The Golden Age of Preaching


Book Description

To measure the impact of a minister's preaching, one must first examine the societal context in which the ministry took place. For example, what would lead a minister of the Gospel to roar from the pulpit, as did Joseph Parker of City Temple, London, "God damn the Sultan!" The first section of The Golden Age of Preaching is given to the study of the times in which nine prominent British preachers ministered. Understanding the times helps one to comprehend why crowds flocked to hear these men preach, and why their sermons were printed in newspapers on Monday. Furthermore, to assess the preaching of a man, one needs to take into account the life and manner of the man himself. The Men Who Moved the Masses includes biographical sketches of nine selected preachers: Alexander McLaren, Robert William Dale, Henry Parry Liddon at St. Paul's London, Joseph Parker, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Alexander Whyte, Frederick Brotherton Meyer, John Henry Jowett, and George Campbell Morgan. These were men, though hampered by various medical problems and personality shortcomings, who led thousands to faith in their day. The final section attempts to answer the question, "Why?" by identifying those homiletical characteristics of their preaching which they had in common, resulting in such uncommon impact upon the masses. Those qualities are not confined to their era alone. They are perpetual, applicable to any age, to any culture. Preachers and seminarians who dare to sit at the feet and learn from these preaching giants of the past will find their own preaching power lifted onto a new plain to the benefit of all who hear them.




The Golden Age of Preaching


Book Description

To measure the impact of a minister's preaching, one must first examine the societal context in which the ministry took place. For example, what would lead a minister of the Gospel to roar from the pulpit, as did Joseph Parker of City Temple, London, "God damn the Sultan!" The first section of The Golden Age of Preaching is given to the study of the times in which nine prominent British preachers ministered. Understanding the times helps one to comprehend why crowds flocked to hear these men preach, and why their sermons were printed in newspapers on Monday. Furthermore, to assess the preaching of a man, one needs to take into account the life and manner of the man himself. The Men Who Moved the Masses includes biographical sketches of nine selected preachers: Alexander McLaren, Robert William Dale, Henry Parry Liddon at St. Paul's London, Joseph Parker, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Alexander Whyte, Frederick Brotherton Meyer, John Henry Jowett, and George Campbell Morgan. These were men, though hampered by various medical problems and personality shortcomings, who led thousands to faith in their day. The final section attempts to answer the question, "Why?" by identifying those homiletical characteristics of their preaching which they had in common, resulting in such uncommon impact upon the masses. Those qualities are not confined to their era alone. They are perpetual, applicable to any age, to any culture. Preachers and seminarians who dare to sit at the feet and learn from these preaching giants of the past will find their own preaching power lifted onto a new plain to the benefit of all who hear them.




Living with Confidence in a Chaotic World


Book Description

In this updated edition of his classic book, New York Times bestselling author Dr. David Jeremiah offers biblically based, practical instruction for living a confident life in a world filled with chaos and crisis. Confidence can be hard to come by these days as millions of people experience immeasurable, unanticipated challenges. People are losing their jobs, their houses, and their life savings at an unprecedented rate. Violence, natural disasters, and moral depravity seem to be skyrocketing. In the midst of all this chaos, we need to know . . . what on earth should we do now? Bible teacher Dr. David Jeremiah brings a message of hope and confidence from the priceless counsel of the Word of God. If we rely on God's Word to advise us, calm us, and fill us with hope and trust in the One who understands what is happening, we can weather any storm. Dr. Jeremiah answers our most urgent questions, including: How can we weather this storm with a calm heart? What does it truly mean to “wait on the Lord”? What is Jesus saying to our chaotic world today? How on earth did we get into this mess? Can we take a broken world and rebuild it into something fruitful? Living with Confidence in a Chaotic World shows us all that with the power and love of Almighty God, we can live with confidence in this age of turmoil.




The Lost History of Christianity


Book Description

The New York Times bestselling history of early Christianity in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East—from “one of America’s best scholars of religion” (The Economist). In this groundbreaking book, renowned scholar Philip Jenkins explores a vast and forgotten network of the world’s largest and most influential Christian churches that existed to the east of the Roman Empire. These churches and their leaders ruled the Middle East for centuries and became the chief administrators and academics in the new Muslim empire. The author recounts the shocking history of how these churches—those that had the closest link to Jesus and the early church—eventually died. Jenkins offers a new lens through which to view our world today, including the current conflicts in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Without this lost history, we lack an important element for understanding our collective religious past. By understanding the forgotten catastrophe that befell Christianity, we can appreciate the surprising new births that are occurring in our own time, once again making Christianity a true world religion.




Preaching Power


Book Description

"This book uses a gender perspective to examine sermons and other officially endorsed discourses of the Catholic Church in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Mexico City. Analyzing the different ways that, over time, gendered images, metaphors, and hagiographical examples were used in sermons and other documents, the book examines how the church negotiated challenges to its cultural and ideological hegemony. Beginning with sermons from the early eighteenth century, the author follows the evolution of church discourses as preachers reveled in Baroque analogies, embraced ideals of the Enlightenment, targeted women's alleged moral vices at times of political crisis, and ultimately turned to notions of women as ""the devout sex"" in order to combat incipient liberalism. Put another way, liberals after independence were not the only ones to assert a kind of ""republican motherhood"": preachers countered with a vision of ""Catholic motherhood"" that had great resonance in Mexico even into the twentieth century."




Preaching Bondage


Book Description

Preaching Bondage introduces and investigates the novel concept of doulology, the discourse of slavery, in the homilies of John Chrysostom, the late fourth-century priest and bishop. Chris L. de Wet examines the dynamics of enslavement in ChrysostomÕs theology, virtue ethics, and biblical interpretation and shows that human bondage as a metaphorical and theological construct had a profound effect on the lives of institutional slaves. The highly corporeal and gendered discourse associated with slavery was necessarily central in ChrysostomÕs discussions of the household, property, education, discipline, and sexuality. De Wet explores the impact of doulology in these contexts and disseminates the results in a new and highly anticipated language, bringing to light the more pervasive fissures between ancient Roman slaveholding and early Christianity. The corpus of ChrysostomÕs public addresses provides much of the literary evidence for slavery in the fourth century, and De WetÕs convincing analysis is a groundbreaking contribution to studies of the social world in late antiquity.




A History of Preaching


Book Description

Accompanying CD-ROM contains the full text of volume one and two. Volume two contains primary source material on preaching drawn from the entire scope of the church's twenty centuries. Each chapter in volume two is geared to its companion chapter in volume one's narrative history.




Preaching and Teaching Outlines from the Psalms


Book Description

These outlines give preachers and teachers an insider's look into the beloved Book of Psalms. Each chapter is complete in itself and ready for your own presentation, but when read consecutively, you will have dozens of Sunday sermons and studies to present to your people. --from publisher description.




A History of Preaching Volume 2


Book Description

A History of Preaching brings together narrative history and primary sources to provide the most comprehensive guide available to the story of the church's ministry of proclamation. Bringing together an impressive array of familiar and lesser-known figures, Edwards paints a detailed, compelling picture of what it has meant to preach the gospel. Pastors, scholars, and students of homiletics will find here many opportunities to enrich their understanding and practice of preaching. Ecumenical in scope, fair-minded in presentation, appreciative of the contributions that all the branches of the church have made to the story of what it means to develop, deliver, and listen to a sermon, A History of Preaching will be the definitive resource for anyone who wishes to preach or to understand preaching's role in living out the gospel. Volume 2 contains primary source material on preaching drawn from the entire scope of the church's twenty centuries. The author has written an introduction to each selection, placing it in its historical context and pointing to its particular contribution. Each chapter in Volume 2 is geared to its companion chapter in Volume 1's narrative history. Volume 1, available separately as 9781501833779, contains Edwards's magisterial retelling of the story of Christian preaching's development from its Hellenistic and Jewish roots in the New Testament, through the late-twentieth century's discontent with outdated forms and emphasis on new modes of preaching such as narrative. Along the way the author introduces us to the complexities and contributions of preachers, both with whom we are already acquainted, and to whom we will be introduced here for the first time. Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, Bernard, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Edwards, Rauschenbusch, Barth; all of their distinctive contributions receive careful attention. Yet lesser-known figures and developments also appear, from the ninth-century reform of preaching championed by Hrabanus Maurus, to the reference books developed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the mendicant orders to assist their members' preaching, to Howell Harris and Daniel Rowlands, preachers of the eighteenth-century Welsh revival, to Helen Kenyon, speaking as a layperson at the 1950 Yale Beecher lectures about the view of preaching from the pew. "...'This work is expected to be the standard text on preaching for the next 30 years,' says Ann K. Riggs, who staffs the NCC's Faith and Order Commission. Author Edwards, former professor of preaching at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, is co-moderator of the commission, which studies church-uniting and church-dividing issues. 'A History of Preaching is ecumenical in scope and will be relevant in all our churches; we all participate in this field,' says Riggs...." from EcuLink, Number 65, Winter 2004-2005 published by the National Council of Churches




Biblical Preaching


Book Description

Preaching is a demand of the Bible that is fitted with a specific purpose and a strong theological base. It is the proclamation of the word of God and is done in churches throughout the world. Preaching plays a role in the spiritual formation of its hearers, helping to form a community of faith whose members are sharing in and supporting one another in a spiritual journey. The topics of preaching can be found in both the Old and New Testaments, within several different genres, but closer attention might be given to the genres of the parables of Jesus and the speeches in the book of Acts. As a topic of preaching, the parables can be understood as examples of allegory, simile, and/or metaphor. The speeches in Acts offer a picture window of a sort into the homiletical mindset of the apostles and other disciples as they proclaimed the gospel to the world as they knew it. Preaching is a demand of the Bible and a specific task of those who are privileged to do it.