A Manual for Preaching: The Journey from Text to Sermon

by Abraham Kuruvilla

Abraham Kuruvilla's A Vision for Preaching offered an integrated biblical and theological vision for preaching. A Manual for Preaching addresses the practical (and perennial) issue of how to move from the biblical text to an effective sermon. The author, a well-respected teacher of preachers, shows how to discern the text's theological meaning and let that meaning shape the development of the sermon. Clearly written and illustrated with Old Testament and New Testament examples, the book helps preachers negotiate larger swaths of Scripture and includes two annotated sermon manuscripts from Kuruvilla.

323 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 15, 2019

About the author

Abraham Kuruvilla (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is professor of pastoral ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas, and is a practicing dermatologist. He is the author of several books, including Privilege the Text! A Theological Hermeneutic for Preaching, and has written a number of preaching commentaries. A past president of the Evangelical Homiletics Society, he blogs regularly at homiletix.com.

Reviews

[Erik Bonkovsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t agree with everything (full manuscript?!) and I’m more committed to Christocentric preaching than he is, but this is a very solid and practical guide. Plus Kuruvilla is funny, smart, and an incredible communicator.

[Nickolas Wingholt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good. This introduces Kuruvilla's method for preaching and offers helpful steps to achieve weekly sermon writing. I appreciated how Kuruvilla challenges "Big Idea" preaching and contends that it takes the entire passage of Scripture to accomplish what the Holy spirit desires to accomplish through our homiletical efforts. Well worth a look. 1st time read. 4/5.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very practical. Don't agree with Kuruvilla 100% but I think this is an excellent book and guide to preaching.

[Adam Hutchison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delivers on the authors thoughts for how to take Scriptural text to a sermon. Very helpful overview generally. The author shares a lot of his opinions so take those as you will, some you will surely agree with and others less so. I disagree with the emphasis on manuscripting for instance - but everyone is allowed an option, right? Thankful for Dr. K’s contribution and praying it blesses preachers everywhere to better impart God’s word to God’s people of the present age!

[Nicholas Abraham · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book on preaching! Particularly helpful is his description of pericopal theology and its influence on preaching.

[Terry Feix · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kuruvilla is one of the foremost authorities on preaching today.

[Tim Kuepfer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Practical method for expository preaching. Those who hear me preach agree that this positively transformed my teaching.

[Adam Callis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 4 star book for me, but Kuruvilla clearly put so much effort into making this a helpful, practical book that it deserves to be 5 stars. This is one of those rare nonfiction books where the second half, by my view, was better than the first. His observations about sermon delivery were the highlights for me. He encourages preachers to become familiar enough with their material that they can preach smoothly in the way they would tell a story that is familiar to them. He pushes back against the Haddon Robinson approach of focusing on the "Big Idea" of a text, and instead he encourages preachers to look for what the author is doing in a particular text, or pericope (he uses the word pericope probably 300 times). He advocates for preaching from a manuscript and training yourself to do it well (he says to avoid it if you find yourself prone to read with your head down at the manuscript), and he makes a good case. He also pushes back against the use of visuals in a sermon, advocating that good speech, as an Arabian proverb says, "turns the ears into the eyes" (160). Again, he makes a very good case here.

Overall, I don't know if I'd recommend it to someone that I thought might try to implement everything he says, because he has several strong opinions that I disagree with (he recommends preaching from the NASB, and he also recommends putting your Bible passages into your manuscript so that you don't actually have to bring your Bible to the pulpit, to reduce clutter. I get his reasoning on both points, just disagree). He's also a bachelor, so his suggested schedule was pretty useless to me as a father of 5. However, if someone is looking for a good resource for their bookshelf, I'd recommend it, and I'm sure I'll come back to it at some point, because it's very practical, and it's like having a preacher on your bookshelf. Kuruvilla definitely takes preaching seriously, and that's encouragement enough.

[Dr. Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have enough fundamental disagreements with Kuruvilla's method that I won't be recommending this book to my homiletics students, but I am glad I read it. His "out of the box" thinking clarified many points for me and put some new ideas on the table and I'll certainly use much of what I learned from this book in my teaching and preaching.