Preaching with Variety: How to Re-create the Dynamics of Biblical Genres (Preaching With Series) [Paperback]

Jeffery Arthurs (Author), Haddon Robinson (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: Preaching With Series | Publication Date: February 21, 2007

This new volume in the Preaching With series reveals how pastors can preach in a way that employs—with creativity—the six writing genres or forms found in the Bible. Readers will learn how to expand their repertoire of creative, interesting, and relevant sermons.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

“Jeffrey Arthurs offers us a great deal of help to take us away from turning out cookie cutter sermons and allowing us to preach God’s Word with imagination and freshness.”

—Haddon W. Robinson
Harold John Ockenga Professor of Preaching
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
Author, Biblical Preaching

“Variety—God is committed to it, and listeners need it. Prodded by these compelling observations, Arthurs tackles the variety in biblical literature—psalms, stories, parables, proverbs, epistles, and apocalyptic visions—and shows how to preach each one in a variety of ways. This is a clear and substantive book, written with wit and insight.”

—Donald Sunukjian
Professor of Preaching, Talbot School of Theology
Author, Invitation to Biblical Preaching

“In this well-written book, Jeffrey Arthurs carefully and concisely instructs preachers to preach from various biblical genres with skill. His insights and suggestions will help any pastor to preach with variety.”

—Scott M. Gibson
Haddon W. Robinson Professor of Preaching and Ministry
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
Editor, Preaching the Old Testament

“One of the great needs of preaching in our day is to let the biblical text speak with its own voice, rather than trying to stuff it into a predictable, pre digested package. Jeffrey Arthurs offers valuable and practical insights that will help any preacher better communicate biblical truth with freshness and faithfulness.”

—Michael Duduit
Editor, Preaching magazine

“Jeffrey Arthurs is a wordsmith, a message-smith, a master communicator. You will learn much from him.”

—Craig Brian Larson
Editor, PreachingToday.com

Preaching with Variety reveals how pastors can preach creatively by borrowing the dynamics of six genres or forms found in the Bible. Each chapter includes practical “Try this” suggestions and ends with a quick checklist for preachers to consider when preaching from each of the six genres. Readers will learn how to expand their repertoire of creative, interesting, and relevant sermons.

Jeffrey D. Arthurs (Ph.D., Purdue University) is associate professor of preaching and communication and dean of the chapel at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is an avid preacher and active scholar.

About the Author

Haddon W. Robinson es un conferenciante muy conocido y uno de los maestros del programa radial Descubra la Palabra. En su calidad de profesor distnguido del Seminario Gordon-Conwell, imparte conferencias y es autor de varios libros.

Jeffrey D. Arthurs (Ph.D., Purdue University) is associate professor of preaching and communication and dean of the chapel at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, S. Hamilton, Mass. He is an active scholar, regularly presenting papers at conferences and writing articles for several leading periodicals.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Kregel Academic & Professional (February 21, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0825420199
• ISBN-13: 978-0825420191
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #37,283 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #23 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Evangelism > Preaching

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent guide to Biblical genres and preaching them, May 15, 2007

By 

P. Mead "biblicalpreaching.wordpress.com" (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Preaching with Variety: How to Re-create the Dynamics of Biblical Genres (Preaching With Series) (Paperback)

I hope this book gets the recognition it deserves. This is a power-packed paperback that seeks to stimulate Biblical preachers in developing variety in their preaching through awareness of how the various Biblical genres function. Arthurs offers not only understanding of how the genres do what they do, but also many suggestions on how to reflect their diversity as we preach them.

Arthurs states, "I believe that a sermon's content should explain and apply the Word of God as it is found in a biblical text, and a sermon's form should unleash the impact of that text." (p.13)

Arthurs is not arguing that the form of a text dictate the form of a sermon, even if that were possible. Rather he argues that genre sensitive preaching seeks to replicate the impact of the text. He affirms the great freedom in form available to preachers, and encourages that freedom by presenting the great variety found within the six major Biblical genres.

The first two chapters argue in favor of variety in preaching, firstly because God the master communicator uses such great variety in all His communication - not least in the diverse forms of literature used in His Word, and secondly because our listeners value variety.

The rest of the book deals with six Biblical literary forms: Psalms, Narrative, Parables, Proverbs, Epistles and Apocalyptic. In each case presenting an introduction to the genre, a helpful explanation of the rhetorical devices used to create their impact and numerous helpful suggestions on how to preach the different types of text. The result of these suggestions, if heeded, will be real variety in Biblical preaching.

Arthurs is as much concerned with rightly handling the Biblical forms as he is with prompting variety in preaching. He is urging effective understanding of the rhetorical function of Biblical genre, so that one's preaching might also fizz with Biblical variety. This is not the definitive book on creative preaching, for there are others that suggest many exciting and bizarre possibilities. However this may well become a model book on interpreting Biblical genre (and in that divinely designed diversity is the shove we all need to vary our preaching!)

So I hope this book gets the recognition it deserves. Thomas Long's brief paperback on literary forms has been rightly praised as a helpful introduction to the subject of genre studies with some help for the preacher. Arthur's work is in the same league and may well replace Long's, for it is a more complete introduction to more Biblical genres from a more definite evangelical stance, with much more in the way of practical suggestion for the preacher.

This book will help you say what the text says, and do what the text does!

[...]

2.0 out of 5 stars Chew the meat and spit out the bones. Very Basic and not much about preaching., December 5, 2011

By 

MDiv Johnny - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Preaching with Variety: How to Re-create the Dynamics of Biblical Genres (Preaching With Series) (Paperback)

On balance Preaching with Variety was a profitable read, however along with some clear strengths it did evidence several weaknesses, some of which are significant and could lead not only to ineffective preaching, but if used as a model shift the focus in preaching away from the glorification of God.

The greatest strength of the book is authors call to variety in preaching in general and specifically to match the sermon to the genre of scripture being preached. This is an important corrective, especially in the expository preaching camp where there seems to be a tendency toward treating all genres as if they were didactic, focusing on lexical and grammatical issues rather than reflecting the message and the tone of the text being preached. The author does an admirable job arguing for the need for variety and grounds his argument in the fact that God the father and Jesus in His earthly ministry communicated with great variety.

One of the strongest sections of the book is authur's discussion of preaching from Psalms. He rightly observes that psalms are poetry, and that they communicate through images, not propositions, and in preaching the psalms the preacher's task transmit the impact of the images on the original hearers to a contemporary audience, in essence translating the imagery for them.

The author's treatment of narrative is also a highpoint of the book. Particularly useful was his advice to always preach a complete plot. Too often rather than preach an entire story, I have heard a few verses preached, and this often strips the scripture of its impact. His discussion on the importance of setting was also very helpful. I have often failed to meditate on the significance of the setting of a narrative, focusing solely on how the setting affects the action, ignoring the meaning it conveys. His treatment of parables, essentially arguing that they should be preached as narratives was also very helpful.

Unfortunately his discussion of preaching proverbs and apocalyptic literature was not as strong. His discussion of proverbs contained no new information, focusing mainly on proverbs not being promises and the need to illustrate them with contemporary examples, both well trodden paths. Likewise the discussion of apocalyptic literature was very shallow and basic, other than a reminder that the key to understanding Revelation is its use of the O.T.

A weakness of the book was the authors advocating odd stunts in preaching. Although he states that variety does not mean using gimmicks (17) he goes on to speak favorably of using a bread machine to fill the sanctuary with the scent of freshly baked bread, of wearing costumes, and of assuming the persona of a biblical character in the pulpit and delivering the sermon from "his" perspective. Likewise the holding up of unbiblical teachers, such as Rob Bell as an example to follow is inappropriate (even though the book was published well before Love Wins)

More alarming than this, however, was his suggestion that the congregation might be surveyed or a focus group employed in the preparation of the sermon (169). He seems to forget that the purpose of preaching is not to please men, but to transform their lives, and that the preacher will answer to God for the content of his teaching (James 3:1).

The book also struck me as not so much about preaching, but as primarily a very basic discussion of literary genre. While the discussion was helpful, and by and large accurate, it was very basic and out of place in a book on preaching. The basic and unnecessary nature of the discussion left this reader with the impression that the author was straining to reach a contractually stipulated page count.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Insights Thoughts for Preaching, February 8, 2010

By 

William Glass - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Preaching with Variety: How to Re-create the Dynamics of Biblical Genres (Preaching With Series) (Paperback)

Jeffrey D. Arthurs wrote Preaching With Variety for the purpose of encouraging preachers to "preach with variety and excitement" by helping them capture the rhetorical intentions which underlie the major genres of the Bible in the form and presentation of their sermons (11). Arthurs makes an insightful point regarding the importance of understanding a biblical author's rhetorical intentions that lie in the various forms (psalms, narrative, parables, proverbs, epistles and apocalypse) of literature they used in order to communicate a specific meaning and purpose. He states, "I believe that a sermon's content should explain and apply the Word of God as it is found in a biblical text, and a sermon's form should unleash the impact of that text... We should be biblical in how we preach, not just what we preach." To that end, this book describes the rhetorical dynamics of biblical genres and suggests how preachers can reproduce some of those dynamics in their sermons. The impact this book has on the subject of exegesis and hermeneutics is on highlighting the importance of not merely recognizing how a particular genre aids a preacher in determining the biblical author's meaning and intent, but on highlighting the value of finding creative ways in which to "mimic" (replicate or reproduce) that genre in the sermon's form and presentation.

Arthurs begins by presenting his presuppositions as 9.5 theses (a clever play on Luther) in his introductory chapter. Chapters one and two are also introductory in that they lay the background and challenge on which the rest of Preaching with Variety will focus. Chapter one, The Great Communicator, answers the reason and need for this book by explaining why God use different genres. Arthurs proposes a two fold answer: "Because God is both an artist and a persuader. He expresses himself with skill, and he moves audiences with purpose" (23). Chapter two, Speaking Bantu to Channel Surfers, sets forth five factors which influence listeners that preachers need to be aware of and implement if they wish to preach with impact. Arthurs' points need to be heeded by any preacher who desires to have a maximum spiritual impact with as many in his audience as possible (37).

Chapters three through nine deal with the six genres Arthurs examines. Chapter three examines Psalms; chapters four and five, Narrative; chapter six, Parables; chapter seven, Proverbs; chapter eight, Epistles; and chapter nine Apocalyptic Literature. Each of these chapters has the same format and layout, with the exception of chapters four and five where the material is covered in two chapters. Arthurs' presentation is straightforward and easy to follow. He begins each chapter by defining and explaining the particular genre being examined and he ends with a practical "how to" preach that particular genre entitled, "Try It." Arthurs' method of helping preachers discover the key literary features of each genre is enhanced by his use of examples. The most practical section is his Check List at the end of each genre chapter. Each check list is a very handy, easily reproducible, user friendly tool that preachers can have by their side as a quick reference, while they prepare their sermons from each of these genres. The Epilogue, a concise half-page summary, provides an excellent synopsis which encapsulates the biblical authors rhetorical intentions for each of the genres in one sentence sound bites which will also aid the preacher in modeling his sermon's form after the particular genre being studied.

While the format of Arthurs' book is easy to follow, his use of end notes instead of footnotes is cumbersome. Some key points are hidden in several end notes which should have been incorporated into the text since they would have aided in the comprehension of that material. In particular, endnote five of the introduction deals with two definitions of expository preaching, one by Robinson and the other by Wiersbe. These definitions are too crucial to be buried in an endnote (204). The same may be said of endnote 16 (chapter one) which deals with the importance and value of rhetoric (206). Arthurs' dealing with poetry only skims the subject and since most preachers are not well versed in Hebrew poetry (or Hebrew for that matter) this topic should have been expanded to two chapters, as Arthur did with Narratives.

What this reviewer found refreshing is the manner in which Arthur honestly deals with the problem of ineffectual sermons by his choosing to surface and not to focus his attention on what is wrong, but on how to fix it. While readers will not come away with an in-depth understanding of all the different genres, Preaching With Variety may serve as a primer to introduce preachers to these genres, motivate them to pay careful attention to the impact that particular genres have, help them capture that impact in their sermon preparation and then deliver that impact on Sunday morning. This book is a valuable resource to any preacher who seeks to bring as faithful a presentation/representation of the text as possible in his messages.