The Craft of Preaching and Teaching

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Mathew Ward

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What books or resources have helped you in developing and honing your craft as a teacher or preacher of the Word of God?
 
Mathew Ward said:
What books or resources have helped you in developing and honing your craft as a teacher or preacher of the Word of God?
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I used to collect books on preaching. I think I collected about a half dozen or so before I had to stop.

My favourites:

  • The Art of Prophesying by William Perkins
  • Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon
  • Preaching and Preachers by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
  • Biblical Preaching by Haddon W. Robinson

To this I would also add one university-level textbook on classical rhetoric. Mine was Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student by Eugene P. J. Corbett. I used the third edition, but there's now a fourth. The value of such a book to supplement a preaching library is that it covers all the steps of creating and presenting a discourse: discovery of topics, arrangement, forms of argumentation, style, presentation, oratory, and so forth. Preaching is one of the few areas where classical rhetoric is still regularly practiced.

One thing I really appreciate about the older books (such as Perkins and other Puritans, and Spurgeon) is that they spend as much time, if not more, talking about the character of the preacher as they do the technique of preaching. Lloyd-Jones' book is that way as well, though it is a 20th-century work. Robinson's is excellent as well, but it's primarily a rhetoric manual-lite applied to expository preaching.

Finally, if you want an interesting take on sermons as a narrative artform, see if you can find The Homiletical Plot by Eugene L. Lowry. I think the best essay I wrote in university compared the structure of MLK's "I've Been to the Mountaintop" with Lowry's technique (though the book was actually written about a decade after King died).
 
Mathew Ward said:
What books or resources have helped you in developing and honing your craft as a teacher or preacher of the Word of God?
Click to expand...

1. The Scriptures..
2. The Holy Ghost....
3. The example of the "cloud of witness" before us.
4. Having the privilege of knowing a few actually ministers that had a "gift" instead of a "self appointed" call. You really don't have to be told if someone is a good preacher. You know it when you actually hear it.
 
Nobody uses this book?

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.tim said:
Nobody uses this book?

17777m.jpg
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Atta boy Timmy! (although spellbound storytelling would be more accurate)
 
I think T-Bone's favorite is Ste.............................nevermind. He might not have wrote a book yet.



:) :)
 
Bob H said:
I think T-Bone's favorite is Ste.............................nevermind. He might not have wrote a book yet.



:) :)
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I am waiting with great anticipation ..cause I intend to burn it, just like he did the Bible...hey this is fun!
 
Expository Preaching Plans and Methods by F.B. Meyer
Biblical Preaching by Haddon Robinson
 
I liked both Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon and Biblical Preaching by Haddon W. Robinson. I also found Andy Stanley's Communicating for a Purpose helpful.
 
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