Preaching the Word - Print

Preaching the Word: Contemporary Approaches to the Bible for the Pulpit.

By Karoline M. Lewis

Soft cover, 170pp
ISBN 9780664266622
Westminster John Knox Press (2023)

[Allow 4 weeks]

The constant evolution of biblical scholarship has left the average pastor relying on interpretive methods learned in distant seminary years. Karoline Lewis surveys developments in biblical studies and uses the Gospel of John to demonstrate how recent interpretive tools and methods can be applied to preaching.

The question of what to do with the biblical text in the sermon is perennial. Biblical scholarship constantly evolves and grows, making it hard even for biblical scholars themselves to apply the latest insights in their preaching. The average pastor doesn’t have time to keep up with the changes in biblical studies and, as a result, often defaults to interpretive methods learned in (increasingly distant) seminary years.

Preaching the Word addresses those needs by surveying recent developments in biblical studies with an eye to applying them in preaching the Gospel of John. Noted New Testament Scholar and homiletician Karoline Lewis lays out these recent interpretive tools and methods, demonstrating their application to preaching using specific passages in the Fourth Gospel.

Karoline Lewis’s clarity and warmth shine in her careful mapping of urgent conversations in the homiletic field. That alone is worth the price of admission. But the real treasure of Preaching the Word is the delight it takes in John’s Gospel.