (1st-5th Centuries), Part 1

With regard to hermeneutics and homiletics, I envision the early church era as commencing with the generation after the Apostles, most notably Clement of Rome, and concluding with the life and works of Augustine. To be sure, scholars define this epoch in various ways and most extend it beyond the life of Augustine, but there is near universal consensus that this man, like no other, both synthesized the previous centuries of development in hermeneutics and homiletics and set the course for the next seven centuries (see, e.g., Bray, 77; Hall, 7; Kannengiesser in McKim, 1-13). As Beryl Smalley put it, “St. Jerome gave the medieval scholar his text and his learned apparatus; St. Augustine told him what his aim should be” (Smalley, 23). 

Several issues are unique to this period and help put into perspective what transpired during this time. First, the apostles died and thus left the early church to face questions of who would lead them and what their sources of authority would be.

Second, the early church needed to distinguish themselves from Judaism without dividing themselves from the flow of salvation history that was part and parcel of Judaism. In other words, they were called by God to proclaim to the Jews the dissolution of the first covenant and the establishment of the second covenant in Christ, and also to hold out the hope of Christ to those whose own sacred texts prophesied his coming—for their good. This calling demanded that the early church demonstrate and justify the relationship between the Old and New Testaments by showing how Christ is the fulfillment of the Law and prophesies and promises of God, how the God of the Jews is the God of the Christians, and how the Old Testament is authoritative for Christians while its laws are not binding upon them.

Third, the early church needed to distinguish itself from the pagan mystery religions and Hellenistic philosophies of the day, while at the same time holding out the hope of Christ to the Hellenistic world. By the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, they had to demonstrate the intellectual credibility and superiority of the gospel, the emotional appeal of the gospel, and the rationale for rejecting one’s own culture and family to embrace this mysterious man who died and yet is dead no more.

Fourth, the early church had to defend the gospel against opponents who rose up from within their ranks like Marcion who rejected the Old Testament and the God he thought it portrayed.

All of these crises forced the early church to think carefully about its sources of authority and how those sources spoke to its crises. Through the leadership of men like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, the church ultimately agreed that the Scripture itself is the final authority over the doctrine and life of the church, and that the Scripture is defined as the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. While it is true that the canon was not formally adopted until the Council of Nicaea, it is also true that these sixty-six books made up the functional canon of the early church and guided her as she spoke the truth in love to the Jews, the Hellenistic world, and the heretics in her midst (see Dockery, 45-73, 95-97).

Furthermore, these crises forced the church to think carefully about its hermeneutical methods. They did not start from scratch in this regard but rather drew both on Jewish methods which tended to emphasize a literal approach to interpretation and on Greco-Roman methods which tended to emphasize an allegorical approach to interpretation. While some early church fathers made moderately successful attempts to break from the molds of these traditions and form a via media, these two streams of influence would serve to shape the history of hermeneutics and homiletics for centuries to come (Dockery, 15-16).

On the one hand, in Alexandria and under the influence of the prominent Jewish philosopher Philo, Clement of Alexandria and his brightest student, Origen, developed a Christianized version of the allegorical method. The early church largely agreed that there is both a literal sense and a spiritual sense to the Scripture, but Origen in particular took this idea to new heights, or depths, depending on your point of view. 

In his “Homily on Leviticus” he writes, “I published three books [on Genesis] from the sayings of the holy Fathers concerning the letter and the spirit…For the Word came into the world by Mary, clad in flesh; and seeing was not understanding; all saw the flesh; knowledge of the divinity was given to a chosen few. So when the Word was shown to men through the lawgiver and the prophets, it was not shown without suitable vesture. There it is covered by the veil of flesh, here of the letter. The letter appears as flesh; but the spiritual sense within is known as divinity. This is what we find in studying Leviticus…Blessed are the eyes which see divine spirit through the letter’s veil” (Homily in Leviticus, i. I, in Smalley, 1).

With this basic philosophy in mind, Origen sought with passion and intensity to understand the literal sense of Scripture and then press into the allegorical sense, that is, the superior sense. And while he argued that the two were inextricably bound to one another, the allegorical often outshone or even replaced the literal. It is difficult in so short a space to communicate the vast influence this philosophy of interpretation had upon the Christian church, but as she often does, Smalley gets right to the point with but a few words: “To write a history of the Origenist influence on the west would be tantamount to writing a history of western exegesis” (Smalley, 14).

Be that as it may, Origen is, to my mind, an enigma, for on the one hand, he seems to have a high view of Scripture and thus takes every letter, word, and sentence very seriously. He memorized large portions of the Bible and pressed others to do the same, insisting that they could not rightly understand the Word of God unless their minds were saturated with the Word of God. He commends and promotes the Scripture with the passion of one who is profoundly persuaded. 

Yet on the other hand, he seems to have a low view of Scripture in that he argues that it is at times obscure and even laced with falsehoods, which means that it must be explained (or even excused) by means of allegory. This manner of thinking led him, for example, to deny the bodily resurrection of Christ and argue that, because of the mighty mercy of God in Christ, one day all would be saved, whether in this age or the one to come. I have had only the briefest exposure to his writings, but at times he seems embarrassed by the Bible and the God it portrays, and at times he grossly and tragically misinterprets its meaning (see Dockery, 82-97; Hall, 132-155; O’Keefe and Reno, 93-107).

Next Monday I will sketch out the contours of a movement that rose up to oppose and supplant Origen's approach to Scripture and practical Christianity, but for now I would encourage you to reread this blog and ensure that you're tracking with the flow of the argument, for again, Smalley is correct in saying that Origen had a stunningly great influence on the history of western exegesis, that is, hermeneutics and homiletics. 

Hermeneutics and Homiletics: The Old and New Testaments

Given the overwhelming scope of the independent doctoral course I took in 2011, I spent very little time studying the nature of interpretation and proclamation in the Old and New Testament era. However, I wanted to include it as the first in a series of historical epochs because in the Bible God both reveals himself and reveals how to interpret what he has revealed. That is to say, as we pay careful attention to how later biblical authors interpreted and appropriated the writings of earlier biblical authors, we learn how to read the Bible in a way that is pleasing to God. God himself has provided us with a sketch of God-centered hermeneutics, not by means of a well-defined process but by means of the writings of inspired interpreters. Thus, as we prayerfully approach the Word of God over time, we can discern the difference between issues that are necessary for a right interpretation and application of the will and wisdom of God, and issues that have a modicum of importance but are less than necessary.

Judging primarily from the words and works of Jesus, we see that the most important key to the interpretation of the Bible is Christ himself—not merely the idea of Christ but Christ himself. Indeed, the genesis of the Christocentric hermeneutic is the speech of Jesus who stated as a matter of fact that Abraham had seen his day, and that Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalmists had written of him (John 5:46; 8:56; Luke 24:44). Jesus did not claim that everything written in the Hebrew Scriptures was directly about him, but in pondering what he said we must at least acknowledge that he, as the fulfillment of so many types and prophecies, is indeed the interpretive key to all of Scripture. The whole must be interpreted in light of its beginning and end, and Christ is the Alpha and the Omega (Rev 1:8; 21:6; 22:13). That is, he is the one through whom the Father created and sustains all things, through whom the Father reveals his glory and nature, through whom the Father has spoken and effected salvation for all who embrace Jesus as their all-sufficient Savior (Heb 1:1-4; 9:13-15). Jesus himself is, therefore, the key to rightly understanding the will, wisdom, and ways of God as articulated in the pages of Scripture.

The Apostles, then, as humble and studious followers, took their method of interpretation from Jesus and advanced it into the following generation (see, e.g., Acts 2:1-41; 9:22; 17:3; Hebrews). The Christocentric hermeneutic was neither their invention, nor that of the patristic authors, nor that of modern scholars like Dennis Johnson. It was the invention of Jesus who was and is and always will be the locus of life, revelation, and meaning. In sum, we may say that the basic hermeneutic of Christ and the Apostles was an eschatological typology centered on the person of Christ—not the idea of Christ but of Christ himself. 

Therefore, as we read each passage of Scripture, we should prayerfully consider how each part of the story of God points to or is fulfilled in Christ. Since the person of Christ is the center of hermeneutics and homiletics, it follows that prayer must be a thoroughgoing part of the process of both interpretation and proclamation. For we can only gain eyes to see the presence of Christ on the pages of Scripture and the applications of what we see as we commune with the One who is one with the Father and the fulfillment of all his purposes, promises, and plans.

Hermeneutics and Homiletics: Introduction

In the spring of 2011, I took a Doctor of Ministry course at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School entitled, “Hermeneutics and Homiletics,” that is, the science and art of interpreting and preaching the Bible. One of the required course readings was Dennis Johnson’s fine work, Him We Proclaim: Preaching Christ from all the Scriptures. Part one of this book, and particularly chapter four, provides an overview of the history of hermeneutics and homiletics which both aided my understanding of the subject and exposed a significant gap in my knowledge.

Specifically, Johnson helped me to see how little I knew about the interpretation and proclamation of the Bible over the last twenty centuries, and how significant a bearing this history has on current issues and debates. Since my Doctor of Ministry concentration was preaching, I thought this gap unacceptable and thus requested an independent reading course which was eventually entitled, “Historical Survey of Hermeneutics and Homiletics.”

I set two objectives for the course. First, I aimed to develop a broad and general understanding of the history of the relationship between hermeneutics and homiletics in the Christian church. By God’s grace, I fulfilled this aim by reading a little over five-thousand pages of primary and secondary material, and by building a basic mental framework which is still in the process of being clarified, strengthened, and built out. Indeed, the course along with my continued studies since then have exposed more gaps in my knowledge than they have filled.

Second, I aimed to gain a basic familiarity with the relevant literature in and about each historical epoch. To some extent I achieved this aim via my reading and a couple of tools I began to develop then and am still working on now, namely, a summary chart of the most influential people in the history of hermeneutics and homiletics along with their primary works and a bibliography that includes the major works on the subject epoch by epoch.

Over the next several weeks, or perhaps even months, I plan to post my summary statements about the seven major epochs in the history of hermeneutics and homiletics, namely, (1) the Old and New Testament era, (2) the early church, (3) the early middle ages, (4) the late middle ages, (5) the Reformation, (6) early modernism, and (7) late modernism and postmodernism. I may also post my bibliography at some point along the way, however, it’s still so incomplete that I’m not sure how helpful it will be to others!

For now, please join me in celebrating the faithfulness of God in guiding his people for several millennia now in the skill and practice of interpreting and proclaiming his Word for the glory of his name, the upbuilding of his people, and the salvation of the nations! And join me in celebrating this eternal promise from the God who speaks: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (I 55:10-11). 

Book Review: “Biblical Preaching” (By Donald R. Sunukjian)

Sunukjian, Donald R. Invitation to Biblical Preaching: Proclaiming Truth with Clarity and Relevance. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2007.

The premise of Donald Sunukjian’s Biblical Preaching is that sermons should be the preacher’s way of saying, “Look at what God is saying to us.” Thus, he argues that the “Bible is God’s voice, spanning the ages. The role of the biblical preacher is to echo that voice in this generation,” which means he is to present the “true and exact meaning of the biblical text…in a manner that is relevant to the contemporary listener” (9-10).

Sunukjian thus divides his book into two parts, the first of which deals with “what God is saying” and the second of which deals with what God is saying “to us.” Part one includes four chapters and covers the basics of biblical exegesis. Sunukjian’s method is not surprising but his insistence on adherence to the meaning of the text is refreshing in this day and age. The heart of his process is that the preacher should articulate, through three separate outlines, the meaning of the passage (what happened), the truth-value of the passage (what happens), and the application of the passage (what is happening). By the time the preacher has articulated these things, he ought to be able to develop a pithy “take-home truth” which both captures the essence of the text and grabs the attention of the hearers.

Part two of the book, then, includes twelve chapters and advances the assertion that good, biblical preaching must offer both relevance and application. Relevance is when the people see how the text connects with their lives and it should therefore occur throughout the sermon; application is when the preacher draws out specific implications of the text for the listener’s lives and it most often happens near the end of the sermon. With this in mind, Sunukjian concludes his work by offering detailed advice on how to develop and deliver sermons which are faithful to the text and relevant to the listeners.

The central strength of Sunukjian’s book is his passion for the primacy of the Word of God in the process of preaching and his equally strong insistence that the task of the preacher is to discover and display how that Word speaks “to us.” I find this emphasis, and order, so refreshing in a day when many preachers are minimizing the Word in favor of entrepreneurial creativity.

Second, I very much appreciated Sunukjian’s explanation of the meaning and importance of relevancy in preaching, and its relationship to application. In a day when the word “relevance” is often used to mean “satisfying consumer desires,” I was pleasantly surprised to hear him present it as helping modern people see how the ancient Word of God relates to their lives today. And to be sure, a sermon that does not do this is not worth preaching or hearing. I do think he could have said a bit more about how this must first take place in the preacher before it develops in the sermon, but alas, one can only say so much in one book.

Finally, while I appreciated many of the things Sunukjian said about the process of developing and delivering sermons, I found his method of outlining to be both cumbersome and impractical. Frankly, I think it’s a bit much for the preacher who must balance praying, studying, teaching, leading, counseling, raising a family, exercising, and so on each week. That said, the convictions that led him to the processes he suggests are worth adopting and somehow integrating into our various processes as preachers.

As for my personal reflections on this book, first, Sunukjian writes in the introduction, “The purpose of the sermon is not to impart knowledge but to influence behavior—not to inform but to transform” (12). This is fairly standard language, and I do get the point, but I would prefer to state this in a slightly different way. Specifically, I would prefer to say that the purpose of preaching is to glorify God and transform lives which is founded upon, but not equal to, a right knowledge of God.

The endgame of preaching is neither the preacher nor the results of his preaching, but the exaltation of the being, will, and ways of God. God himself is the blazing center of preaching and all of the other details revolve around him. This implies that a right knowledge of God really matters and that, in fact, one of the central purposes of every sermon is to impart such knowledge. One can only love God as she ought if she knows God as he is. I completely agree with Sunukjian that a certain kind of emphasis on knowledge only creates Pharisees but this doesn’t mean we should de-emphasize knowledge itself but rather that we should rightly teach the connection between knowledge and love. Where there is no right knowledge there can be no love, or to use his word, there can be no transformation.

In the course of my ministry, I have come across many preachers who have brushed aside sound doctrine in favor of a number of other things and I fear that minimizing the place of right knowledge in the process and goals of preaching lends support to this tragic error. Thus, although it’s clear to me from the whole of his book that Sunukjian values the place of knowledge in the practice of preaching, I think he could be a little more careful with how he states his case.

Second, I was deeply moved by this paragraph: “Biblical preaching is the best thing we can do for our ministries, and it’s the best thing we can do for our own personal lives. To drink deeply of the Word of God, to saturate ourselves with its truths, to have our lives changed by its transforming power, and then to stand before God’s people, proclaiming with joy and confidence, ‘Look at what God is saying to us!’—who could be called to anything greater?” (15) When I read this passage, I was sitting at a table in a retirement home waiting to attend my grandfather-in-law’s funeral. I literally said out loud, “Amen!” I just couldn’t help myself.

Biblical preaching has produced more fruit in my personal life than almost any other thing because my process begins by going to the Word and studying it as deeply as I can, not because I have to write a sermon, but because I so desperately need to be more like Jesus. And as our gracious God uses his Word to shape my life, somehow a sermon is born. And somehow as God speaks “to me,” I come to see how God is speaking “to us.” Oh what a beautiful thing! What a high privilege! It’s literally bringing tears to my eyes as I write. 

Book Review: Applying the Sermon: How to Balance Biblical Integrity and Cultural Relevance (By Daniel Overdorf)

Overdorf, Daniel. Applying the Sermon: How to Balance Biblical Integrity and Cultural Relevance. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2009. 

The key assumption of Daniel Overdorf’s Applying the Sermon is that “[e]ffective preaching includes application that preserves biblical integrity while pursuing contemporary relevance.” The sermon should allow the Word to speak to God’s people “as explicitly and concretely as it did originally” (15), however, this is where most preachers falter because their applications either lack an explicit connection to the text or to the lives of God’s people.

Therefore, Overdorf devotes the first four chapters of his book to developing a biblical theology of sermon applications. He argues that the goal of preaching is transformation rather than information and that every sermon should “spur listeners toward this destiny, even if it’s just one step closer” (21). To achieve this, the preacher must first be faithful to the text but then he must also draw out the implications of that text for daily life. He rightly asserts that “if we preach God’s Word, empowered by the Spirit, listeners cannot escape the application” (28). He then builds on this foundation by showing that both the Holy Spirit and the preacher have a hand in developing applications, and that the logic of the Bible gives the preacher license to do so. Finally, in chapter four, he cautions against the potential pitfalls of developing sermon applications.

Overdorf then devotes the final four chapters of his book to developing a tool by which preachers can create applications that are biblically faithful and culturally relevant. His process includes ten-steps, six of which are dedicated to the creative process and four of which are intended to function as safeguards. He concludes his work by offering a series of ideas for how the preacher can include applications in his sermon.

The strongest aspect of Overdorf’s work is that his vision of preaching is rightly and tightly tethered to the Word of God and he’s clear that our applications must flow from it. He is wise to caution that most preachers slip into heresy at the application stage rather than the explanation stage because their process of developing applications is not biblically rigorous enough. The strength of this argument is what encouraged me to read his book with care.

Second, Overdorf is right to balance the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the preacher in the process of developing applications, but his thoughts along these lines need a bit more explanation (I will address this in more detail below). He is also right to look to the pattern of indicative-imperative in the text of Scripture as a validation of developing applications in modern preaching. In other words, I found his argument regarding the biblical foundations of sermon applications persuasive.

Third, his ten-step process is logical and it flows well, although I’m not sure it will always produce the right applications—no process ever will! But what I’m saying is that good applications don’t simply reduce to a process, rather, they flow out of intimacy with God, a love for the text, and a loosely held process.

Finally, the main weakness I found in Overdorfs work is that there are so many quotes from other authors that I sometimes wondered whose book I was reading. But alas, not every preacher is a born author so despite this weakness I value his work.

I have four personal observations to make about this book. First, the most impactful thought of Overdorf’s book for my preaching was this: “If we preach our own ideas, people can take them or leave them. Listeners can ignore our opinions and, quite possibly, fare better for doing so. But if we preach God’s Word, empowered by the Spirit, listeners cannot escape the application” (28). I literally said “Amen!” out loud when I read these three sentences! It’s not only that they can’t escape the interpretation, but that they can’t escape the implications of the interpretation for their lives—and neither can we preachers for our lives.

I stated the principle this way in the margin of my book: one of the primary goals of biblical preaching, then, is to unveil the inescapable consequences of the text of Scripture for our lives together. This thought really blessed me and motivated me to give a larger place to the development of applications in my process of writing sermons.

Second, although I thought Overdorf was right to argue that both the Holy Spirit and the preacher have a hand in developing sermon applications, I thought he should have pointed out that the lion’s share of the burden falls on the Spirit’s shoulders. God Almighty is the good and great Shepherd of the sheep, and we are merely under-shepherds who do his bidding inasmuch as we discern and submit to his will. Thus, the way we preachers play our part in applying the text of Scripture is by drawing near to our Father, understanding the text as thoroughly as we can, and listening to the whispers of the Holy Spirit as he teaches us how to apply his Word. I’m sure Overdorf would agree with my thinking here but again it would have been good for him to draw this out a bit more. We are, in a sense, co-laborers with God but we are not co-equals.

Third, Overdorf’s conviction that biblical preaching should not only inform the people of God but also transform their lives, reminded me of something I heard Jack Hayford teach a few years back. He argued that every sermon should include information and inspiration, but that its essential nature should be incarnation. That is, the Word of God should “take on flesh” in the life of the preacher and then in the lives of the people through every sermon that is preached. I found this both moving and persuasive “for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:12).

And I now find this helpful for understanding the need for biblically faithful, culturally relevant applications because by helping God’s people see the implications of the Word for their lives we are assisting the Word in “taking on flesh,” if you will. We are offering ourselves as tools in the hands of God by which he can incarnate his will and ways among his people. Of course, the necessary antecedent to this is that we preachers first put ourselves under the Word and allow it to incarnate in our lives—teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training us. Only as the Word has power in us can it have power through us. 

Finally, I so appreciated Overdorf’s emphasis in chapter three on the place of grace in the development and delivery of applications. For example, as it is with so many of the epistles, all of the practical instructions in Ephesians 4-6 are firmly rooted in the truths of Ephesians 1-3, and the former cannot be rightly understood or practiced without the latter. “For by grace [we] were saved, through faith” (Eph 2:8), and by grace we learn to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. By grace we learn to apply to daily life the truths God has revealed in his Word.

Book Review: “The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative” (By Steven D. Mathewson)

Steven D. Mathewson. The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002.

Steven D. Mathewson’s burden is to help preachers give more attention to Old Testament narratives and excel at it when they do. He has a fundamental commitment to the exposition of biblical texts as well as to the application of those texts, but he fears that evangelical preachers have shied away from preaching story. Thus, he purposes in The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative to lay out a path whereby preachers can honor their passion for teaching truth while also giving place to the dominant genre of the Bible.

The first section of the book, then, deals with the journey from text to concept, that is, from the specific meaning of the story to the broader truth of the story. In order to successfully complete this journey, the preacher must give thought to the plot, characters, setting, and points of view of the story. This gives rise to an exegetical outline and the main thrust of the story. And while Mathewson is thoughtful in explaining this process, he’s also insistent that it’s a bit of an art and dependent upon prayer.

The second section of the book deals with the journey from concept to sermon, that is, from the broader truth of the story to the presentation of that truth. Mathewson suggests that the preacher ask three questions in this stage: what does the text mean (explanation)? Is the text true (validation)? What should we do about it (application)? He then deals with a number of matters related to conceiving and writing the sermon, and concludes the book with five sermon manuscripts from various preachers that display the principles of the book.

The strongest aspect of Mathewson’s book is his right understanding of story with an equally strong emphasis on expositional preaching. He is passionately committed to the details and purposes of Scripture and this sets his work apart from so much of the literature on preaching story today. And he’s right to point out that expositional preaching does not demand a particular method but that it demands a commitment to saying what the text says, even when preaching story.

Further, Mathewson does a good job of integrating scholarship on the nature of story into his argument without stripping the text of its divine nature. That is, he doesn’t reduce the Word of God to mere literature but he deals well with the fact that it is literature nonetheless, and he listens well to those who understand the nature of story.

Third, as I mentioned above, Mathewson provides a refreshing balance between the science of method and the art of sermon preparation. I particularly appreciated the analogy to golf, although I thought an analogy to music would have been better. That is to say, while it’s necessary for the musician to learn the rudiments of music, when it comes time to play, he or she must let the notes flow from the heart. And like music, preaching ought to emerge from truth and flow from the heart, especially when it deals with stories.

Finally, Mathewson does an excellent job of guiding preachers along the path of preaching narrative texts. I find him to be a rare blend of an intellectual and a practitioner, one who both thinks well and grasps the contours of the shepherd’s life. I highly recommend his book for the seasoned preacher, although the student or the novice would benefit from it as well.

Mathewson helps us see that preaching expository sermons means allowing the text to dictate not only the content but the shape of the sermon. Most American (indeed Western) preachers are trained to exegete the epistles and of course many of the principles we learn in the process and hone over time transfer to exegeting stories. But the problem arises when the preacher shifts from the exegetical truth to the homiletical presentation of a story for at least two reasons.

On the one hand, old habits die hard and thusthe age-old paradigm of proposition-explanation-illustration-application is difficult to let go in the process of relating a story. Of course, none of these elements need be sacrificed in preaching OT or NT stories but they must, like water, learn to conform to the form of the text. When preaching from Romans, the sermons must take the shape of Romans. When preaching Job, the sermons must take the shape of Job.

On the other hand, I suspect that many Western preachers are suspicious that merely telling a story is not enough to feed the people of God or win the lost to Christ. Texts like Rom 15:4 ring in our minds: “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” We tend to think that to make hope palpable we have to do more than merely read, or re-tell, biblical stories in the presence of the church. And certainly, the preacher must do than merely re-tell a story, but at the same time, we must learn to trust in the form, content, and intents of the stories God himself has chosen to tell. At the end of the day, then, telling biblical stories on their own terms is a matter of faith, that is, of trusting that God will work as we faithfully reiterate his Word in the hearing of others. 

That said, I would have liked to hear more about how Mathewson conceives the relationship between the gospel and the text of the Old Testament, and how the preacher ought to handle this as he works through specific texts. Surely, the preacher must allow a story to be what it is and not to read too much into it, but at the same time Jesus himself once unmasked his presence in the pages of the Old Testament (Luke 24:27) and thus he bid us to search for and expose him there as well. Furthermore, since all stories consummate in his story, it seems wise to help God’s people see how this is so. 

I must conclude by reiterating how much I appreciated this book. I will not only read it again, I will use it as a reference guide as I grow in preaching through the years. I heartily recommend it and urge you to read it for yourself. 

Book Review: “Effective First-Person Biblical Preaching” (By J. Kent Edwards)

J. Kent Edwards. Effective First-Person Biblical Preaching. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005. 

J. Kent Edwards is a seasoned preacher who desires to help other preachers “preach the stories of Scripture in an irresistible, unforgettable, life-transforming fashion, and to do so without theological compromise…[for] if we cannot captivate people’s minds, we will never capture their souls” (12). He is convinced that first-person preaching is the best way to communicate such stories and thus he begins his book by offering a number of reasons why this is so, behind which is the conviction that the form of the Bible (i.e., the genre) is as inspired as the content and must therefore be honored in the style of preaching. 

As a good student of Haddon Robinson, Edwards then divides the labor of developing first-person sermons into the exegetical task and the homiletical task, however, he focuses on narrative texts which does make his treatment somewhat unique. Part one of the book, then, focuses on the exegetical task and offers an eight step process by which this can be accomplished. Part two focuses on the homiletical task and suggests a fifteen step process by which this can be accomplished. And while the reader may question this or that part of his overall twenty-three-step process, he must certainly agree with Edwards’ aim: to create narrative sermons that “convey exactly the same idea and emotional impact as the biblical story” (76). 

Edwards draws the book to a close by addressing a number of questions about first-person preaching, suggesting seven alternatives styles for presenting narrative texts, and providing several example sermons and useful worksheets. 

The strongest aspect of Edwards’ book is the argument he makes for the inspiration, value, and importance of biblical narratives. After reading the first couple of chapters I was convinced that not to preach these stories as stories is sin because they comprise so much of the Bible. Surely God did not falter in his choice of genre. I’m not sure I agree that first-person preaching is the best way to present narrative texts but his insistence upon this method does not diminish the strength of his broader argument. 

The weakest aspect of his book is that he does not adequately deal with the potential pitfalls of employing creative means to present the “the big idea” of a story. In fact, I must admit that I was surprised by how easily he left the details of the text behind when enumerating the various ways one can preach a narrative text. He seems to imply that once the preacher has discerned the “big idea” of the story, he’s free to present that idea in any way he’d like, even if it’s wrapped up in a completely different story (see his comments on “parabolic preaching” and “refurbished stories,” 137-42). However, the particular details of a story that lead up to and follow from “the big idea” matter very much and the preacher cannot simply dismiss them as window-dressing when he develops the flow of the sermon. 

I am certain that Edwards has a high regard for the text of Scripture and that he does not mean to demean it in any way, but I do think his book would be stronger if he gave more thought, and wrote a chapter, about the potential pitfalls of creative preaching and how to avoid them.

Book Review: “The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages” (By Beryl Smalley)

Beryl Smalley. The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994). 

The aim of this book is to show how, despite the predominance of the four-fold sense of Scripture as an exegetical assumption and method, the literal-historical sense of Scripture rose to prominence throughout the middle ages, from about A.D. 700 to about A.D. 1300. This is an advanced text and assumes that the reader possesses a more than rudimentary knowledge of medieval history and culture, church tradition and structure, and a basic knowledge of Latin, French, and German (Smalley often uses non-English terms and sentences without translating or explaining them). 

Smalley commences her fine work with a brief treatment of the patristic fathers who most influenced the middle ages, namely, Origen, Jerome, Augustine, and to a lesser extent Bede. She then analyzes the complex array of ideas, institutions and personalities as embodied in several circles throughout this period where biblical studies most flourished. She concludes that the literal-historical sense of Scripture rose to prominence in the later portions of this period because of the shift of exegetical locus from the congregation to the academy or the monastery, the influence of Aristotelian thought via Thomas Aquinas, the novel interest in the natural world and the development of various sciences related thereto, and the complex ebb and flow of the discovery and loss of vital and influential texts. She “predicts” that the following period (i.e., the Renaissance) will be characterized by the sharp rise of critical scholarship and the corollary suspicion of, and attack upon, mysticism. 

While Smalley is quick to point out the inadequacies of her work, she has undoubtedly made a significant contribution to the understanding of the practice of hermeneutics in the Middle Ages, and I strongly recommend this work to anyone interested in the subject.

Book Review: “Has the Church Misread the Bible?” (By Moises Silva)

Moises Silva. Has the Church Misread the Bible? The History of Interpretation in the Light of Current Issues (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1987). 

This book is the first in a series on the subject of general hermeneutics, each of which seeks to contribute to the field by considering it in light of various relevant disciplines, specifically, philosophy, literary criticism, linguistics, history, science, and theology. It is assumed throughout the series that while one must be in right relationship with God in order to interpret the Scriptures well, this relationship does not guarantee a right reading thereof, and thus the need arises for interaction with extra-biblical disciplines. 

This inaugural volume, rather than touching on a particular discipline, seeks to highlight several tensions within the Scripture itself that have greatly affected the history of hermeneutics: Is the Bible divine or human? Is it literal or figurative? Is it clear or obscure? Is it relative or absolute? Silva asserts that the aim of modern exegetes ought to be the healthy preservation of these tensions rather than the artificial, or premature, resolution of them. The shadow of Origen looms large throughout this volume because it looms large throughout the history of hermeneutics, but Silva offers a balanced critique and affirmation of his life and work at various points. 

Silva’s perspective on the history of hermeneutics is honest but fundamentally positive. He believes that God has, and will, guide and preserve his people by his Spirit and through his Word, no matter the difficulties inherent in the interpretation of ancient texts. 

Book Review: “Sanctified Vision” (By John O’Keefe and R. Reno)

John J. O’Keefe, and R. R. Reno. Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins, 2005). 

The aim of this book is to understand patristic exegesis on its own terms without making judgments about the correctness of their techniques or the truth value of their results. The chief difficulty in achieving this aim, the authors argue, is modern assumptions about the nature of texts, meaning, and interpretive practices. 

On the one hand, moderns assume that texts have referential meaning, that is, that every text points to an x outside of itself. Premodern readers, on the other hand, assume that the text is the x to which it refers, and thus they do not see the need to draw upon extra-biblical disciplines to establish the meaning and veracity of the biblical text. With this in mind, the authors probe into the Christocentric hermeneutic that dominated patristic exegesis, summarize three reading strategies that broadly characterized patristic exegesis (intensive, typological, and allegorical), and highlight the prominence of the rule of faith and spiritual disciplines in patristic exegesis. 

While the authors oversimplify, and at times misconstrue, the relationship between text and referent in the minds of patristic authors, their central thesis gets to the heart of patristic exegesis: to think in and through the Scriptures themselves, and intensively so, is to have a sanctified vision, and a sanctified vision is necessary for a right understanding of the Scripture and the purposes of God in Christ.

Book Review: “Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters” (By Donald A. McKim)

Donald A. McKim. Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009). 

This dictionary, formerly entitled Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters (1998), focuses on the work of many of the most significant biblical interpreters from Jesus to the beginning of the twenty-first century. More than one-hundred scholars contributed essays summarizing the life and works of approximately two-hundred persons who were included in the dictionary because they either made a novel contribution to, or left an indelible mark upon, the practice of biblical interpretation. 

This unique work begins with a one-hundred-page prefatory essay that surveys the history of biblical interpretation. Composed by six scholars with various expertise, the essay is designed to bring coherence to the host of entries in the main body of the work by drawing the reader’s attention to the issues, contributions, and movements that have characterized the various epochs of biblical interpretation. Accordingly, it offers a brief treatment of the patristic period, the Middle Ages, the reformation and post-reformation period, the enlightenment period, and the modern interpretive milieu in Europe and North America. The essay is understandably superficial but necessary and helpful in the context of this work. 

The articles cover a wide array of biblical interpreters and are generally informative and helpful for gaining a general view of an era or an interpreter. They include resources for further reading, and thus serve as a handy reference tool and a spring board for more substantial research. 

Book Review: “The Company of the Preachers” (By David L. Larsen)

David L. Larsen. The Company of the Preachers: A History of Biblical Preaching from the Old Testament to the Modern Era, 2 Vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic and Professional, 1998). 

The focus of this two-volume work is on biblical preaching which Larsen defines as the explication and application of the content and purposes of the Bible, the living Word of God. This implies that biblical preaching is inextricably bound, in its aims, processes and outcomes, to the nature and character of the God who has revealed himself through the Word. Larsen rightly asserts that there is a crisis in preaching in our time, and thus he seeks to draw upon the vast resources of the history of preaching to instruct, correct, and inspire modern preachers to practice and promote lively expository preaching once again. 

He is unashamedly evangelical and places himself squarely in the flow of classical biblical Christianity. Thus, he asserts that the foundations of biblical preaching are the conviction that the Bible is indeed the living Word of God, that the Bible is designed to be proclaimed by those who are called of God to do so, and that the study of the history of preaching is necessary for any preaching ministry to flourish over time because it provides cautionary tales, ministry-shaping insights, and the hope that God will cause his Word to prosper in every age. 

Larsen commences his survey of history, then, with a treatment of preaching in the Old and New Testaments, a feature which is somewhat unique and refreshing. From there, he guides his readers on a journey through the history of preaching in the early church, the Middle Ages, the Reformation and Enlightenment, the Victorian Era, and the twentieth century. The final two chapters on the twentieth century, to which he devotes nearly two-hundred-fifty pages, are particularly impressive. As a whole, his presentation is thorough, insightful, readable, and likely to enflame the preaching ministries of all who will listen well and then take up this study on their own.