Forming a Biblical Theology of Preaching

In an era dominated by podcasts, TED Talks, and viral sermons, preaching often gets reduced to a set of techniques: How do I craft a killer outline? How do I keep the audience engaged? Aaron Edwards cuts through the noise: “The vast majority of contemporary homiletical approaches are overwhelmingly freighted towards the technical, practical element of preaching…Indeed, preaching is usually seen as a practice of applied theology rather than something which warrants its own theological reflection.”¹ He’s right. We’ve mastered the how but forgotten the why. A theology of preaching is intent on understanding the conceptual question, how does one understand preaching? Moreover, a theology of preaching isn’t an academic luxury. Rather, it’s the oxygen that sustains the pulpit through decades of ministry. As Fred Craddock writes, “effective preaching sustained over a long period of time must have some sense of its own nature, its own significance, its own role in the redeeming and caring work of God in the world.”² In this article, I want to provide the preacher a way to form a biblical theology of preaching. 

James Kay identifies three frames shaping modern homiletics: rhetoric (delivery), poetics (text and form), and theology (what God is doing).³ Most preaching books obsess over the first two. The third? It is often assumed, or perhaps an afterthought. Yet Mark Thompson insists: “we need to see preaching as a richly theological activity, not just in terms of its content…but also as an activity (ultimately this is something God is doing).”⁴ The implications are seismic. If preaching is God’s speech, then: The preacher isn’t the main actor; The text isn’t just raw material; The congregation isn’t an audience, they’re participants in a divine encounter. Scholars have mapped the terrain. David Greenhaw, for example, traces various theologies of preaching from Schleiermacher’s awakening divine experience to Barth’s God speaking directly to Moltmann’s eschatological hope that birthed liberation preaching.⁵ Donald McKim states that a theology of preaching is, “The understanding that there is a theological basis for the proclamation that occurs in preaching and that preaching is a means God uses to convey a knowledge of God and to communicate with people. Included are understandings of God’s Word, the Holy Spirit, the power of language, etc.”⁶

Bullinger asserts in the Second Helvetic Confession, “The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God.” If this is the case, then how do we proceed to understand the theological substructure of preaching? I propose the following outline to help preachers work through their theological thoughts on preaching. 

Here is how this can help you form a biblical theology of preaching. First, go to various texts, such as Romans 10:8-17;1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5; 2 Corinthians 2:14-6:4; 1 Thess 1:4-5; 2:13; 2 Timothy 4:1-5; Hebrews 1:1-3; Hebrews 4:12-13. Second, ask these questions of the text. Third, as you begin to see different aspects related to preaching, write them down and start developing the theo-homiletical framework. You are starting to think deeply about preaching, perhaps in a different way. 

1. Edwards, A Theology of Preaching and Dialectic, 5. ↩︎
2. Craddock, Preaching, 48. ↩︎
3. Kay, Preaching and Theology, 3. ↩︎
4. Thompson, “The Declarative God: Toward a Theological Description of Preaching,” 18. ↩︎
5. Greenhaw, “Theology of Preaching,” 477-480.  ↩︎
6. McKim, The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, 245.. ↩︎