Preaching with Power | Michael Duduit, ed.

Michael Duduit, ed. Preaching with Power: Dynamic Insights from Twenty Top Pastors. Baker, 2006. 256 pp.

It is hard to believe today that just a generation ago, many Christian leaders were pronouncing the “death of preaching” in the church. That notion seems so unlikely today not only because of the biblical foundations of preaching but also because the ministry of preaching has been enjoying a remarkable renaissance over the past two decades.

During the past twenty years, Preaching magazine has observed, encouraged, and reported on the state of Christian proclamation.

Among the most important (and popular) features of the publication (which I serve as editor) are the personal interviews with outstanding preachers and influencers of preaching. In these interviews, readers have an opportunity to gain insights into the philosophy and methodology of some of the most outstanding Christian communicators of our age.

This book contains a selection of twenty of the best interviews published in Preaching during the past decade. (Communicate with Power contains interviews from the magazine’s first decade.) In these interviews, you’ll have an opportunity to learn from classic expositors (like John MacArthur and David Jeremiah), dynamic evangelical pastors (like Adrian Rogers and Jerry Vines), influential voices in today’s church (like Rick Warren and Jerry Falwell), creative innovators (like Andy Stanley and Ed Young Jr.), key figures in the emergent church movement (like Brian McLaren and Dan Kimball), and many more. The preachers in this collection represent the rich diversity and dynamic power that characterize the best of today’s preaching.

My prayer is that the insights shared by these twenty gifted preachers will be an encouragement and a catalyst for better preaching in your ministry and mine.

Michael Duduit: www.preaching.com | www.michaelduduit.com

What Is Expository Preaching?
From An Interview with Bryan Chapell

Preaching: You entitled your book Christ-Centered Preaching. How do you, as an expository preacher, make sure that your preaching is, in fact, Christ-centered?

Chapell: When I use the word “Christ-centered” or the phrase “Christ-centered preaching,” I am not attempting to say that Jesus has to be shown to be present in every biblical text. Sometimes people hear the words “Christ-centered preaching” and they are preaching a passage where Israel is wandering in the wilderness, and they say, “Now where is Jesus? Is he behind that bush, or is he in that camel track? I don’t see him.”

What I am trying to express is that God has redeemed us, delivered us through the work of Jesus Christ. But that message of grace–that means of communicating to us his deliverance from our human condition–is his consistent way of presenting God’s working throughout Scripture which finds its culmination in Christ. I am happy to use the words “redemptive preaching,” as well as “Christ-centered preaching,” to talk about grace-focused preaching as well. My bottom line is that we show how every text in its context is demonstrating that God is the answer to the human condition. We take people away from themselves as the instrument of healing.

So when I talk about Christ-centered preaching, I advise students to always come with two lenses in their glasses as they look at Scripture. These two lenses are composed of two questions. The first question is, “What does this text reveal about the nature of humankind that requires the deliverance of God? What does it tell me about the character of mankind?” The second question is, “What does this text tell me about the nature of God who provides for the deliverance of humankind? In essence, what does this tell me about the nature of God?” If I am always asking those questions of the text–what does this tell me about persons, and what does this tell me about God–I will always think redemptively, because persons are being shown in their dependence upon God and their fallenness–in their need for something beyond themselves. We won’t just say, “David was a good guy; you be a good guy, too.” The Bible is telling us more about David in context, whereby David and God’s people require more than David’s personal goodness. They required a God who would deliver them. David becomes the means of that deliverance, but God is the hero of the text, not David. The bottom line of Christ-centered preaching is always showing people that they are not the instruments of their own healing. That’s Christ-centered preaching throughout the whole of Scripture.

Taken from pp. 7, 9, 14-15 of Preaching with Power: Dynamic Insights from Twenty Top Pastors edited by Michael Duduit. Used by permission of Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, copyright © 2006. All rights to this material are reserved. Materials are not to be distributed to other web locations for retrieval, published in other media, or mirrored at other sites without written permission from Baker Publishing Group. Visit http://www.BakerPublishingGroup.com.

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