Biblical Preaching [BP]

BP7511 Preaching as the Word of God

An exploration of preaching as an interpretive act through which God’s word does what God intends for it. Moving back and forth between practices of interpretation with particular biblical texts and reflection on those practices, participants discover and assess their own theology of the word and how it informs their preaching.

Full course

BP7519 Colloquy—First-Year Doctor of Ministry in Biblical Preaching

Colloquy for first-year students—D.Min. Biblical Preaching degree program.

Full course

BP7521 Preaching as the Proclaimed Word

An exploration of preaching focused on its technical and performance aspects, such as sermon design and delivery. Special attention is paid to the guidance that a biblical text’s literary and rhetorical features offer as the preacher shapes a preaching event based on that text.

Full course

BP7529 Colloquy—Second-Year Doctor of Ministry in Biblical Preaching

Colloquy for second-year students in the D.Min. Biblical Preaching degree.

Full course

BP7531 Preaching as the Word in Context

An exploration of preaching as a word of God addressed within Christian worship to a particular time and place. Participants reflect on the way sermons offer a reading or interpretation of the sermon’s audience as much as they offer a reading of a biblical text. Attention is paid to the relation of text and context at each stage of sermon development.

Full course

BP7539 Colloquy—Third-Year Doctor of Ministry in Biblical Preaching

Third-year colloquy for D.Min. Biblical Preaching students only.

Full course

BP7578 Interpreting and Preaching the Acts of the Apostles

Saint John Chrysostom referred to the book of Acts as “a strange new dish,” and it remains exactly that for many readers, preachers, and congregations. What can we learn from this lively story of travel, growth, setbacks, miracles, opposition, and responses to the Spirit’s initiative? This course explores Acts as a theological narrative, a book that makes bold and sometimes difficult claims about the nature of God, the gospel, and humanity. Together we will explore the challenges and opportunities that come with preaching Acts, whether according to the Revised Common Lectionary’s scattered seasonal offerings from

Acts or through a series of sermons designed to walk a congregation into a deeper engagement with the book’s narrative depiction of God, the church, human cultures, and the gospel. By working with Acts in particular, the course aims to strengthen biblical preaching in general. Interpreting and preaching Acts helps us think more creatively and with more nuance about the nature and theological character of biblical narrative, and so this course also considers what it means to preach a narrative and how preachers help Christian communities understand how biblical narrative can stimulate their theological imaginations.

Full course

BP7588 Preaching Race and Racial Reconciliation

This course will explore the intersection between race and preaching in the United States. It examines sermons and documents from the periods of slavery, abolition and the Civil War, as well as the twentieth century and Civil Rights movement. It analyzes theological, political and ideological commitments on race, racial injustice, and racial reconciliation primarily among “white” and African-American preachers. It engages the students own understandings about race and reconciliation and explores how to preach into communities on race, injustice and reconciliation.

Full course

BP7589 Preaching From Paul

A focus on the special opportunities and challenges in preaching from the Pauline and deutero-Pauline corpus,
including particular attention to difficult texts as exemplified primarily in Ephesians. We will consider a dialogical hermeneutical and homiletical method for the development of sermons. Attention will be given to reading Paul from various perspectives. There will be an emphasis on competence in the oral performance of texts and its relationship to the interpretation of texts for preaching. Oral performance preparation will be workshop-based during the residence week.

Full course