What Goes Into A Sermon?

Have you ever wondered what books and reading material go into sermon preparation? Getting ready for our upcoming series on "Journey With Jesus" I've looked into a number of resources relating to Jesus's life, ministry, and historical and cultural context. It's been an awesome journey for me to learn some new things and gain some new insights into the life of Jesus! I hope that it will be the same for you.

Here are five resources I'm working with that I think you'll enjoy if you decide to pick them up on your own. They should be available through interlibrary loan (at the Jackson Downtown Library), at Union's Library, or at their pastor's research center on the 3rd floor of Jennings Hall on Union's campus.

I'm listing the resources in order of my recommendation. So #1 would be the MOST recommended. But they all represent a different take (some scholarly, some more popular) on the "all important question" that Jesus posed to Peter, "Who do you say that I am." My prayer is that you will use the coming seven weeks to come to your own response to Jesus's question.

1. Living Jesus by Luke Timothy Johnson. Johnson is a NT professor at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta. I read this book several years ago and it stands as one of my all time favorites. Johnson, an excellent scholar, dismisses much recent academic discussion about what Jesus said and did - vis a vis the Jesus Seminar - and focuses on the Jesus that was confessed by the early Christians and continues to give power and life to Christians today. The main idea he considers is this. What does it mean for Christians to believe that Jesus is still alive? Think about it. If Jesus is still alive, then he influences, exercises power, and reigns as Christ - as Johnson believes, every bit as powerfully today as he did 2000 years ago.

2. New Testament History: A Narrative Account by Ben Witherington. Witherington is NT professor at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, KY. In spite of its title, this book is a VERY accesible history of the first century, focusing obviously on Jesus and his followers. Witherington includes several "sidebars" that give more in-depth information on topics like "Qumran and the Essenes", how ancient letters were written, what first century Jerusalem was like, and "Miracles and History" (a look at whether how Jesus's miracles are read from a scholarly point of view - Witheringon concludes that we "read them" as the early Christians did!). This book has provided a lot of background context information to my understanding of Jesus's ministry.

3. The Crucified God by Jurgen Moltmann. Moltmann is retired professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Tubingen in Germany (and seems to keep on publishing!). This was one of the books we had to read in seminary but still very readable by one of the premier Christian theologians of the 20th century. In it, Moltmann draws our attention back to the reformation idea of theologia crucis - a theology of the cross. He says, "The knowledge of the cross is the knowledge of God in the suffering caused to him by dehumanized man, that is, in the contrary of everything which dehumanized man seeks and tries to attain as the deity in him." In other words, in man's hunt for greater power and glory, God still sides and redeems in the places where are found the outcast and broken. In fact, if you want to know who God really is... look to the cross of Jesus.

4. The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was an early-mid 20th century theologian who was killed by the Nazis after they discovered Bonhoeffer's involvement in a plot to assasinate Hitler. This book is every bit a deep devotional commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. Bonhoeffer disallows any "pollyanish" understanding of Jesus's message and understands Jesus as calling us to experience grace as costly (because a hefty price has been paid) and not as "cheap grace." It is in this book that Bonhoeffer makes his classic statement, "When Jesus bids a man to come, he bids him to 'come and die.'" Wow. Of course, this has Romans 6 written all over it. But it's true. Who has ever really experienced new life in Jesus without first burying the old one?!?

5. The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A Kempis. Thomas A Kempis lived 1380-1471, spending much of his life in a Dutch monastery. This book stands as one of all-time classics of Christian devotional literature. It would be a perfect book to complete a thirty-day spiritual "retreat" taking one or two chapters a day (they're short chapters). One of the best parts of this book is the imagined conversations between "The Disciple" and "Christ" where the disciple poses questions to Jesus about how to give up earthly attachments and enjoy the blessings of discipleship. For example...
CHRIST: If you listen to Me, and follow my words, you shall find true peace.
THE DISCIPLE: What must I do, Lord?
CHRIST: Keep guard over your whole life, your actions and your words. Direct all your efforts to the single purpose of pleasing Me: seek and desire Myself alone.

These are just five of the resources that have influenced my thoughts on our upcoming sermon series. There are many more. There are some that perhaps you can recommend as well. Why don't you? Feel free to comment to this post below and add those book you have found meaningful in your own "Journey With Jesus."