This is a review of Expositional Preaching by one of iserve Africa apprentices Everlyne Muoki. She is placed at ACK MT Kenya Hospital in Kerugoya where she helps in procurement, system administration and facilitation of morning devotion.
The book has been written in a very systematic way that is easy to understand and follow. It is divided into four chapters that are well elaborated. These are contextualization, exegesis, theological reflection and us today. It helps us to answer the question; what is it we lack in our preaching today?
The author explains contextualization in preaching as communicating the gospel message in a way that is understandable or appropriate to the listeners’ cultural context. He also gives a problem that might arise in contextualizing the bible as blind adherence where by preachers spend more time reading and meditating on our contextual setting than they do in Gods’ word. For preachers to avoid this, they need to get the text right and get it across and in order for a preacher to get it right ang get it across the author outlines some practical phases that can help in the other chapters.
In the first phase, the author explains about exegesis, where he says that a faithful preacher starts the sermon preparation by paying attention to a biblical texts’ original audience and the texts’ purpose for those readers. He makes the first audience the first concern by; allowing the biblical context to have control over the meaning of the text, listening intently until he knows how the text fits within the overall message of the book and in seeing the structure and emphasis of the text. Yet this alone is not enough since one can end up preaching an over intellectual sermon.
In phase two the author talks about theological reflection where he says that its simply asking how the passage relates to the bible as a whole, especially to the saving act of God in Jesus. He moves on to say that learning to reflect on a specific text in terms of Jesus and the gospel, requires a working understanding of at least three distinct and influential disciplines which are; historical critical method, biblical theology and systematic theology. Then comes the challenge of its application today awaits us which he goes ahead to explain in the last chapter.
The final phase that a preacher should consider is us today. Here the author presumes that the preacher is allowed to contextualize the text. In order to do this the author provides three lines to contextualize the message which are; makeup of your audience, the arrangement of your material and the application of the message. He concludes by saying that the goal of contextualization is not to help the message of the gospel become one of more interesting fact rather, it is to win the hearts of the listeners to the full praise that Christ deserves.
I have learned a lot from the book on expositional preaching than what have just reviewed.
So, I highly recommend the book to all Christians to read it.