Developing Biographical Narratives: Insights for Preaching from Charles Swindoll

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Developing Biographical Narratives: Insights for Preaching from Charles Swindoll

By Joe Alain

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1. See Faris Daniel Whitesell, Preaching on Bible Characters (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1955), 53-102; and Andrew Watterson Blackwood, Biographical Preaching for Today (New York: Abingdon Press, 1954), 111-30.

2. Walter Kaiser, “Preaching and the Old Testament: An Interview with Walter Kaiser,” interview by ed. Michael Duduit, Preaching 14, no. 2 (September-October 1998): 4, 6.

3. Megan Shelton, typed letter and photocopy of “Dimensions of Effective Preaching” to Joe Alain, 11 April 1997, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.

4. See Marshall Shelley et al. eds., Leadership (Winter 2002): 48.

5. For a more comprehensive study, see my “A Homiletical Approach for Developing Appropriate Biblical Texts into Biographical Sermons.” Ph.D. diss., New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2002.

6. Roy E. De Brand, Guide to Biographical Preaching (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1988), 45-6, 53-6. De Brand’s “life-portion” and “whole-life” categories was a simplification of Whitesell’s twenty-two particular types of biographical sermons. See Whitesell, 30-49.

7. For a discussion on preaching “Heroic” and “Tragic” narrative, see Donald Hamilton, Homiletical Handbook (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1992), 128-131.

8. Advocates of biographical preaching have long extolled the biographical sermon for preaching Bible doctrine. See Clarence Edward Macartney, Preaching without Notes (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1946), 135; Andrew Watterson Blackwood, Preaching from the Bible (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1941), 63-6; De Brand, 25.

9. Richard L. Eslinger, Narrative Imagination: Preaching the Worlds That Shape Us (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 153-60. See also Henry H. Mitchell, “Preaching on the Patriarchs,” in Biblical Preaching: An Expositor’s Treasury, ed. James W. Cox (Philadelphia: The Westminister Press, 1983), 41.

10. Al Fasol, Essentials for Biblical Preaching: An Introduction to Basic Sermon Preparation (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989), 75.

11. See Henry Grady Davis, Design for Preaching (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1958), 139-62; Haddon W. Robinson, Biblical Preaching: the Development and Delivery of Expository Messages, 2d ed (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 115-31. Robinson’s “Shapes Sermons Take” followed and expanded Davis’s earlier work.

12. Charles W. Koller, Expository Preaching without Notes (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1962), 52-5; Hamilton, 39-58; Jerry Vines and Jim Shaddix, Power in the Pulpit: How to Prepare and Deliver Expository Sermons (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 153-62.

13. J. Daniel Baumann, An Introduction to Contemporary Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1972), 247-55.

14. This was perhaps the fault of the “pre-narrative-genre-sensitive” era homiletical works. See works cited in notes 1 and 8 above. The long history and abuse of moralistic preaching in the biographical narratives has been well documented. For a thorough discussion of the issues of moralistic (exemplary) preaching, see Sidney Greidanus, Sola Scriptura: Problems and Principles in Preaching Historical Texts (Toronto: Wedge Publishing Foundation, 1970), 113-9; “Biographical Preaching Revisited,” Preaching 16 no. 3 (November-December 2000): 51-4; For one writer’s attempt to answer the charge that biographical preaching leads to moralistic preaching, see Timothy Peck, “Salvaging the Old Testament Biographical Sermon,” Preaching 15, no. 6 (May-June 2000): 28-30. See also, David L. Larsen, Telling the Old, Old Story: The Art of Narrative Preaching (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1995; Reprint, Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2000), 191-5.

15. Vines and Shaddix, 183-4. Calvin Miller believed that the overuse of “you” in preaching has been associated with a rhetoric of power and should be exchanged for a more indirect and conversational approach that favors the use of “we.” See Calvin Miller, The Empowered Communicator: 7 Keys to Unlocking an Audience (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1994), 63-5.

16. Wayne McDill elaborates on his method in Wayne McDill, The Twelve Essential Skills for Great Preaching (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994), 222-41.

17. Macartney, 121.