A Legacy of Preaching, Volume One---Apostles to the Revivalists

Zondervan, Benjamin K. Forrest, Kevin King Sr., William J. Curtis, Dwayne Milioni

• Editore: Zondervan Academic
• Anno: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780310538233
• Argomento: Théologie et religion
• Categoria: Ministère chrétien

A Legacy of Preaching, Volume One--Apostles to the Revivalists explores the history and development of preaching through a biographical and theological examination of its most important preachers. Instead of teaching the history of preaching from the perspective of movements and eras, each contributor tells the story of a particular preacher in history, allowing the preachers from the past to come alive and instruct us through their lives, theologies, and methods of preaching.

Each chapter introduces readers to a key figure in the history of preaching, followed by an analysis of the theological views that shaped their preaching, their methodology of sermon preparation and delivery, and an appraisal of the significant contributions they have made to the history of preaching. This diverse collection of familiar and lesser-known individuals provides a detailed and fascinating look at what it has meant to communicate the gospel over the past two thousand years. By looking at how the gospel has been communicated over time and across different cultures, pastors, scholars, and homiletics students can enrich their own understanding and practice of preaching for application today.

Volume One covers the period from the apostles to the revivalists and profiles thirty preachers including:

• Paul by Eric Rowe
• Peter by David R. Beck
• Melito of Sardis by Paul A. Hartog
• Origen of Alexandria by Stephen O. Presley
• Ephrem the Syrian by Jonathan J. Armstrong
• Basil of Caesarea by Jonathan Morgan
• John Chrysostom by Paul A. Hartog
• Augustine of Hippo by Edward L. Smither
• Gregory the Great by W. Brian Shelton
• Bernard of Clairvaux by Elizabeth Hoare
• Francis of Assisi by Timothy D. Holder
• Saint Bonaventure by G. R. Evans
• Meister Eckhart by Daniel Farca?
• Johannes Tauler by Byard Bennett
• John Huss by Mark A. Howell
• Girolamo Savonarola by W. Brian Shelton
• Martin Luther by Robert Kolb
• Ulrich Zwingli by Kevin L. King
• Balthasar Hubmaier by Corneliu C. Simu?
• William Tyndale by Scott A. Wenig
• John Calvin by Anthony N. S. Lane
• William Perkins by Dwayne Milioni
• Richard Baxter by Simon Vibert
• John Owen by Henry M. Knapp
• John Bunyan by Larry Steven McDonald
• Matthew Henry by William C. Watson and W. Ross Hastings
• François Fénelon by Martin I. Klauber
• Jonathan Edwards by Gerald R. McDermott
• John Wesley by Michael Pasquarello III
• George Whitefield by Bill Curtis and Timothy McKnight

Volume Two, available separately, covers the period from the Enlightenment to the present day and profiles thirty-one preachers including Charles Haddon Spurgeon, D. L. Moody, Billy Sunday, Karl Barth, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, John Stott, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Martin Luther King Jr., Billy Graham, and more.

PART One
Preaching in the Early Church and among the Patristic Fathers

The history of the Christian church has been shaped by preaching as early as the apostles. Biblical preaching played a central role in the regular gatherings of the early church (Acts 2:42). The apostles were set aside from the responsibilities of a growing church to focus on prayer and preaching (Acts 6:3–4). Peter modeled biblical preaching by using the Old Testament Scriptures to reveal the centrality of Jesus Christ in God’s plan to redeem his people (Acts 2:14–36). As a missionary, Paul utilized preaching as his means for spreading the gospel throughout the known world. Paul’s proclamation was doctrinal and apologetic, arguing for the resurrection and appealing for believers to live resurrected lives (Col 3:1–3). Paul passed on the legacy of preaching to his disciples, exhorting them to “Preach the word” and entrust other faithful people to do likewise (2 Tim 2:2; 4:2).

Beyond the biblical era, the early church was marked by the preaching of the church fathers (second–fifth centuries). Initially, they modeled the missionary preaching of Paul amidst periods of severe persecution by Rome. Preaching Christ’s return was common among those suffering from persecution and martyrdom. As churches became established, catechismal or instructional preaching was added for new believers. There remained a strong affiliation to the Old Testament up through the second century. Soon, settled churches began to develop liturgy. The Didache understood preaching and teaching to be the central component of worship. Melito of Sardis (d. ca. 190) gracefully preached how the Jewish Passover has been fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Origen (ca. 185–254) offered an allegorical approach to preaching that would model a preaching method for Western Christendom against the grammatical-historical preaching found in the East led by John Chrysostom (349–407).

The Edict of Milan (AD 313) legalized Christianity, which radically altered preaching. The church was infused with non- and novice believers. Heresies were introduced and preaching often took the form of rational appeal to the truth about Jesus Christ. As time went on, sacramentalism, especially the Eucharist, would replace preaching as the center of Christian worship. Ephrem the Syrian (ca. 303–373) wrote sermons about Christ in verse. Basil of Caesarea (330–379) was an influential preacher and theologian who supported the high Christology of the Nicene Creed (AD 325) and saw the preacher as the “mouthpiece of Christ.” Of all the church fathers, the preaching and writing of Augustine (354–430) may have the strongest legacy on the church up through the Reformation. His preaching captivated congregations in North Africa and he wrote On Christian Doctrine, which was the first book formally describing the interplay of hermeneutics and homiletics.

Paul
Proclaiming Christ Crucified

ERIC ROWE

The apostle Paul was, for a time, a highly esteemed and educated Jewish rabbi who persecuted other Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. Then he himself was called by Jesus to preach the very faith he had opposed. From that moment on, Paul’s life revolved around preaching the gospel of Jesus’s death and resurrection, expounding doctrines that revolved around that central truth, and exhorting other believers to live in the life of the risen Christ.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The preaching ministry of the apostle Paul spanned roughly the middle third of the first century AD. His greatest influence on the church today is through his letters, which comprise a major part of the New Testament. However, according to both his own testimony in those letters and the portrayal of him in the book of Acts, his primary vocation was not one of writing, but preaching. The following survey of the surviving evidence will both establish that fact and describe the nature and content of his preaching.

Throughout Paul’s epistles he writes with confidence that his audiences will accept his words, coming as they do from him, as supremely authoritative on all matters he addresses. The fact that these letters remain for us to this day in the New Testament is evidence that they were accepted as Paul insisted they be. Paul’s foundation of authority came through the power God exhibited in Paul’s ministry of traveling the world and preaching a message he called the gospel. Paul repeatedly harkens back to the trust he established through his preaching as the basis on which the apostolic authority of his letters should be trusted (1 Cor 1:17; 2:1–5; 3:5–6; 4:14–16; 9:1, 13–18; 15:1–11; 2 Cor 3:1–2, 12; 5:12; 10:13–16; 13:10; Gal 1:8–11; 3:1; 4:12–16; Phil 2:12; 1 Thess 1:5–2:16; 2 Thess 2:5; 3:10). Even in his letter to the Romans, his magnum opus, written to an audience whom he had not yet visited, Paul speaks as though his letter to them is a stopgap measure designed to meet their need for doctrinal guidance until he is able to do what he really wants to do for them, which is to preach the gospel in person (Rom 1:11–15; 15:22–24, 32; 16:25). Paul reiterates in his own words throughout his epistles that his defining ministry is preaching: “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1 Cor 1:17); “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel” (1 Cor 9:16); “This grace was given to me: to preach” (Eph 3:8); “I was appointed a herald and an apostle” (1 Tim 2:7; 2 Tim 1:11). After Paul’s conversion to faith in Christ, his reputation among the Judean Christians changed from being infamous for persecuting their faith to being famous as a preacher of it (Gal 1:23). The book of Acts paints the same portrait of Paul, as the preacher. Consider Litfin’s summary of this evidence:

We may begin by noting the centrality of public speaking to Paul’s ministry in Acts. Immediately upon his conversion (Acts 9:1–19) Paul begins to preach (Acts 9:20, kēryssō). When Barnabas commends him to the Jerusalem apostles, it is for his bold speaking (parrēsiazomai, Acts 9:27), which the new convert enthusiastically continues (Acts 9:28). After Paul is sent out on his initial missionary journey by the Holy Spirit in Acts 13:4, the first reference to the activity of proclamation (katangellō) occurs immediately (Acts 13:5). From this point on proclamation is the most persistent element in the account of Paul’s missionary activity. Whether the term is euangelizō, kēryssō, katangellō, peithō, parrēsiazomai, dialegō, martyreō, diamartyromai, paradidōmi, or didaskō, and whether the audience is large or small, formal or informal, indoors or out of doors, preaching remains at the center of Paul’s ministry. Hence we are unsurprised when the final verse of Acts leaves Paul “proclaiming [kērussō] the kingdom of God and teaching [didaskō] about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness” (Acts 28:31).¹

Paul’s preaching left a powerful impression not only on those who believed his message, but also a wide variety of ideological opponents, who often felt threatened enough by him to go to great lengths to silence and contradict him. The existence of such strong opposition is a testament to Paul’s fame and infamy as a preacher. One such group, whom Paul calls the circumcision, apparently followed him from city to city seeking to undermine his teachings (Gal 2:12; 3:1; 4:9, 17, 21; Phil 3:2; Col 4:11; Titus 1:10). It may be this or another group whose charges Paul addresses in 2 Corinthians, where both the content and the manner of Paul’s preaching are explicit objects of their scorn (2 Cor 10:7, 10; 11:6).

Paul’s fame was not limited to his fellow Jews. Major political players around the Roman Empire took notice of Paul’s preaching, sometimes admiring, but more often fearing it as subverting the people’s allegiance to the emperor. Sergius Paulus, a proconsul of Cyprus in the 40s AD, was one of Paul’s converts, and some evidence suggests that this resulted in several generations of Christians in what was then a very important family in Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:12).² In AD 51, Paul was also brought before the judgment seat of Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, who took little interest in Paul’s message, but unexpectedly so from the vantage point of those who brought the charges (Acts 18:12–14). According to Acts, controversy about what Paul taught in his preaching was a major factor in instigating the riot in Jerusalem that resulted in his arrest and ensuing multiyear imprisonment (Acts 21:27–28). As Acts recounts the ordeal, multiple major political fig...