Preaching the Word

Karoline M. Lewis

Description

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.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Preaching
• Christian Ministry
• methods
• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Presbyterian Publishing
• Date de parution: 11 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781646983209
• Langue: English

Extrait

“Karoline Lewis once again demonstrates why she is one of the nation’s preeminent preachers and professors of the craft we call ‘preaching.’ Lewis’s book beautifully frames diverse approaches to homiletics with sensitivity and passion, expanding the reader’s knowledge, the practitioner’s depth, and the layperson’s understanding of this often-misunderstood art form. This text is a welcome addition to the canon of homiletics and rhetoric.”
—OTIS MOSS III, Senior Pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ, and Professor of Homiletics, McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University
“Try to find another book like this. Ever the teacher, Lewis introduces preachers to a range of life-giving interpretive practices few mainline preachers know what to do with while modeling their usefulness. This book can bring joy and power to your preaching.”
—GREG CAREY , Professor of New Testament, Lancaster Theological Seminary
“Just as diverse as the historical, cultural, and linguistic sources of the Bible are, so are the ways to interpret it. Karoline Lewis, the homiletical hermeneut, is an expert guide to the various approaches to biblical interpretation for the purpose of preaching. More than a summary of each approach and exploring its homiletical impact, Lewis offers readers a generous, humble reading of how ‘the other’ interprets Scripture to humanize those who have often been dehumanized in the wider society. I can think of no other better biblical scholar-preacher to invite us on this liberating tour of love for God, neighbor, and the pulpit.”
—LUKE A. POWERY , Dean, Duke University Chapel, and Associate Professor of Homiletics, Duke Divinity School
“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. Lewis turns the biblical text like a prism, showing us the value of the approaches that she describes through scriptural engagement. Her insights will keep me turning to this book again and again.”
—JERUSHA MATSEN NEAL , Assistant Professor of Homiletics, Duke Divinity School
“As methods and approaches in biblical studies have proliferated, keeping up with all these developments is a full-time job! Karoline Lewis does not just summarize these emerging approaches for busy preachers. Instead, she models how preachers can learn from and be formed by these diverse approaches with care, thought, and respect. In these ways, preachers will find in this book a transformative path toward richer and more faithful proclamation of the gospel.”
—ERIC BARRETO , Frederick and Margaret L. Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament, Princeton Theological Seminary
“This timely book by seasoned preacher and homiletics professor (and Johannine scholar) Karoline Lewis will help preachers and seminary professors alike. The format of the book makes it easy to use. Each chapter introduces the reader to a particular approach in biblical interpretation that has arisen in the past fifteen years, uses a passage from John to illustrate the power of the approach to yield fresh insights, and connects it all with proclamation for those of us living in real bodies in the real world, a world marked by divinely designed diversity and the possibility of healing and hope. I especially appreciated her attention to trauma-informed interpretation and preaching, one of the newest approaches.
Lewis invites us into a conversation marked by humility and curiosity; she hopes that the first question asked when we finish the book is “Who else?” Whose voice is not reflected in the book? Rather than pronouncing the authoritative last word on the subject, she is cultivating in us a habit of always seeking to move beyond our own limited view and experience.
I wish I could share a number of my favorite quotes, but you will just have to dive in yourself. Allow me this one: “Having an open stance toward Scripture, listening to the many meanings it prompts, and reading decentered voices can renew the biblical and homiletical imagination of even the weariest preacher.” Lewis’s book will energize those who are weary, curious, or both.”
—JAIME CLARK-SOLES, Professor of New Testament, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University
Preaching the Word
Preaching the Word
Contemporary Approaches to the Bible for the Pulpit
Karoline M. Lewis
© 2023 Karoline M. Lewis
First edition
Published by Westminster John Knox Press
Louisville, Kentucky
23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31  32—10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1
All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Westminster John Knox Press, 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, Kentucky 40202-1396. Or contact us online at www.wjkbooks.com .
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. Scripture quotations taken from The Message copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Book design by Drew Stevens
Cover design by Leah Lococo
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN-13: 978-0-664-26662-2
Most Westminster John Knox Press books are available at special quantity discounts when purchased in bulk by corporations, organizations, and special-interest groups. For more information, please e-mail [e-mail] .
For Gwen and Mike— and our shared love of hermeneutics over wine and good food
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1: Literary/Narrative Approaches
2: Postcolonial Biblical Interpretation
3: Feminist Interpretation
4: African American Interpretation
5: Latinx and Asian American Interpretation
6: Queer Interpretation
7: Ecological Interpretation
8: The Bible and Disability
9: The Bible and Trauma Theory
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
I am exceedingly grateful to Bob Ratcliff, Editor-in-Chief at Westminster John Knox Press, for the many conversations that led to the idea for this book, for his faith in me, and for his encouragement and support. I am also grateful to Luther Seminary for the yearlong sabbatical from teaching and other faculty responsibilities that made completing this book possible. A writing project never happens in isolation—for the goodwill and loving wishes of family and friends, I am so appreciative. Writing a book in the midst of a global pandemic meant a kind of authorial seclusion even beyond the usual isolation necessary for writing. I had to face what this book seeks to challenge—the quarantining of our ideas, the sequestration of our perspectives. The approaches outlined in this book pulled me outside of myself. They were not objects of study, but dialogue partners, saving me from our all-too-human tendency toward appropriation of our self-aggrandized thoughts. Rather than be the preacher, I became the listener, and heard God’s Word anew. I hope the same for you, faithful readers, teachers, and preachers.
Karoline M. Lewis
Pentecost 2022
Introduction
This book invites preachers to consider how recent and various approaches in biblical interpretation, particularly those developed since the historical-critical method in which most clergy have been and are still trained, can have an immediate homiletical payoff. In general, it is challenging for preachers to keep up with developments in biblical scholarship, perhaps having not engaged further formal biblical study since their seminary days. Preaching courses, or classes in biblical studies for that matter, offered at mainline seminaries are not able to address fully either the history of biblical interpretation or the perspectives outlined in this volume. As required course work in practical theology continues to diminish, teachers of homiletics are left with one foundational preaching course, ensuring that continuing learning in biblical interpretation and method is essential for the faithful biblical preacher. Furthermore, seminary curricula typically are not consistent in helping students integrate biblical exegesis and biblical interpretation with a specific eye toward preaching.
The nature of this book points to a larger debate in biblical scholarship of “the relationship between Wissenschaft (primarily the historical-critical methodology) and contextual hermeneutics.” 1 For the most part, preachers are still educated in the historical-critical method because it remains the controlling interpretive practice in biblical scholarship. The purpose of this book is not to contend for one approach over another or to pit interpretive methods against each other. Nor is the intent of this book to eschew the historical-critical method. Rather, the perspectives presented in the following chapters make evident that “the historical-critical approach is not able to answer all of the questions we bring to the texts as readers.” 2 The approaches summarized below both complexify and humanize biblical interpretation, representing a stance toward the Bible especially critical for preaching: the Bible is not simply a source for a sermon but a dialogue partner in our own meaning making. “We engage texts as constructs of their own reality, in whatever time period and with whatever ideological strategy they employ. We will construct a new reality of that ancient reading, using the tools of history, the social sciences, and engaging the readings of others, including an inv