How Shall They Hear? Why Non-preachers Need to Know What Preaching Is
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
The author’s aim in this book is to reach non-preachers with a message about the importance of preaching, but in doing so he has written a book which will also be invaluable to preachers. His desire is that the people of God should hear biblically faithful, doctrinally accurate Christ-centred preaching: what could be more needed in our day?
From the Introduction:
This book is a hard sell. Preaching is the primary means of grace, yet most Christians do not spend much time studying it. Many preachers do so only to know how to prepare sermons. Those who don’t preach would rather study something else that they participate in, such as the sacraments. Some believers study how to preach, most don’t study preaching at all, and very few study the theology of preaching. The result is that preachers often preach without asking how the Bible defines preaching, what agenda it sets for preaching, and what preaching should look like in light of these deeper questions. Likewise, non-preachers sit under the primary means of grace every week without understanding why it is the primary means of grace and why they should expect to hear Christ’s voice through it.
This book is important. Through preaching, Christ speaks to his church by his Word and Spirit today. In order to recover the power of preaching in the church and the world, preachers and hearers alike need to ask in light of Scripture, What is preaching?
This book aims to help all Christians answer this question. It is not so much a homiletical manual for pastors as it is a guide to believers, preachers and listeners alike. All of the chapters are short and many of them revolve around specific passages in the New Testament, seeking to help all who preach and who hear sermons to hear Jesus calling them to his Father by his Word and Spirit.
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- Aims to help all Christians understand what preaching is, how it should be done, and why they have a vested interest in it
- Addresses preachers primarily insofar as they are believers who happen to preach
- Includes study questions at the close of each chapter
- What is Preaching?
- Why is Preaching Necessary?
- How Should Preaching be Done?
- What are the Proper Aims of Preaching?
- What are the Spirit’s Aims in Preaching?
- How Does Preaching Relate to the Missions of the Persons of the Trinity?
- What are the Proper Methods for Preaching Christ? (1)
- What are the Proper Methods for Preaching Christ? (2)
- What Are the Proper Methods for Preaching Christ? (3)
- What Should Preaching Christ Look Like?
- Is Preaching Christ Always Inherent to Preaching?
- What Should Sermon Application Look Like?
- How Should All Christians Participate in Sermons?
- . What if I Sit Under Preaching that Does not Match the Biblical Model?
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Following Sermon Structure
Christian, either your prayers for preachers will call down heavenly power, or your prayerlessness will rob the church of a blessing. Do you pray for the preaching of God’s Word? This insightful, much-needed book about preaching will teach you how. Read each chapter slowly and meditatively, turn its main ideas into prayers, and watch how God works.
Dr. Joel R. Beeke, President, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan
While books on preaching abound, most of them should be avoided. They are more like ‘How to’ manuals than helpful and challenging essays on what the word of God has to teach us about preaching. Thankfully, Ryan McGraw has avoided this pitfall and given preachers and hearers a brief, helpful, stimulating and practical guide to the biblical principles and precepts that should indelibly shape the preaching of God’s word. In fourteen brief chapters (each chapter is around six pages in length), McGraw asks fourteen searching questions e.g. What is preaching? How should preaching be done? What are the proper aims of preaching? What are the proper methods for preaching? (three chapters). What should preaching Christ look like? Each chapter helpfully concludes with a series of questions which seek to earth and further explicate the teaching. McGraw avoids giving the impression that there is one model for preachers to follow. He understands that preaching is deeply idiosyncratic, that preachers are all wired differently. What he does do, however, is to highlight and impress on preacher and hearer alike, the vital importance of preaching being shaped and styled, not by culture but by Scripture. One feature that is worthy of special comment is the attention McGraw gives to sermon hearers. He appreciates that preaching is a two way communication of God’s truth and needs to be rightly heard as well as rightly preached. I heartily commend the book and trust it will become a ‘vade mecum’ for young would-be preachers in particular.
-Ian Hamilton, Inverness, Scotland