Pericopal Theology
Pericopal Theology
A couple of months ago, I had written about the importance of the pericope in preaching. (By “pericope” I mean the manageable chunk of the biblical text employed in a sermon—i.e., a preaching text.)
And several weeks ago, I had talked about the world in front of the text, God’s ideal world, segments of which are portrayed by individual
Growing, Pericope by Pericope
It is not often that one gets to see the fruit of one’s ministry labors. But by God’s grace, I got to taste a delicious specimen the other day, in the form of an email from one of my former students, Michael. He always kept pestering me about when my Mark commentary would be done. When it came on the market, Michael was one of the first to buy a copy, and he promptly began teaching through it in his SS class for Young Marrieds at a local church.
Here’s his email (slightly
The World in Front of the Text
It is by the regular weekly encounters with pericopes of Scripture that life change is addressed, so that the people of God may be aligned to the will of God. As pericopes are sequentially preached from, the resultant transformation of lives reflects a gradual and increasing alignment to the values of God’s kingdom (his ideal “world”). In other words, what is being sought in the weekly homiletical undertakings of the church is corporate and individual alignment with
The Pericope in Preaching
“Pericope” refers to a portion of the biblical text that is of manageable size for a given preaching event in the worship gathering of the church. In other words it is a preaching text. It is through pericopes, read and exposited in congregations as fundamental units of Scripture, that the community of God corporately encounters the Bible. Indeed, it is impossible to conceive of a gathering of the faithful that does not implement such a reading and interpretation of
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.