Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. (The Apostle Paul, 1 Tim. 4:16)

He who is eloquent should speak in such a way that he teaches, delights and moves. Then he added, “To teach is a necessity, to please is a sweetness, to persuade is a victory.” (Augustine)[1]

He is not the best preacher who tickles the ear, or who works upon the fancy; but who breaks the heart, and awakens the conscience! (Thomas Brooks)[2]

What Use Is Classical Rhetoric?[3]

It is surely one of the great weaknesses of the modern world to discount the benefit of old books. C. S. Lewis warns us against this pernicious tendency:

It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. . . . We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. . . . None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. . . . The only palliative is to keep the clean breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.[4]

The use of ancient rhetoric by the best homileticians, past and present, is a recognition of the blessings of common culture, in which the world has gained wisdom about the art of effective oral communication. Not to glean from this wisdom is as foolish as rejecting the rules of grammar because they were formulated by unbelievers. A quick survey of the parts of ancient rhetoric will quickly convince the experienced preacher that the ancients can teach us a great deal about good public discourse. As a teacher of rhetoric in first century Rome, Quintilian summed up his description of the orator he wished to produce in his training by quoting the famous orator Marcus Cato: an orator is “a good man, skilled in speaking.”[5]

Here are the five essential parts of classical rhetoric.[6] Inventio (discovery) is the business of gathering the raw material for a public discourse, along with determining the particular purpose of the oration (deliberative, forensic, etc.). For the preacher this means studying Scripture, especially in the original languages, meditating on the meaning of the text, scouring his library for commentary and all other helps in understanding the pericope. It also involves prayer and meditation in the act of gathering. It involves determining the telos or purpose of the text as inspired by the Spirit of God.

Dispositio (arrangement) is the act of placing the material in its proper order for public presentation. It was considered barbaric for this structure to be obvious. For the preacher this means building an outline, or structure, natural to oral delivery, which proclaims the meaning and the God-given purpose (telos) of the chosen text (pericope) as God’s Word to his people.

Elocutio (style) pays attention to the particular forms of expression, vocabulary, phrases, figures of speech, narrative, forms of argument. Here the preacher focuses on the specific tools of good oral presentation of his message.

Memoria (memory) is internalizing the material so that it may be presented in public from memory, not necessarily verbatim, with minimal attention to notes if he uses them. For the preacher this means mastering the sermon so as not to be tied to his notes in order to maintain eye contact with his audience.

Pronunciatio (delivery) is the actual delivery of the speech. For the preacher this is the preaching moment. Emphasis, cadence, elocution, proper pronunciation, tone of voice are all important skills to learn.

These parts of ancient rhetoric come into their own when considered from the perspective(s) of the medieval media of education, namely the Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic) and Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy). The lost tools of learning, delineated by the Trivium, should be prized by the preacher, but held in strictest balance and in the order given: the knowledge of language, public persuasion, and logic. For example, logic alone leads to pure speculation. That is why the study of language, as it is found in texts, comes first. Rhetoric is not simply public speaking but speaking in the context of citizenship. The wise orator was a leading citizen, persuading for the common good. It is not that logic comes after learning how to persuade—that would be impossible—but that logic is subordinated to the tradition and truth imbedded in texts, and in the memory of the community, and to the interests of the commonwealth as they are publicly declared and inculcated.

However, good oratory is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition of good preaching. As Charlie Dennison put it:

Still good preaching is not oratory. It cannot be equated with mastery of Public Speaking 101. It does not hail, for instance, from the principles of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, but from the revelations received by the Hebrew prophets.[7]

In 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, Paul is eloquent in his warnings about the danger of elevating rhetorical skills and techniques above the humbling message of the crucified Christ. Today, the danger probably lies more in elevating electronic communication to a place equal or superior to preaching itself. A healthy dose of good classical rhetoric will provide good tools for the preacher. Although preaching is much more than good rhetorical skills and practice, it must be nothing less. Hughes Oliphant Old demonstrates that the writers of Scripture, who were first preachers, used “rhetoric with great mastery and power.”[8] Augustine quoted freely from Cicero and Virgil.[9]

Aristotle

The use of pagan authorities in rhetoric must be approached critically, but much has and can be learned from them. I will briefly look at the contributions of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian as they play into the development of homiletics. It should be remembered that along with Augustine, these three ancient giants among the many teachers of rhetoric were principally concerned with rhetorical practice in the areas outlined by Aristotle in his principle text on oratory, Rhetorica (350 BC): judicial advocacy (forensic), political persuasion (deliberative), and ceremonial oratory (epideictic).[10] What we may learn from them must not overshadow the important differences between their rhetoric and New Testament preaching. Chief among these differences is the distinction underlying Paul’s opposition in Corinth between persuasion and proclamation (cf. chapter 6).

Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian each emphasized the importance of the integrity of the speaker in order to warn us against skilled charlatans. In his Rhetoric (335 BC) Aristotle insisted:

We believe good men more fully and more readily than others. . . . It is not true, as some writers assume on their treatises on rhetoric, that the personal goodness revealed by the speaker contributes nothing to his power of persuasion; on the contrary his character must almost be called the most effective means of persuasion he possesses.[11]

This is clearly a biblical emphasis, which has been explored in chapter 10. Paul on many occasions had to assert his integrity to undergird the authenticity of his message:

For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. (1 Thess. 2:3–5)

Aristotle’s treatise on rhetoric was the first to endure and have a powerful influence in modern times. Through Cicero, Augustine, and Quintilian, Aristotle’s rhetorical work has influenced homiletics. His accessible, comprehensive organization of the art of rhetoric (sixty chapters in three books) is largely responsible for his influence on homiletics.

Cicero

Cicero, too, has had his influence on homiletics through his impact on Augustine’s life and writings. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) lived through the last period of the Roman Republic, prior to Imperial rule; he was a prominent figure in the events of this era. He was an orator, lawyer, statesman, and philosopher. He wrote On the Orator (de Oratore) in 55 BC to demonstrate the importance of true eloquence in the life and work of a statesman. This is a dialogue written in three books. The first deals with the studies necessary for the orator. The second expounds on the subject matter of orations. The third treats the form and delivery of a speech. He also wrote a history of Roman eloquence (Brutus, or de Claris Oratoribus). Finally, he wrote Orator, in which he portrayed the ideal orator. “These three treatises are intended to form a continuous series containing a complete system of rhetorical training.”[12] It is important to note that Cicero, in common with all ancient orators, possessed an ear for the metrical or rhythmic character of speech.[13] This sensibility appears even with classically trained contemporary orators like Winston Churchill, who wrote his speeches in poetic lines.

Quintilian

Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus 35–96 AD), building as he did on those who went before him, has influenced homiletics more than any other of the ancient rhetoricians. His influential magnum opus, Institutio Oratoria,[14] was published near the end of his life (ca. 90–95 AD). In 68 AD he was called from his birthplace in Spain to Rome by the Emperor Galba to establish a school of rhetoric in Rome.[15] “The oral world of Cicero and Quintilian is the oral world of the New Testament.”[16]

Dave McClellan makes extensive use of Quintilian to establish the vital connection between the heart and the mouth, in order to encourage preachers to consider the oral nature of preaching.[17] This where the virtue of the speaker (virs bono) is inextricably connected with his message as mentioned above. Included in this virtue is the insight of the speaker into the nature of man and his motivations.[18] For the preacher this means he must “have an identity before God and the people that is deeper than the preaching role. We must be lovers of God first.”[19]

As we shall see in chapter 16, and as Dave McClellan points out based on the work of Chris Holcumb, one of the neglected aspects of Quintilian’s rhetoric is the role of extemporary delivery.[20] However, Quintilian is a rich source of ancient rhetoric, a treasure to be explored by the preacher, and especially helpful, along with Cicero and one of the greatest preachers in the ancient church—Augustine—because this is the rhetoric of an oral culture, something those with intense literary training need to appreciate and practice.

Augustine

Augustine, trained in the ideal of Ciceronian rhetoric, expounded his understanding of preaching, based on the Ciceronian model of persuasion, in De Doctrina Christiana. The citizen of heaven, who is a herald of the King, must marshal the disciplines of ancient rhetoric in his service. The first three books deal with hermeneutics, or the grammar of Scripture interpretation. The fourth book is offered, with great diffidence, on homiletics.

For Augustine, the text must speak first and foremost, lest the preacher become a mere Sophist—a persuader without truth, a charlatan. So grammar takes precedence. Rhetoric alone can be an instrument of either truth or falsehood.[21] It may be learned almost as a natural result of the study of language and should not be emphasized in itself, but only in as much as it aids the teaching of the Scriptures. “For a man speaks more or less wisely to the extent that he has become more or less proficient in the Holy Scriptures.”[22] Augustine goes to great lengths to demonstrate that preachers like Paul employed eloquence in the interest of truth. He never “followed” or desired to exhibit the art of eloquence.[23] Like the servants in a great house, eloquence stays out of sight.

However, as we have seen in chapter 6, Augustine did not fully appreciate Paul’s polemic against persuasion and in favor of proclamation. For Augustine, the choice was between the good or corrupt uses of persuasion. I have come to recognize a distinction, which seems to lie in the back story of Augustine, as has been said above—the difference in ancient rhetoric between persuasion and proclamation, a point that Paul makes central to his own homiletics in 1 Corinthians 1–4.

It should be of paramount concern that today the church often allows men to preach who have neither mastered good public speaking nor the ability to exposit a passage of Scripture clearly. The first should be a given, like piety; the second should be a high, and non-negotiable demand. The exposition of Scripture has fallen on hard times. If anything of value about the nature of media has been learned thus far, we will conclude that this medium—preaching—is all about what God has to say in his infallible Word. Thus, whatever we helpfully glean from ancient rhetoric, the Hebrew prophet and not the Greek orator, is our model for preaching. This was the oral tradition of Jesus and His apostles.[24]

The Question of Relevance and Application

This raises the question of relevance—a word frequently used by American evangelicals in their quest to be influential and sometimes culturally acceptable.[25] How is preaching to relate to the people of our world? Of course, preaching is not simply a repetition of the biblical message, or else the task of the preacher would be simply to read the Scriptures to the congregation. The message

must be actualized into the present. If preaching is to be true and relevant, the message of Scripture must be addressed to people in their concrete historical situation. The biblical message may not be adapted to the situation of today, but it must be “accommodated” (Calvin) to the situation. As in Christ God stooped down to take upon himself our flesh, so in the preaching of the word the Holy Spirit stoops down to reach people in their situation. The preacher must therefore be an exegete of both Scripture and of his congregation, so that the living word of God for today will be heard at the intersection of text and situation.[26]

But the goal is not to make the text relevant to the situation, but to demonstrate its relevance. The text is always relevant, because it reveals the true state of the church united to the crucified and risen Christ. Calvin’s idea of accommodation is not that we must seek to overcome any supposed distance between then and now—between past history in biblical times and today. It is rather that in God’s condescension he speaks to fallible and blind humans by the illuminating power of his Spirit. For Calvin there is no dichotomy between “then and now.” We are in the epoch of the “better covenant” ever since the incarnation.

The question of relevance is one of the profoundest questions under discussion in homiletics today. Charlie Dennison has astutely observed: “Whether conservative or liberal, Calvinist or Arminian, most preachers pursue their task to the text of the world.”[27] The titles of hundreds of books and articles indicate that “relevance” or “application” is their chief concern. The question concerns the connection between the text and the hearer, or more properly the church. The problem is that, however laudable the quest of many preachers to communicate, the impression is left that the ancient text is culturally determined and thus that application means making the text relevant to a very different culture—the modern world. This was the over-riding concern of Rudolph Bultmann’s project of “Demythologizing.” The “ancient text must be ‘delivered’ in the interests of relevance. . . . The modern preacher lives in a qualitatively different age than the Biblical figures.”[28]

Cornelius Trimp nicely turns the tables on this distorted understanding:

The church pulpit is not a platform for demonstrating a timeless system of truths, but the place which God Himself reserves for the proclaiming of His living Word which seeks the hearts of God’s children in their concrete needs, temptations, and expectations. Thus preaching is by definition “relevant.”[29]

Sola Scriptura “carries with it the relevance of preaching.”[30] The congregation is never a group of mere spectators:

The historic distance between our time and the days of the apostles and prophets is therefore not bridged by our human work of re-presentation, but by the faithfulness of God Himself. . . . We do not draw old stories towards ourselves, but in the garb of the old stories God approaches us across the centuries and countries, and the Christ of Scriptures desires to dwell in our midst. . . . Christ is relevant—the same Christ in whom God at one time expressed Himself totally and about whom the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments testify. No relevance can ever surpass this relevance. . . . This relevance breaks through the myopia of modern man, the shortsightedness of the minister of the Word, and through the narrow scope of human demands for relevance. . . . All relevance which is not at the same time a preaching of the Christ of Scripture, is pseudo-relevance and falls below the mark of the ministry of the Word.[31]

When it comes to application, this redemptive-historical approach is never a matter of merely reciting the history of redemption, as is often alleged. As Trimp has reminded us, the Christ of Scripture, who as the crucified and risen Lord, is the same yesterday and today and forever, and therefore always relevant, but not always in the way demanded by many modern Christians. As Geerhardus Vos insists: “. . . we know full well that we ourselves live just as much in the New Testament as did Peter, and Paul, and John.”[32] Thus,

good preaching calls men and women, young and old, to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ so that they might be delivered from the present evil age. . . . good preaching does not make the text meaningful for us in our contemporary situation; rather good preaching makes us and our contemporary situation meaningful in the text.[33]

“The kerygma proceeds from conditions fulfilled in Jesus Christ. It does not offer an exposition and application of the story of Christ’s redemptive work; it implicates the hearer in that story.”[34] Preaching

is not only the proclamation of the saving event that once took place in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but it is also the announcement to the listener that, when he believes in this Jesus Christ, he finds himself in the new situation of salvation brought about by Jesus.[35]

Preaching in the electronic situation is not qualitatively different, whatever differences there may be between the Areopagus and the World Wide Web, from the first century situation. The same call to repentance and faith is in order. The question is never application or no application, relevance or no relevance, but rather which text defines relevance and application, the world or the Word? The heavenly reality brought to earth through the incarnation transcends and invades the cultural developments between the times in this New Covenant epoch. And thus, in a real sense, “there are no ‘modern’ preachers; there are only preachers.”[36] But this does not mean that preachers should be any less aware than Paul of the alluring cultural assumptions and expectations that surround us and tempt the church. Nor does it mean that the face of culture is not different from Paul’s Roman Empire, but rather that the idolatrous tendencies of fallen human nature remain the same no matter what the materials of their implementation.

In an atmosphere befogged by various definitions of preaching, we do well to look at the biblical conception. God’s Word clears the fog. T. David Gordon takes his definition of preaching from 2 Corinthians 5:20, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

The role of the minister, when preaching, is not to amuse (though some may find it amusing), is not to provide pastoral advice (though some may find good advice therein), is not to give a religious speech (though some may think it was a good speech), is not to inspire people to live as Christians (though some may be so inspired); the role of the minister is to declare to the conscience of the hearer what God has declared. God, not the minister, is to speak to the hearer, through the minister.[37]

Here we see that it is not relevance or irrelevance, neither application or no application, but God’s relevance and application. These spring from the very text of God’s Word. We are called to proclaim his application and relevance, his indicatives and imperatives.

Expose and Destroy the Idols

In light of the critical tool of idolatry, discussed in chapter 1, you must challenge your congregation with a clear understanding of the nature and effects of modern media in order to overcome the naïveté of the evangelical church with respect to the electronic media. And you must teach them how to be better worshipers and sermon listeners in this cultural context by helping them understand the uniqueness, excellence, and genius of preaching as a medium. You must break through, rather than imitate or accommodate, the electronic environment. You must cultivate a counterculture, which is the nature of the church united to its heavenly Lord. Challenge the idolatry which is woven into the fabric of our culture with the fullness of the gospel message as Paul did everywhere he preached.

For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. (1 Thess. 1:9–10)

This means that the gospel of the cross and resurrection must be central to all of your proclamation. “I plead with you: Good preaching is Christ-centered, not morality or behavior-centered; Scripture-centered, not culture-centered; history of redemption-centered, not history of the world-centered.”[38] Instead of pandering to the modern mindset with a Christ who is good for the sinner, who will help make him a successful or better person, the gospel must be proclaimed as God’s radical call for repentance and faith. The gospel in its utter uniqueness must be heralded, not as a fine system of behavior, but as God in the crucified and risen Christ reconciling himself to the world. “The Jesus that offends no one is not the Jesus of the New Testament.”[39]

The real, biblical Jesus Christ must be announced as the Savior of the world, not because he is a great psychologist or social worker, but because he is the Second and Last Adam, who challenges this present evil age at the core of its existence in the First Adam. The message is to be presented with urgency because it is true, and because the offer of reconciliation will be followed by the coming Day of the Lord, when Jesus the Christ will come to claim the territory and the citizens which are his, earned with his obedience, purchased with his blood.

Preachers, you need to help Christians develop their critical faculties—their spiritual sensibilities. When you expose the nature of specific idols, demonstrate their destructive effects, your congregation will be transformed. Then they will never watch television, movies, or streaming services in the same way again. They will never think about the Internet or their computers or their smart phones in the same way again. It is not that we want people to stop using technology. This is the Anabaptist-Luddite mistake. We need to help Christians develop sales resistance in an idolatrous culture. T. S. Eliot quipped that “paganism holds all the most valuable advertising space.”[40] But the church has the preaching of the Word of God. The best place to take the magic out of idolatry is not in the newspaper, on the television, radio, or the Internet, but in the pulpit. Hendrick Berkhof counsels, “When the Powers are unmasked, they lose their dominion over men’s souls.”[41] Only the gospel of Jesus Christ can slay the idols.

We must aid the church in discerning the vanity in Vanity Fair.

False gods are highly catching! With good reason both Old and New Testaments abound with warnings against participating in Pagan cultures . . . “World” complements “flesh” to constitute monolithic evil: the manufacture of idols instead of the worship of the true God.[42]

Counselor David Powlison observes:

If we would help people have eyes and ears for God, we must know well what alternative gods clamor for their attention. These forces and shaping influences neither determine nor excuse our sins. But they do nurture, exacerbate and channel our sinfulness in particular directions. They are often atmospheric, invisible, unconscious influences.[43]

The preacher is called to awaken people from their deadly slumbers.

The Biblical gospel delivers from both personal sin and situational tyrannies. The Biblical notion of inner idolatries allows people to see their need for Christ as a merciful Savior from large sins of both heart and behavior.[44]

Roman Catholic McLuhan makes a remarkable comment in a 1977 interview with Edward Wakin: “That’s one of the jobs of the Church—to shake up our present population. To do that you’d have to preach nothing but hellfire. In my life, I have never heard one such sermon from a Catholic pulpit.”[45] In his usual hyperbole he has exaggerated, but the need to preach on the reality of heaven and hell is clearly present in the church, tempted as it is to “moods of conciliation” by the electronic culture. Moralizing and psychologizing not only pervert the biblical text, but they cannot penetrate the darkness of the Adamic soul; they only assuage it.

During the reign of Jehoshaphat, idolatry was completely abolished.

The LORD was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the earlier ways of his father David. He did not seek the Baals, but sought the God of his father and walked in his commandments, and not according to the practices of Israel. . . . His heart was courageous in the ways of the LORD. And furthermore, he took the high places and the Asherim out of Judah. (2 Chron. 17:3–4, 6)

It was not enough, however, to remove, or turn off the media of idolatry. The king resisted and overcame the idolatry of Baal worship by sending prophets and Levites throughout the land to teach the truth of the covenant. “And they taught in Judah, having the Book of the Law of the LORD with them. They went about through all the cities of Judah and taught among the people” (2 Chron. 17:9). It was not only the Word of God read by the people, but the written Word preached and taught by God’s appointed spokesmen, which cultivated the only anti-environment capable of overcoming idolatry and winning people to become disciples of the LORD. Such is the task of the preacher today.

Be careful with all of your critical awareness, and with your trenchant challenge to the idols of our age, never to be a cynic. Be a critic sparingly, and make it count. Focus on the truth, hopefulness, and glory of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Know Your Audience

The parable of the soils (or the seeds or the sower) reminds us of the importance of knowing our audience. Every congregation will have a mixture of soils—the varieties of people who receive the ministry of the Word. Tim Keller has a superb outline of the varieties we may encounter and ought always to have in mind as we prepare for the ministry of the Word.[46] He lists a variety of hearers under these major categories: conscious unbeliever, nonchurched nominal Christian, churched nominal Christian, awakened, apostate, new believer, mature/growing, afflicted, tempted, immature, depressed, and backslid. Each preacher could probably amplify this list, but it is a poignant reminder of how carefully we need to consider those who hear our preaching. As pastors, this means that knowing the life situation, the joys and sorrows of our flock, is essential to our ministry of the Word of the good Shepherd. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15). “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house” (Acts 20:20).

Endnotes

[1] Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, trans. D. W. Robertson, Jr. (427 AD; repr., Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958), 136 [Cicero Orat. 21. 69].

[2] Thomas Brooks, “The Unsearchable Riches of Christ,” in The Select Works, ed. C. Bradley, vol. 1 (London: L. B. Seeley and Son, 1824), 274.

[3] I owe much of the material in this section to Robert Godfrey’s course “Rhetoric,” delivered at Westminster Theological Seminary in 1978, and his course “The History of Rhetoric,” delivered at Westminster Theological Seminary in California in 1990.

[4] Athanasius, The Incarnation of the Word of God with an introduction by C. S. Lewis (New York: Macmillan, 1946), 6–7.

[5] Quintilian, The Institutes of Rhetoric (Institutio Oratoria) (Loeb Classical Library, vols. 124–27), trans. H. E. Butler (London: William Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1921–22), 12.1.1.

[6] The Rhetorica ad Herennium is the oldest surviving Latin book on rhetoric, dating from the late 80s BC. Loeb Classical Library, vol. 403, Latin text with English translation by Harry Caplan, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1954. It lays out six steps in an argument: exordium, relevant generalities, anecdotes, quotes, or analogies to capture attention and connect to the specific topic; narratio, succinctly states the point to be proven; divisio, outlines the main points; confirmatio, sets out the arguments with evidence; refutatio, refutes the opposing arguments; conclusio, summary of the argument, with call to action.

[7] Charles G. Dennison, “Some Thoughts on Preaching,” Kerux 11:3 (December 1996), 4.

[8] Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church: Volume 1 - The Biblical Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 49, 50, 65.

[9] Dave McClellan and Karen McClellan, Preaching by Ear: Speaking God’s Truth from the Inside Out (Wooster, OH: Weaver, 2014), 20–22.

[10] “Rhetorica,” in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941), 1319.

[11] The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. McKeon, 1329; McClellan, Preaching by Ear, 23.

[12] “Cicero,” The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11^th edition, vol. 4 (New York: The Encyclopaedia Britannica Co., 1910), 355.

[13] “Cicero,” The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 355.

[14] Quintilian (Quintilianus, Marcus Fabius), The Institutes of Rhetoric (Institutio Oratoria), (Loeb Classical Library, vols. 124–27), trans. H. E. Butler (London: William Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1921–22).

[15] McClellan. Preaching by Ear, 39.

[16] McClellan. Preaching by Ear, 39.

[17] McClellan. Preaching by Ear, 31.

[18] McClellan. Preaching by Ear, 41–43.

[19] McClellan. Preaching by Ear, 45.

[20] Chris Holcumb, “ ‘The Crown of All Our Study’: Improvisation in Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 31, no. 3 (2001): 53–72.

[21] Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 118.

[22] Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 122.

[23] Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 125.

[24] Clyde E. Fant, Preaching For Today (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 36–37.

[25] This section is adapted from Reynolds, The Word Is Worth a Thousand Pictures, 375–77.

[26] Sinclair B. Ferguson, David F. Wright, and J. I. Packer, eds., New Dictionary of Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1988). s.v. “Preaching, Theology of,” by Klaas Runia.

[27] Dennison, “Some Thoughts on Preaching,” 7.

[28] Charles Dennison, “Preaching and Application: A Review,” Kerux 4:3 (December 1989): 51.

[29] Cornelius Trimp, “The Relevance of Preaching,” WTJ 36, no. 2 (fall 1973): 1.

[30] Trimp, “The Relevance of Preaching,” 2.

[31] Trimp, “The Relevance of Preaching,” 25–29.

[32] Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), 303, in Dennison, “Preaching and Application: A Review,” Kerux 4:3 (December 1989): 51.

[33] Dennison, “Some Thoughts on Preaching,” 5, 8.

[34] Jacob Firet, Dynamics in Preaching (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 45.

[35] Klaas Runia, “What Is Preaching according to the New Testament?” Tyndale Bulletin 29 (1978): 19.

[36] Dennison, “Preaching and Application: A Review,” 52.

[37] T. David Gordon, “Presuppositions Regarding Preaching,” unpublished manuscript, n.d.

[38] Dennison, “Some Thoughts on Preaching,” 6.

[39] Daane, Preaching with Confidence, 34.

[40] Thomas Stearns Eliot, Christianity and Culture: The Idea of a Christian Society and Notes Toward the Definition of Culture (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968), 18.

[41] Hendrik Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, trans. John Howard Yoder (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1962), 36–46, in Herbert Schlossberg, Idols For Destruction: Christian Faith and Its Confrontation With American Society (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983), 308.

[42] David Powlison, “Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair” (photocopy), 15.

[43] Powlison, “Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair,” 15.

[44] Powlison, “Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair,” 24.

[45] Marshall McLuhan, “Our Only Hope Is Apocalypse,” in The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion, eds. Eric McLuhan and Jacek Szlarek (Toronto: Stoddart, 1999), 62.

[46] Timothy Keller, Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism (New York: Viking, 2015), 289–93.

Gregory E. Reynolds is pastor emeritus of Amoskeag Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Manchester, New Hampshire, and is the editor of Ordained Servant. Ordained Servant Online, March, 2024.