The Seeds of Heaven:Â Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew [Paperback]

Barbara Brown Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 2004

This wonderful collection of sermons by renowned preacher, author, and speaker Barbara Brown Taylor is based on the Gospel of Matthew. Each of the fifteen sermons, three of them appearing here for the first time in print, is based on a reading from Matthew, including Exceeding Righteousness (Matthew 5:17-20), The Problem with Miracles (14:13-21), Family Fights (18:15-20), Once More from the Heart (18:21-35), Beginning at the End (20:1-16), and On the Clouds of Heaven (24:29-44).

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopal priest, a popular speaker and workshop leader, and one of the twelve most effective preachers in the English language according to Baylor University and reported by Newsweek. She is currently Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Piedmont College, and is the author of numerous books, including The Preaching Life, When God Is Silent, God in Pain: Teaching Sermons on Suffering, Home by Another Way, and Speaking of Sin: The Lost Language of Salvation.

Product Details

• Paperback: 113 pages
• Publisher: Westminster (September 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0664228860
• ISBN-13: 978-0664228866
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #189,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Barbara Brown Taylor's first trade book, Leaving Church, was met with widespread critical acclaim by popular media, including the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly and NPR's Fresh Air. Her subsequent book, An Altar in the World, is now reaching an even wider audience. An Episcopal priest since 1984, Taylor served urban and rural parishes before leaving parish ministry to become a teacher in 1998. While she still preaches and teaches at churches and universities across the country, she writes more and more for the "spiritual but not religious" crowd
among whom she counts many of her own college students as well as a growing number of clergy colleagues. An editor-at-large for The Christian Century and a contributing editor for Sojourners, Taylor lives on a working farm in rural Habersham County, Georgia, with her husband Ed.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Barbara Brown Taylor spins new stories from St Matthew, November 23, 2004

By 

Fred W Hood "barbara377" (Fayetteville, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Seeds of Heaven:Â Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew (Paperback)

She paints mesmerizing pictures from Matthew's Gospel. Bound in the colorful cover outlining two hands around a tender green plant above brown earth, Barbara Brown Taylor is symbolized as the Gardener who brings forth fruit from The Seeds Of Heaven!

"As the world grows smaller and followers of the world religions become our literal next-door neighbors, the question of Christianity's relationship with these neighbors gains new urgency; It may take us awhile to sort out proximity to Hinduism or Taoism, our nearest neighbor is and always has been Judaism."

On hearing from her close friends tell of Barbara Brown's time-off to write her new book, I anxiously awaited my first reading. About the same time my close friend who is a Muslim Chaplain, spoke about her Columbia Seminary class visiting his Dec. Muslim Worship near the season of RAMADAN.

Her first chapter, "Exceeding Righteousness" pictures her unique way of interpreting the Gospel for other religions. Her urgency gains new momentum in the next sermon, "The Marginal Messiah, I wish I could tell you that Jesus death and resurrection changed everything...That once the word got out what God had done with Him everybody saw the Light and turned toward it on the spot."

From her tough CPE experience in a downtown Atlanta Hospital, she takes us into the inner lives of Matthew, Thomas, Peter with her inner thoughts about the Kingdom. After five flashes of the Gospel coming quickly, she says, "Jesus zings us with snapshot-like scenes glimpsed thru windows of a fast-moving train!" Her vivid use of the today's vernacular shows relentless urgency as she pursues her goal of showing us "how the Kingdom of Heaven is like this, and this, and this!"

Although I'm familiar with more of her Sermons as compared to hearing her lecture delivery, it is interesting to see how much more transparent these passages from Matthew's Gospel give an inside perspective of Barbara Brown Taylor! I first notated this in the margin of Chapter 13, when she speaks of not being sure this Parable of the Golden Rule sounds like Jesus. "It becomes necessary to look below the surface!" Her previous books do not move as intensely forward with such interest and energy in their reliving the early miracle teaching of our Master, as "The Seeds Of Heaven!" AMEN! From Retired Chaplain Fred W Hood

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Taylor is an outstanding writer, October 22, 2005

By 

Jay D. Weaver "Old Professor" (Lancaster, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Seeds of Heaven:Â Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew (Paperback)

I purchased the book to be used in an adult church education class. The volume is a collection of sermons based on the Gospel of Matthew. They are scholarly, yet easy to read. Taylor provides some fresh interpretation to this beloved old gospel. Her ideas make for lively in-class discussion. I recommend her work very highly.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking sermons., August 24, 2007

By 

James K. White (Tennessee) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Seeds of Heaven:Â Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew (Paperback)

Mrs. Taylor's fifteen sermons printed here are not new ones but they are fresh and challenging to adult and young adult students, even if they have heard them before. Recommended highly for study groups.