Any Given Sunday

 

“On any given Sunday in today’s preaching pantheon, one can observe a diverse group of devotees, some paying homage to the chapel of ‘creativity,’ others sitting at the feet of the ‘culturally relevant.’ Some are transfixed at the nave marked ‘narrative,’ whereas others have their hearts strangely warmed at the chasse of ‘pop-psychology.’ There is never a shortage of worshippers at the ‘new homiletic’ altar, and the ‘topical’ shrine always receives its share of Sunday patrons. Fearful that some as yet undiscovered  homiletical ‘method’ might be missed, the gatekeepers of the pantheon have installed an altar inscribed ‘to the unknown preaching method.’ It is that method which the authors of this book declare unto you. Actually, the method itself is not ‘unknown’ at all, and like the true church on earth, it has always had its practitioners in every era of church history. In fact, it is the oldest method in the preaching pantheon, having been used by the earliest preachers as far back as the apostolic era of the church. It is called ‘expository preaching.’”

David L. Allen, “Introduction,” in Text-Driven Preaching: God’s Word at the Heart of Every Sermon, ed. Daniel L. Akin, David L. Allen, and Ned L. Mathews (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2010), 1.

You can see an introduction to this book here and an interview with David Allen concerning the book here.