Preaching Old Testament Narratives

by Benjamin Walton

There's no question that the Old Testament is foundational for the New Testament church. But foundational or not, it can be difficult for preachers to pin down useful resources for narrative texts within the Old Testament, much less to skillfully preach those passages to their congregations. Benjamin Walton provides the practical insight pastors need. In one volume, he demonstrates both the interpretive and homiletical skills necessary to preach Old Testament narratives well. Walton guides the preacher through selecting a text which is a complete unit of thought; describing the scene in a coherent way; determining the theological message of the text; and carefully crafting a meaningful take-home truth. He doesn't stop with discovering the core message—the majority of the book focuses on delivering the message drawn from these narrative texts. Walton's approach is not just theoretical. It has been read and tested anonymously by groups of pastors, and their feedback has been incorporated into the book. This valuable resource will help preachers put all the pieces together, have confidence in what they're imparting, and maximize their preaching potential for Old Testament narratives.

256 pages, Paperback

Published June 27, 2016

Reviews

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most Christian preachers are probably more comfortable preaching from New Testament epistles than Old Testament narrative. Yet as the book points out forty percent of the Bible is narrative with a large part of that found in the Old Testament. If preachers are to be faithful in preaching all of God’s Word they need to do it well. The author Benjamin Walton has written an excellent resource for expositional preachers who want to preach faithfully the Word of God from Old Testament narratives while at the same time desiring to preach with the intention of impacting contemporary audiences today. Unlike most works on preaching this is a “two-in-one” in that it covers the interpretative skills that a preacher needs as he studies Old Testament narratives and also the practical skills of crafting a sermon. You really get the bang for your buck with this book. One really gets the feeling that the author is writing for the purpose of pastors and teachers able to do all the aspects of expositional preaching well.
In the preface Walton told the readers that this book began fifteen years ago as notes for a class at church. Teaching on preaching is one of those things that is best taught by those who have experienced doing it weekly and also by those who thought long and hard about how to preach. In what follows below are some of the highlights of the book and also some constructive criticisms.
Highlights
• I found the book affirming the amount of time I spent in sermon preparation; Walton states that a quality sermon takes fifteen hours to prepare (47).
• Old Testament narratives goes on longer in words before teaching theological lesson compared to New Testament epistles; so be careful of being too quick to moralize from the narratives as this would be improper in interpreting the intention of the author if we don’t grasp the main point of a passage with a complete unit of thought (CUT).
• To help us identify a complete unit of thought it is helpful to identify the four plot stages: Introduction, Problem, Solution and Conclusion. This was very helpful for me as sometime I have a hard time cutting the right amount of verses for a sermon.
• I thought it was a good idea that Walton suggested forming an Application Team that consists of church members from different walks of life to get their input of what does application of God’s truth looks like. This is a helpful idea for those in churches in which the people are quite diverse and different.
Constructive criticisms
• On page 52 Walton states that “Israel had no concept of reward or punishment in the afterlife until the book of Daniel, one of the latest book of the OT.” I think that is a difficult claim to say it is true from Scripture. Jesus in arguing with the Sadducees has the extra challenge of proving that there is life after death since they only believed in the book of Moses was Scripture. Yet Jesus still appealed to the truth that God was a God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob according to Exodus as an argument for the afterlife (Luke 20:37). Walton’s claim is also hard to square the book of Ecclesiastes which presupposes that God will judge us all one day which I take was authored by Solomon before the book of Daniel was written.
• Walton has a good discussion about identifying with the listeners in his chapter on creating introduction in which he offers three questions to guide the listeners. One of the questions include “Does the Preacher like me?” I would say that as time goes on the relationship with a pastor and the congregation should be “Does the Preacher love me?” It might seem like a subtle difference but that should be the paradigm the preacher aim for more than merely being liked. I think Walton would agree with me here and I don’t think my point take away anything from what Walton is trying to say when he fleshed out what he meant by his question; it’s a matter of better word choice.
• I remain unconvinced with the chapter that was critical of Christ centered preaching. I didn’t think the rebuttal was that strong. While I agree that we shouldn’t misinterpret Old Testament passages under the guise of preaching Christ I still believe preachers must preach Christ even if their text is from Old Testament narratives. I do feel that an underrated consideration for Christ centered preaching is failure to consider the point in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that teaches us Christians are transformed by beholding Christ. Why would preachers neglect this responsibility to make a beeline to the Gospel and Christ? Certainly we must at minimum in the application during at some point in the sermon to preach the Gospel and Christ to the listeners.
Overall I recommend this book. Even the parts I disagree I felt that I still learned from it and made me think more critically and sharply about preaching. As I was reading this work I kept on thinking about how helpful this book is for preachers.
NOTE: This book was provided to me free by Kregel Publications without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

[Doug Hibbard · Rating 4 out of 5]

What happens when I decide that the bulk of a year’s preaching will be coming from the New Testament? I get a book called Preaching Old Testament Narratives for review. And I like it. So I’m already plotting 2018 sermons.

Benjamin H. Walton runs a service called “PreachingWorks.” That he didn’t try to be trendy and use an “x” for the “ks” raises my opinion of him in the first place. But, the reason you’re reading this is to find out about his book, Preaching Old Testament Narratives. Let us, then, get down to business.

The first thing I would note about this book is that it depends on the reader’s admission that the genre of a Biblical text is a key aspect for understanding it. That is, one cannot treat “Old Testament Narrative” in the same manner as one treats “New Testament Prophecy.” If you have no idea what those categories of literary type are, you probably need to start with something like Duvall and Hays’ Grasping God’s Word before you come to this text. If you do know what those types are and just don’t care, then you’ll find no value here. (Also, I think you should go back to Grasping God’s Word or something similar and rethink your position.)

Now, for those who are willing to admit that genre matters in Biblical interpretation, Walton’s book has several things to commend it. First, he addresses why Old Testament narrative should be approached differently than direct commands or poetry.


Second, he explains some of the pitfalls of poor approaches to preaching from Old Testament narrative. This closes with a note of encouragement as Walton acknowledges that many who struggle with the hows of preaching still love the why—and still desire to handle the Word of God with excellence.

The hinge of this work is the idea of a “complete unit of thought.” Walton’s view is that preaching OT narrative requires making the right choice of a passage—not too much and not too little. This concept is illustrated with a look at 2 Samuel 11-12.

Next, Walton moves on to methods of delivery. It is a book on preaching, which is hermeneutics shared with a group. This section is the strength of the book as the reader is guided in moving from the theology of the unit of thought into a take home truth. That is the necessity at hand—take home truths for the hearers is the point.

Walton also makes clear how to connect the Cross and salvation into the Old Testament message without getting too strained in the connection.

This is a handy reference for a preacher wanting to hone up the skills before diving into the narrative portions of the Old Testament. Not quite a must-have, but definitely a will-use.

Book received from Kregel Academic/Ministry for review.

[Kenson Gonzalez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who is the author?

Benjamin H. Walton (D.Min., Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is president of PreachingWorks, an organization dedicated to helping pastors maximize their preaching potential. A respected homiletician and former pastor, Ben has taught or lectured at several colleges and seminaries. His work centers on the fusion of biblical interpretation and communication for the purpose of excellent preaching.

When we read the Old Testament, we feel in unfamiliar territory. Imagine you have to preach about some portion of the Old Testament, many questions come to mind.

This book helps us to approach the Old Testament in a fresh and profound way. Walton, helps us not only to read O. T. more clearly, but also helps us to expose the word of God with authority.

What is this book about?

As the name implies, the book focuses on orienting the reader to be able to preach or teach in Old Testament texts. The book is divided into two parts:

Part I: Discovert the Message
This part of the book contains 3 chapters, in which the author introduces the fundamental aspects for the reading and structuring of the sermon. He offers five steps for the sermon, which includes the unity of thought and theological analysis of each scene in the narrative.

Part II: Deliver the Message
The most extensive part of the book, ten chapters in which Walton shown us how to elaborate the introduction of our sermon, how to give applications of the sermon. These ten chapters will help us to preach in a narrative way.
My personal opinion

This is a book that every teacher or preacher should have, to expose clearly and efficiently the Old Testament message. Walton in the last chapters shows us that the Old Testament narratives are mostly related to Christ.

Thanks to Kregel for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book.

[Garry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably one of the better books on OT narrative. I appreciated his attention to detail regarding the theological/biblical placement of texts. I was also thankful for his interaction with Christ in the New Testament. Ther sermons themselves seemed to lack a little thoug. I wonder if possibly his devotion to the process causes the sermon to lose something.

[Jim]

Why a book on teaching Old Testament narratives? Mostly because it has become a challenge for Pastors in a Church culture that expects teaching that is “practical” to provide honest reflection on the Old Testament text. Rather than gleaning from the high content already provided by Old Testament narratives the popular practice is to treat the Old Testament narratives as something like Aesop’s Fables. Instead of unfolding the history of redemption, it is assumed that the Old Testament narratives are there to show us some moral or practical life lesson. This isn’t to say that moral or life lessons aren’t helpful. However, for Pastors the primary function is to Shepard God’s people with God’s Word and here in lies the challenge.

This way of preaching is what Walton calls “Preaching with Biblical authority” he goes on to say that this type of preaching “means that our sermons accurately proclaim and apply the message of their biblical preaching text”(29). Such an understanding realizes that our conception of reality is construed by finite understanding and thus requires an infinite God to explain His will to us. Therefore, unless the message comes from the text, we run the risk of misrepresenting God. What Walton wants to speak to is preaching whose authority is not derived from the pastor but from God’s word.

Preaching Old Testament Narratives is a comprehensive treatment of its subject matter. The 254 pages are broken up into two sections, Discover The Message and Deliver The Message. In Discover The Message, Walton provides a 5 step methodology beginning with selecting a complete unit of thought or what Walton calls CUT(47). As the name implies this is simply choosing the preaching text. This is very helpful for obvious reasons. For Walton’s approach the objective in this stage of sermon preparation is to select a complete unit of thought so that the original theological message or OTM can be identified.

Steps 2 and 3 involve identifying the theological and historical contexts (45) and plot. Here Walton observes that Old Testament Narratives teach about God, hence the theological context. However, one further important step for Walton is the historical. Since we are looking at a different time period or era the thoughts and feelings of the people of Israel are different than those in 21st century America. Thus a proper understanding of the text looks and both these contexts of theological and historical. This leads Walton into Step 3 which is to study the plot. In order to provide thoughtful reflection on Old Testament narratives one should have a thorough understanding of the plot found in the CUT.

After arriving at the proper contexts and understanding the plot the next step seems fairly logical, discover the original theological message (OTM) and craft the take home truth. Discovering the original theological message for Walton. A complete unit of thought will have an original theological message that was intended for its original audience. The tenancy is to by pass the step and fabricate a message familiar to 21st century American experience. The problem is created when we don’t first seek to find out what that message communicated to Old Testament hearers. Once the original theological message is understood we can then move on to the next step in crafting the take home truth (THT).

The second part of the book deals specifically with delivering the message. Here Walton lays out the process of sermon preparation consisting of topics such as: creating the introduction, preaching through the complete unit of thought, stating and getting listeners to “buy” the take home truth, picture painting, making the move to Christ, and the conclusion. Each of these topics are well thought out and given a thorough treatment. Walton’s goal here is to give the reader the tools to execute on what he calls the four pillars of excellent preaching: accuracy, relevance, clarity, and inspiring.

Overall this is a pretty important book. This is an area that many pastors struggle with and Walton provides more than a foundation from which to build. Rather he walks the reader carefully through each step. There are some sections that have more to do with personal style which isn’t necessary for preaching Old Testament narratives. However the section on making the move to Christ is very well done and would prove to be helpful . I highly recommend this book for those still trying to navigate Old Testament narrative preaching or even for those who are quite comfortable with preaching Old Testament narrative and would just like a different perspective on the matter.

RATING 4 out of 5

Disclosure of Material Connection: 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 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

[Nate Weis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good insights, but the process felt overly rigid and arbitrary. The “example” sermons weren’t very good, which isn’t a great endorsement of the process.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Preaching from a narrative text is different from preaching Paul's epistles. In Preaching Old Testament Narratives, Benjamin Walton (professor, former pastor and president of Preaching Works) focuses on the skills and hermeneutical approach needed to preach from Old Testament narratives well.  Sensitive to story, Walton shows preachers how to craft a message which takes into account the genre and connects with the congregation.

Walton likes three letter abbreviations and his methodological approach involves a series of them. First, he advises preaching from a CUT (complete unit of thought). This is roughly equivalent to what exegesis books and homiletics professors mean when they say, "determine the pericope," but Walton observes that CUTs are larger  for narrative texts (perhaps a chapter or two) than say your typical epistle pericope (34).  Once you determine your CUT, you interpret it with an eye for its OTM (original theological message)—what the passage was communicating about God to its original hearers. Once you figure that out, you explore how it speaks to people today. This is your THT (take home truth). Finally, you depict the THTs with PPAs (picture painting applications) which make the truth of God's word vivid for congregants context (165).  Along the way Walton offers great tips on how to craft and deliver a compelling message (i.e. writing the sermon and delivering it), and connecting Old Testament narrative to Christ's redemptive work.

There is a lot that is commendable about this book. Walton's approach is similar to Haddon Robinson's Big Idea preaching but he is more sensitive to narrative than Robinson. Narrative texts make their points implicitly and indirectly and sometimes take a couple of chapters to do it.  If you are going to preach story well, it is helpful to have a sense of how story works. Walton is aware of this, helping preachers attend to the story in their exegesis and their delivery.

This doesn't mean that this a hermeneutically heavy handed book. There are footnotes to Shimeon Bar-Efrat and Tremper Longman discussing some distinctives of the genre, but Walton never delves too deep into the characteristics of Hebrew narrative (i.e. doublets, type scenes, reiteration of events, etc). His approach is accessible to non-scholars, though is respectful of the interpretive gifts of literary approaches to the Bible. There is more to be said about narrative interpretations, but Walton gives enough of the goods to get young preachers on their way.

He also has tons of practical advice of how to craft and deliver sermons. A lot of what he commicates can be gleaned from other preaching books, but Walton focuses on how to do this with a narrative text. He doesn't advise three-point sermons, alliteration or bullet points. Instead he helps preachers pay attention to the shape of story, and the way it communicates its theological message and take home truths (without devolving into moralism).

I give this book four stars and recommend it for young preachers and any preacher who wants to hone their craft. I love narrative but picked up some helpful stuff here. I give this book four stars.

Note: I received this book from Kregel Academic in exchange for my honest review

[Jimmy Reagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Benjamin Walton has been teaching preaching for some time as well as having pastored himself in the past. He begins his book explaining the need of accuracy in preaching. He argues that most do not do so, even some who imagine they do.

He next distinguishes OT narrative from other biblical genres. I personally believe he misses on the interpretation of 1 Corinthians 10:1-22 and too narrowly limits OT narratives because of it.

He uses his own jargon. CUT (complete unit of thought) and THT (Take-Home Truth) are his two main emphases. He deals with what most every such volume would, even if he uses his own words.

On the plus side, the book really gives the nuts and bolts. It ever reminds us that our listeners deserve the word of God, not the word of man. It explains thoroughly everything it suggests.

On the negative side, he sometimes makes it sound like that anyone who doesn’t follow him down the line completely is off the mark. Again, his method can be too rigid at times.

This book will be the greatest asset to those with less experience in faithfully giving out the text. It could, though, be a help to anyone.


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.

[Bill Hooten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given an assignment to develop sermon material from the historical books of the Old Testament, I felt compelled to sharpen my thinking concerning how to accomplish that task. This is the first of two books that I intend to read concerning the preaching of Old Testament narratives. I really liked most of Walton's book, and then struggled with some of the rest of it. My feeling is that this will help me as I read the text, and try to assign how much text will the sermon be developed from. I will be trying to incorporate his material that concerns the CUT (Complete Unit of Thought), OTM (Original Theological Message), PPA (Picture-Painting Application), and THT (Take Home Truth). I am not as sold on his sermon-building concepts of movements, and the actual construction of the sermon. I am glad I read this book, and I believe that it will help me with this assignment. Also, I am anxious to see how it compares to the other book that I have chosen to read. If you are thinking one of the books of the Old Testament books from Joshua through Nehemiah, I would recommend the reading of this book.