aBeLOG
Welcome to the aBeLOG, a series of (hopefully!) fortnightly posts on all matters homiletical. I intend to touch on whatever grabs my attention regarding preaching—issues contemporary and ancient, ideas hermeneutical and rhetorical, personalities conservative and liberal, publications antiquarian and avant-garde. Essentially, I’m going to follow my own homiletical olfactory instincts up rabbit trails and after red herrings. Comments are always invited and appreciated.
Genesis 22:20−23:20
Mature faith persists even when costly, encountering opposition, suffering exploitation, and enduring little reward in the present.
While on the surface the subject of this chapter, the purchase of a burial plot, sounds rather trivial, its mention elsewhere—in connection with Abraham’s burial (25:9–10), with Jacob’s will (49:29–32) and burial (50:13)—indicates its significance to Israelite history and to what God was doing through Abraham. Here in Genesis 23,
David Daniels: How I Preach
David Daniels: And this is How I Preach …
[David is currently the senior pastor of a large church in the DFW Metroplex. I had the privilege of being one of the readers of his DMin dissertation done at Dallas Seminary, and I enjoyed his creativity, intellect, and imagination. It might interest you to know that he wrote on how to induct principles of visual design into the craftsmanship of a sermon (he talks about it below). Interesting stuff. David’s church is thriving
Giant!
All kinds of interpretations of the David v. Goliath story have abounded in church history.
Let me offer a new one ….
The story points to three elements: the stature, resources, and experience of the main protagonists—the giant and the youth.
The Giant
Goliath’s stature is fearsome: nine feet nine inches tall (17:4).
And then there is the list of his resources, the longest description of military gear in the Old Testament (17:5–7). This huge enemy is therefore
Vision!
“What could be more full of meaning?—
for the pulpit is ever
this earth’s foremost part;
all the rest comes in its rear;
the pulpit leads the world. …
Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out,
and not a voyage complete;
and the pulpit is its prow.”
So wrote Herman Melville in Moby-Dick a century ago.
I agree. With the pulpit for a prow, humanity is led by preaching into a unique world, an ideal world, God’s world, where it may dwell with him. That makes
Genesis 22:1−19
Fear of God trumps every other allegiance and manifests in self-sacrificial obedience.
The account of Genesis 22 begins with a time-stamp: “Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham” (22:1). What “things”?
Throughout the saga of Abraham, he is shown clumsily stumbling along in his faith. In Genesis 12, he leaves his homeland, obeying God’s call, and goes to Canaan. But the next instant he is in Egypt because of a famine. The first sign of trouble,
Ramesh Richard: How I Preach
Ramesh Richard: And this is How I Preach …
[Ramesh is one of my senior colleagues at Dallas Theological Seminary (and was one of my teachers, I might add). A solid thinker and writer on matters of preaching, hermeneutics, and apologetics, he is also the president of Ramesh Richard Evangelism and Church Health (RREACH), a global proclamation ministry with significant impact among leaders and pastors in many continents—the
Genesis 20:1−21:34
The complications of past sin do not preclude God’s work and his blessing, though sin may incur discipline.
The wife/sister episode with which Genesis 20 begins is similar to the incident in Genesis 12. Abraham seeks recourse in deception—again!—to save his own skin (20:11). Even after the two-fold promise that Isaac would be born to Abraham and Sarah (17:16; 18:10–14), Sarah is given away… into the harem of a local ruler. Abraham’s conduct is reprehensible
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching.