Preaching Gods Word A Hands On Approach to Preparing, Developing, and Delivering the Sermon by Carter, Terry G., Duvall, J. Scott, Hays, J. Daniel [Zondervan,2005]

by Terry G. Carter

Preaching Gods Word A Hands On Approach to Preparing, Developing, and Delivering the Sermon by Carter, Terry G., Duvall, J. Scott, Hays, J. Daniel. Published by Zondervan,2005, Hardcover

Genres: Theology, Reference, Christian

Hardcover

First published September 1, 2005

Reviews

[Randy Corn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a review copy that I was sent by the publisher. I am sure that when publishers do that sort of thing, they hope for two results. First, that the instructor will decide to use their volume as the textbook for the class they teach, and second that the reviewer will be favorably impressed by the book, singing its praises to anyone who will listen. Well, the folks at Zondervan should be pleased. On both counts I fully intend to do what they hoped. As the facilitator for Welch College’s online homiletics class, I do have some input on what textbook is used, and I fully intend to use this one. Beyond that I will be recommending its use by the on- campus homiletics class. I also intend to recommend this book to all of my preacher friends, especially to those who are new to the calling.

The subtitle of the book is “A Hands-On Approach to Preparing, Developing, and Delivering the Sermon.” A little more than a third of the book is given to “Developing and Preaching a Biblical Sermon.” This is done by an imaginative process of exegeting the meaning of a passage, seeing the meaning to the original readers, testing the breadth of the “interpretive river,” and then building a “principalizing bridge” to bring that truth to “our town.” In all of this imagery I suspect the writers were strongly influenced by John Stott’s great book on preaching Between Two Worlds. While this book doesn’t replace Stott, it does address more of the questions the novice preacher would have. The last two thirds of the book deal with preaching the New and Old Testaments. This book is strong on understanding the hermeneutics of the text. The authors have several suggested principles to follow, and then, perhaps more importantly, things to avoid. I particularly liked that they illustrate what they are talking about with sermon outlines which are broken down to their constituent parts.

I have been a preacher for all of my adult life and have tried to explore the world of homiletics. That means that I have about 20 books on the subject as well as many more books of sermons. In all of that reading, I believe this book is the clearest on taking a young man from the call of God on his life to the faithful preaching of God’s Word.

[Toria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a helpful resource for learning how to preach God's Word, including how to prepare and study. As well as how look for illustrations and how to make applications of the different styles of Biblical books. Great read for those newer to ministry and preaching.

[Aidan Garcia · Rating 2 out of 5]

A little long for my taste, but good insight on the Scripture as a whole and techniques to use when preaching and studying.

[Joshua Jenkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Admittedly I skimmed through, and based upon that would give 2.5 stars.

[Aaron Hand · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty good book on the preparing and preaching of relevant sermons. It was helpful to read.

[Jimmy Reagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now in its second edition, this book by Terry G. Carter, J. Scott Duvall, and J. Daniel Hayes lives up to its subtitle: a hands-on approach to preparing, developing, and delivering the sermon. It strikes me as a success because of its clear value as a first textbook for someone learning how to put together a sermon. It does better than most at keeping a big-picture view as it assembles the pieces of the sermon. There are other books that, perhaps, dive deeper into the details – the works of Jerry Vines comes to mind – but this one may be “just right” for a wide array of readers.

The book is divided into three parts: eight chapters on developing and preaching a sermon, three chapters on preaching the New Testament, and four chapters on preaching the Old Testament. Duvall and Hays had earlier produced a hermeneutics textbook entitled Grasping God’s Word, which is also published by Zondervan, so this book assumes an understanding of hermeneutics and goes straight into putting together a sermon after that work has been done.

The first chapter introduces their 11-step sermon process. Chapter 2 covers the first five steps: grasp the meaning of the text in their town, measure the width of the interpretive river, cross the principlizing bridge, consult the biblical map, and grasp the text in our town. As you can see, they word this information in practical terms aimed at our maximum understanding. Again, they avoid being either too shallow or too deep and succeed at being “just right”.

After all that wonderful help for putting the sermon together, the other two parts on the Old and New Testaments look at the genres and their unique challenges for the preacher found in each. Most of these were wonderful. The value of the chapter on preaching Revelation might correspond to your own prophetic viewpoint. Actually, they tell you that that might be the case when you preach the Book of Revelation.

If you’ve been called to preach and are trying to figure out how to put a sermon together, you owe it to yourself to check this book out.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

[Starla Gooch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great reference book to have in any preacher's collection. It provides a good overview and step-by-step process to preparing and delivering a biblical sermon, and also discusses some different approaches to preaching. While Carter's approach differs from mine in a few areas, it's still a beneficial and educating read. I also really appreciate the latter half of the book in which the authors discuss how to specifically preach each genre of biblical literature. I'm sure I'll be returning to these chapters for future messages when I need a nice brush up or get a little stuck.

[Bill Tillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Preadching Book of the Year 2005

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read while at Crown