Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary, Madurai

THEOLOGY OF PREACHING

Submitted by Submitted to

I. John Rogin Jacob Rev. Dr. A. Alfred Stephen

ROLE OF SCRIPTURE AND CONTEXT IN PREACHING

ROLE OF SCRIPTURE IN PREACHING

Preaching was understood to be the proclamation of God’s Word, occurring in the

process of the faithful exposition of a biblical text whenever God willed to speak through
it to the hearts of the listeners. 1 Preaching took an empirical turn in 1960s having a
conversation with the listeners about their lives on the basis of an idea that might have
been derived from a biblical text or from other sources. 2 The main focused was moved
from the question of ‘what’ to preach to questions such as ‘how’, to ‘whom’, ‘in what
situation’ and ‘for what purpose’ to preach. The modalities and recipients of the sermon
became prominent. Such act made the meaning of the scripture as something changing
in ever-new encounters between a text and its different readers. These developments
tended to undermine the importance of the biblical text and through exegesis for
contemporary preaching, placing increasing emphasis on aspects of communication and
reception.3
New Homiletic be Fred Craddock
‘New Homiletic’ was initiated by Fred Craddock. Craddock was convinced that the
emancipated modern people expect the preacher not to proclaim the eternal truths from
scripture, rather to start with the listeners and their situation and to end with the
listeners and their new hearing of an ancient text became typical for the New Homiletic.
It becomes a necessity for any efficient preacher preparing for the pulpit has to gain a
detailed knowledge of his listeners using any of his Homiletical theory. To begin with the

1
Helge Stadelmann, “The Role Of Exegesis And Biblical Texts In Preaching The New Testament: Engaging With
The ‘New Homiletic’” in Preaching the New Testament, ed.by David Wenham, Ian Paul, (Intervasity Press,
2013), 225.
2
Helge Stadelmann, “The Role Of Exegesis And Biblical Texts In Preaching The New Testament: Engaging With
The ‘New Homiletic’ 225.
3
Helge Stadelmann, “The Role Of Exegesis And Biblical Texts In Preaching The New Testament: Engaging With
The ‘New Homiletic’, 226.
listeners entail the dangers of reflecting on them in too general a way and viewing the
text from the outset too one-sidedly from the perspective of those supposed listener
concerns. On the other hand, starting a sermon with the Biblical text and exegete it to
uncover its original intended meaning gives the text a chance to speak first and then the
preacher can look in depth at where his topic coincides with real-life situations,
questions and concerns of the members of a congregation. 4
Preaching moved to another level during 1990s having dialogue between the text and
the context as a process of inter-textuality where Preaching starts with the analysis of
the existential situation of the hearers which is called as Contextual Homiletics. 5
Contextual Preaching discloses human experience and the response of God through
Gospel. It intends to expose human vulnerability in history and socio, economic, political
and cultural factors that lead to injustice.

Authority of the Scripture

God`s Authority Exercised through Scriptures

The authority of scripture is not referring to specific words on specific pages in

Scripture, rather it is the ‘kerygma’ or ‘good news’ or the ‘gospel message’. Often some
particular phrases from scripture do come floating into mind and do offer guidance are
the gospel message that we regard as the substance of scripture, the wisdom and power
of God. When traditionalists argue that everything found in Scripture is necessary to
Salvation, it refers to the gospel message within Scripture. It is not pointing that every
word or syllable is packed with divine potency. 6 God designates the scriptures to be
‘Word of God,’ and then God provides for the interpretation of scripture in the church by
the Holy Spirit.

Church and Authority

Scripture is a good gift to the church, a gift of grace. We turn to scripture, search
scripture's message, feed on scripture's words, live with scripture, and through scripture
remember the message of Jesus Christ crucified as the gospel of salvation. When a

4
Fred Craddock, Preaching, (Abingdon Press, 2010 ), 84-98, 125.
5
Alfred Stephen, Homiletics: A Handbook for Teachers and Learners of Preaching (Nagaland: Tribal
Development and Communication, 2017), 75, 76.
6
David Butterick, Homiletic: Moves and Structures, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 259.
question rises about the identity of the Church and quest of the nature of being-saved,
the church turns to scripture. he Christian scriptures are normative for Christian
community because they contain an original remembering of the gospel within the new
reality of being-saved, and thus enable us to recover and reformulate our identity in
every new era.7

Historicity and Authority

The authority of Bible grasped from Hebrew scripture and form normative recitation to
Christian being saved community. It enables to remember Jesus was a Jew, whose
teachings are influenced and referred from the tradition of Israel. The narrative of God-
with-us constructed by the Hebrew scripture is our narrative and the story in which
Christ comes to us. Century after century the church turns to scriptures, Hebrew and
Christian scriptures, searching identity before the Mystery of God in Jesus Christ. So we
affirm authority of scriptures is God`s revelation for community. 8

Tradition and Authority

Tradition is often plays as liturgical expression and theological interpretation. The

liturgical expression of contemporary church explores traditional experience of worship
of praise and of sacraments. The liturgical tradition brings the hermeneutical context in
which gospel message if understood. The pre-understanding of gospel message is
shaped from the tradition of interpretation, crystallization of creeds, confessions, ethical
and theological reflection.9

Preaching and Authority

Preaching has been defined either in relation to Christ and scripture, or in relation to
salvation and tradition. If scripture is viewed as an inerrant Word of God, sermons are
apt to come tumbling down from high pulpits like tablets of stone from Sinai. If
authority is vested in an episcopate within the being-saved community, preaching will
be defined as an extension of the preaching of bishops. Preaching is the articulation of
Christian faith-consciousness. Preaching searches the mystery of Jesus Christ crucified
through scripture in the light of tradition's grasp of being-saved. Preaching gratefully

7
David Butterick, Homiletic: Moves and Structures, 268.
8
David Butterick, Homiletic: Moves and Structures, 269.
9
David Butterick, Homiletic: Moves and Structures, 271
turns to scripture and speaks at table, standing before Christ crucified, God-with-us, in
the midst of a being-saved community.10

Inter-Textuality in Preaching

In Postcolonial hermeneutics, the Bible is a literary product of the ancient world 11 that is
supposed to be read along with other communally inspired sacred narratives as an
intertextual continuum. As a result, postcolonial readers reject the postliberal approach
of ‘intratexuality’ and replace it with ‘intertextuality’. 12 The term ‘intertexuality’ is
generally used to refer to the way of interpreting a biblical text in relation to other
biblical texts. According to Daniel Boyarin, Dennis MacDonald, and other scholars, large
numbers of biblical texts are interconnected with more than one text, either in Jesish
religious and cultural traditions or in those of neighbouring people who lived in
different religious and cultural environments. 13 More precisely, the Bible is ‘a
preeminent example’ that the text is always made up of a mosaic of conscious and
unconscious citation of earlier discourse.14 The notion confirms the validity of using
intertextuality in preaching and worship. Like biblical texts, sermons can be in dialogue
with other texts, not only within, but also beyond the Christian scriptures, so that the
plain sense of the biblical text may grow and change through the dialogue and
eventually provide worshipers a fresh new meaning of the wisdom of life. 15

Intertextual Construction

It is important to identify the intertextual tactics and strategies that the biblical authors
employed to make an intertextual dialogue in constructive and fruitful way in a liturgy.
For example, allusion, echo, quotation, juxtaposition, typology, irony, allegory and
metaphor can be used in constructing intertextual relationships between biblical texta
and other sacred texts in sermons and other liturgical components. John Delorme
suggests that text should be considered as partners capable of entering into dialogue.

10
David Butterick, Homiletic: Moves and Structures, 270.
11
R. S. Sugirtharajah, Asian Biblical Hermeneutics and Postcolonialism: Contesting the Interpretations
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998), 19.
12
Eujoo Mary Kim, Christian Preaching and Worship in Multicultural Contexts: A Practical Theological Approach
(Liturgical Press, 2017), 53.
13
Dennis MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000),
14
Daniel Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 12.
15
Eujoo Mary Kim, Christian Preaching and Worship in Multicultural Contexts 54.
The text enters the world of texts with a certain autonomy permitting it to dialogue will
come out with new meaning.16

Intertextual dialogue in the process of preaching aims not merely to analyse or compare
biblical texts with partner texts but to generate new meaning. The creation of new
meaning also requires worshippers` active participation in the intertextual dialogue.
Information or meaning is not static or exists in the world, rather it is created in every
circumstances through active participation.

Hermeneutical Principles

The first Hermeneutical principle is that constructing dialogue must not be limited with
written texts. In a multicultural country like India, human experiences are more
available in symbols, stories and in rituals. The issue related to this Hermeneutics is that
Christianity is a text-based religion follows a tradition of sola scriptura, where preachers
would wonder whether it is legitimate to borrow other religious and cultural stories,
rituals and disciplines into the ministry of preaching. Scholars argue that borrowing
from other scriptures could grow for mutual enrichment, rather than being confined
within a particular religious and cultural tradition.17

The second principle of Hermeneutics is that it is to be used as context-oriented within

and beyond the church.

The third principle is to understanding differences among religious and cultural

traditions.

Revelation of God in Scripture

The knowledge of God depends upon the gospel of Jesus Christ. Revelation does not
merely bring the gospel, the gospel is revelation. Preaching the gospel and receiving the
gospel were integral to the experience of the first Christians. Recognition of the role of
the gospel remains vital both for the experience of knowing God and also for the
missionary obligation of contemporary Christians.

16
John Derlorme, “intertextualities about Mark,” in Intertextuality in Biblical Writing, ed. Sipke Draisma
(Kampen: Uitgeversmaatschappij J. H. Kok, 1989), 37.
17
Eujoo Mary Kim, Christian Preaching and Worship in Multicultural Contexts 59.
Revelation of God`s Message

Preaching is understood as revelation of God`s message to His people. In Old Testament,

Kings, Prophets, and Judges were anointed to receive God`s message and their
authenticity and identity used as modem to communicate God`s Message, that is Word
of God to God`s people, which was relevant to people`s context. The message was
experienced as the way of covenantal living under the light of God and gave hope at the
time of distress. Thus it is believed that Preaching God is existed centuries back the
Bible was formed. In the revelation God made God-self know to people. The revelation of
God-self enriched people as God wanted and encouraged to carry-out God`s Will, which
sustained the covenantal relationship of selection of People of God. Although the
preaching does not bear Homiletical elements, the message confirms God`s revelation
that itself is the centrality of preaching.18

ROLE OF CONTEXT IN PREACHING

Diversity and plurality are inevitable reality in a congregation, society and nation.
Knowing and understanding are helping to live in harmony and strengthen ones
consciousness to share their thoughts in minds. It is a process of sharing and living. The
intention of a preacher to make sermon effectively could result in the response of the
audience. Thus careful preparation holding context on one hand and scripture on other
is needed. This method intercepts the hearers minds to proceed life along with the
message. The interpretation must be interpreted on the basis of the scriptural context
and its relevance succeeds when the hearers are taken into account. Sermons thus are
known as the meeting point of God and the people. The preacher`s task is to know the
hearers and contemporary situation well and interpret the scripture accordingly.

Why Sermon must be Contextual

There are two sets of factors that point to why preaching today must take context
serious to articulate Good news. The first set of factors might be External Factors. It

18
Alfred Stephen, Homiletics: Handbook for Teachers and Learners of Preaching, (Nagaland: TDCC & Echo
Forest, 2017) 15, 16.
consists of Historical events, intellectual events, cultural shifts and political factors.
These external factors in turn bring to light certain internal factors within Christian faith
that points the necessity of sermonizing in context. The internal factors include the
incarnational nature of Christianity, sacramental nature of reality, understanding the
nature of divine revelation and contextual approach to Sermonizing context. 19

Understanding the significance of context

According to Fred Craddock, “a sermon, to be properly understood and to have its

purpose fulfilled, has to be experienced in its context, or rather in its several contexts.” 20

The World Behind the Text

The World behind the Text helps you to understand the historical and social context in
which the Biblical text was written. It includes:

 date the biblical text was written

 authorship of the biblical text (person or sources)
 historical, social, and cultural context

Every text is created within some context. The two area that is to be concentrated in
World behind the text are 1) the general historical and cultural concerns; 2) ideological
context of Biblical context.

Historical and Cultural Context

Historical and Cultural context details the interpreter`s concern for date, place,
originating circumstances, audience and authorship of a text. Other cultural information
such as marriage practices, systems of taxation, architectural practices, home
furnishings, implements of warfare, means of transportation, agricultural practices,
geographical concerns or political systems may be concentrated. E. D. Hirsch says that it
is the interpreter’s primary task to reproduce the author’s logic attitudes and cultural givens,
in the short world.21 Historical and Socio-cultural research is an intellectual and practical
necessity, because ignoring the historical and cultural context of a text may often results in
vague and convoluted interpretation. This is usually the case when readers or interpreters

19
Stephen Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology (New York: Orbis Books, 2012), 10-13
20
Fred Craddock, Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985), 3.
21
E. D, Hirsch, Objective Interpretation, (PMLA, 1960), 478.
remain prisoners of their own culture, imposing it upon the text, which is a product of another
culture.22
The Ideological Context

A People`s conceptual framework is especially evident in its religious and philosophical

expressions and these expressions most often are interrelated. An understanding of the
ideological world which makes a text possible is essential to a critical reading of that
text. An author may modify certain philosophical and religious concepts through
reapplication or redefinition, but in order to appreciate the meaning resulting from such
a modification, readers must understand the accepted meaning or usage. 23

A literary work of art may transform the ideological structure of which it is a part, but it
is still a part of that structure. People live their lives in accordance with societal roles in
which ideas, values, and images tie them to particular social functions. Therefore any
literary expression bears the imprint of its historical epoch, and this ideological
imprint.24

World Within the Text

The World within the Text helps you to understand the Biblical text. It includes:

 sources that provide interpretation or explanation of the text (exegesis)

 sources that analyze the text as a work of literature line by line commentary on
specific passages

The Hermeneutic of World within the text is literary in nature. The mainspring of any
literary approach is the view that the Bible is literature, thus it is the basic
presupposition for literary criticism. The bible may be part of God`s revelation and self-
disclosure to humanity. It is a revelation expressed in human language. World within the
text comprises of literary genres like hyperbole, euphemism, metaphor, simile, allegory,
symbolism satire apostrophe, personification irony etc. It also concentrates on the
natural languages of biblical texts, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek and its grammatical,
syntactical and lexcical codes. 25

22
W. Randolph Tate, Biblical Interpretation An Integreted Approach, (London: Hendrickson Publisher, 1991), 4.
23
W. Randolph Tate, Biblical Interpretation An Integreted Approach. 5
24
W. Randolph Tate, Biblical Interpretation An Integreted Approach 5
25
W. Randolph Tate, Biblical Interpretation An Integreted Approach, 59.
World In Front of the Text

The World in front of the Text considers how the interpretation of the text relates to the
readers' social and cultural context. This perspective may also be referred to as biblical
hermeneutics. It includes:

 sources that relate the biblical text to the modern reader

 sources that describe how the Bible has been interpreted at different time
periods, by varying social/cultural groups, etc.

A text will take its meaning through the mutual engagement between reader and text.
Meaning involves a process of signification in the act of reading. The author brings his
world-view and understanding of reality which make sense to the reader once the
reader looks it with his complex and multifaceted world. Every reader approaches a text
under the guidance of a perspective. Any text is read, perceived, and interpreted within a
pre-existent structure or reality. The interpretation for sermonizing must follow reader-
centred interpretation. 26

Bibliography

Bevans, Stephen. Models of Contextual Theology. New York: Orbis Books, 2012.

Boyarin, Daniel. Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash. Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 1990.

Butterick, David. Homiletic: Moves and Structures. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988.

Craddock, Fred. Preaching. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985.

Derlorme, John. “Intertextualities about Mark,” in Intertextuality in Biblical Writing, ed.

Sipke Draisma. Kampen: Uitgeversmaatschappij J. H. Kok, 1989.

Hirsch, E. D. Objective Interpretation. PMLA, 1960.

Kim, Eujoo Mary. Christian Preaching and Worship in Multicultural Contexts: A Practical
Theological Approach. Liturgical Press, 2017.

MacDonald, Dennis. The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2000.

26
W. Randolph Tate, Biblical Interpretation An Integreted Approach, 143.
Stadelmann, Helge “The Role Of Exegesis And Biblical Texts In Preaching The New
Testament: Engaging With The ‘New Homiletic’” in Preaching the New Testament,
ed.by David Wenham and Ian Paul. Intervasity Press, 2013.

Stephen, Alfred. Homiletics: A Handbook for Teachers and Learners of Preaching. Nagaland:
Tribal Development and Communication, 2017.

Sugirtharajah, R. S. Asian Biblical Hermeneutics and Postcolonialism: Contesting the

Interpretations. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998.

Tate, W. Randolph. Biblical Interpretation An Integreted Approach. London: Hendrickson

Publisher, 1991.