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PEOPLE IN PRINT

Spicing Sermons

Variety in Biblical Preaching by Harold Freeman, Word, $12.95

Reviewed by Calvin Miller, pastor, West Side Baptist Church, Omaha, Nebraska

"The validity of biblical preaching is not determined by its form!" says Harold Freeman, professor of preaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. There are other ways of preaching than the way we are now doing it, and so he nudges us to courage.

"Don't be afraid," he coaxes. "Try new forms." But beware lest you "let your eagerness for creativity and innovation lead you into faulty hermeneutics. No matter how interesting your product may be, it will not be a biblical message if it does not interpret accurately the Scripture it deals with."

Freeman's book, Variety in Biblical Preaching, is rewardingly confrontational. I'm not necessarily a veteran of preaching, but I have been at it now for three decades. Still, as I read I found myself questioning my own tendency to settle into a comfortable homiletical groove. ...

March
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