Southern Baptist Preaching Yesterday. Compiled by R. Earl Allen and Joel Gregory. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1991. 607 pages. Paper, $12.95.   Following up on their earlier volume, Southern Baptist Preaching Today, the late R. Earl Allen and Joel C. Gregory ... Read More »

My Favorite Quotations. By Norman Vincent Peale. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990. 140 pages. Hardcover, $12.95.   “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can change their lives by altering their attitudes of mind (p. x).R... Read More »

Introduction Great multitudes began following Jesus when they saw his miracles and heard his magnificent parables (Matt. 4:23-25). While many were genuinely committed believers, others were probably curiosity seekers. Jesus wanted to make it perfectly clear th... Read More »

Introduction Although Christians have never fully agreed on the meaning and application of Jesus’ sayings in the Sermon on the Mount, few have applied them as drastically as Origen applied Jesus’ saying in Matt. 19:12. The church historian Eusebius... Read More »

Introduction Discovering sermons in the Sermon on the Mount, or any other portion of scripture, is not the primary task of the preacher. The primary task is to permit the scripture to speak, that the words of the Sermon on the Mount may become a living, dynami... Read More »

Preaching from Camelot to Covenant: Announcing God’s Action in the World. By William K. McElvaney. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989. 133 pages.   Preachers soon learn that people focus primarily on their own personal concerns. Sermons about worry and pa... Read More »

Introduction Servanthood is a prominent concept in Isaiah 40-55.[1]These chapters are generally seen as a literary unit. The majority of scholars relate their perspective to the exilic period; see William Sanford LaSor, David Allan Hubbard, and Frederic Willia... Read More »

Preaching from Isaiah promises to be an exciting and challenging experience. Studying the insights of God’s Word expressed in the ancient text of Isaiah becomes insight and God’s Word for the modern preacher. The book of Isaiah provides a rich trea... Read More »

The history of critical studies in Isaiah dem­onstrates the triumph of the historical-critical method of Bible study. At no point has a stronger consensus of scholarship been reached than in the division of Isaiah into three separate literary sections. In jus... Read More »

The book of Isaiah is a giant among the Old Testament prophecies, great in quantity and quality. Historically, it has been highly revered in both Jewish and Christian communities. For example, in the Jewish Mishnah it was the most frequently quoted book, in th... Read More »

Preaching about Crises in the Community. By Samuel D. Proctor. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988. 132 pages. Paper, $8.95.   Preaching about the Needs of Real People. By David H. C. Read. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988. 119 pages. Paper, $8.95. Â... Read More »

How to Preach a Parable: Designs for Narrative Sermons. By Eugene L. Lowry. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989. 173 pages.   For a decade now, a determined group of homileticians has been urging preachers to try narrative sermons. Over that same decade, preache... Read More »