Preaching Through Time: Anachronism as a Way Forward for Preaching

As preachers who come to the pulpit before God and before Gods people each and every week how do we make sense of the text as we live a new moment of its ongoing story? Most options available to the preacher necessitate a hermeneutical step that requires us to preach outside of time in timeless truths experiences or realities. But the gospel is the drama of God appearing to and working with and loving Gods people in time. Preaching Through Time gives the preacher a timely homiletic for preaching together the times of Gods gospel then and now while calling Gods people to perform their own roles in todays moment of that gospel drama. Anachronism preaching together the moments of Gods drama is the language event that will get us from text to timely sermon week by week. In this significant book Casey Barton demonstrates that in the sermon the preacher arcs the ancient Scriptures with the life of the twenty-first-century listener in a way that reflects the eternal drama of God. Gods story becomes their story into which they enter and understand what it means to embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ and follow Him. --Scott M. Gibson DPhil Haddon W. Robinson Professor of Preaching and Ministry Director of the Haddon W. Robinson Center for Preaching Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary Preaching happens in time across time and beyond time. We preach to connect time-bound creatures with a God who exists outside of time. How we understand this connection between the ancient and the contemporary the objective and the subjective is one of the least understood and most poorly considered aspects of the homiletic task. I am grateful that Casey Barton has been fearless enough to engage the challenge of these questions. This book will challenge you to think in directions you might not have taken time to consider. Your preaching will be better for it. --Kenton C. Anderson President Northwest Baptist Seminary; Professor of Homiletics ACTS Seminaries of Trinity Western University; author of Integrative Preaching and Choosing to Preach Preaching Through Time draws together the best recent work in biblical theological and homiletic studies and makes an entirely sensible proposal for what should come next. Bartons carefully argued practical theology insists that a purposeful eschatology reasserts time as essential for preaching. Luke and Paul preached this way bringing past and future together in the present and inspiring preachers throughout Christian history. Now drawing from Wrights and Vanhoozers analogies with drama Barton shows us how to invite listeners into Gods story as it unfolds in time. His clear vision bears reading and rereading so we can recover what has been neglected and imagine new possibilities. --Paul Koptak Professor Emeritus Communication and Biblical Interpretation North Park Theological Seminary Effective homileticians are always treading on new terrain to plow groundbreaking pulpit pathways. In Preaching Through Time Casey Barton skillfully reveals his reconstruction of homiletics vis-a-vis the lenses of anachronism and the drama of participation. This book will expand your homiletical horizons to see the preaching enterprise in fresh ways so that your listeners will zealously partake in Gods drama of redeeming a fallen world and even take pleasure in the process as well. --Matthew D. Kim Associate Professor of Preaching and Ministry Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; author of Preaching with Cultural Intelligence: Understanding the People Who Hear Our Sermons How confident are we in preaching that the Spirit speaks now through ancient texts? Without marginalizing the need for careful exegesis Barton denies that historical distance between ourselves and the biblical texts is an ugly ditch to be bridged. He compellingly calls us instead to homiletical practices consistent with the truth: by divine wisdom Scripture is inherently suited to empower the c