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Opere di Dr. Steven W. Smith

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Dr. Steven W. Smith quickly became one of my favorite faces to see at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and was always a joy to hear preach during Southwestern’s chapel worship services. I always found his sermons refreshing and edifying, and his delivery always seemed near impeccable. Thus, it was a privilege to have his book Recapturing the Voice of God: Shaping Sermons Like Scripture assigned for a couple of my classes now and a joy to write a review of it leading up to a preaching conference at SWBTS. Dr. Smith sets out to defend the following thesis I believe would potentially offer a helpful resource for preachers aiming to faithfully preach the Word in a truly Text-driven manner: “The humble ambition of this book is to show a preacher or teacher how the genre influences the meaning of the text and give practical help for those who want to know how we can shape our sermons to reflect this meaning.” In the following review of Recapturing the Voice of God, I will share a brief look at Dr. Smith’s resume to show his expertise in this field, a summary of his book, and some of my interactions of what has become a helpful tool in my preaching toolbox.

Biographical Sketch of the Author
Dr. Smith recently left his position as the vice president for Student Services and Communications and professor of Preaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to return to the pulpit at Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, an established church with a storied history of faithful expositors of the Word. He held his position at Southwestern from 2003 until his resignation, teaching many preaching courses and serving as the Associate Dean for the Professional Doctoral Programs and as Dean of the College. He earned a B.S. in Communications from Liberty University, an M.Div from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in Communication from Regent University, and has also authored a short theology of preaching, Dying to Preach, which is also one of the assigned books for this class. Having heard him preach and had the privilege of sitting under his dynamic teaching and with the experience he has had of preaching faithfully for many years, I believe Dr. Smith has much to offer young, aspiring preachers like myself.

Summary of Contents
While Dr. Smith shares this is mostly an introduction to a much larger topic, there are twelve chapters broken up into what feels like four units: the first largely serves as a broader introduction and lays out the lion’s share of the second through fourth units in chapter three, which highlights Smith taking nine specific Biblical genres into three broader categories. He places the Old Testament Narratives, the Law, the Gospels, Acts, and the Parables into what he calls “Story,” and in “Poem/Wisdom” he places the Psalms, Prophecy, and Wisdom Literature. Finally, he has the Epistles and Revelation under the heading “Letter.”

Most if not all chapters are taking the preacher from the study to the pulpit by leading the reader through the interpretation, the communication, and the structuring of his sermons, each offering the reader examples of sermons and other resources to further his study. This goes back to Dr. Smith framing this book as an introduction; if something strikes your eye in a particular chapter, you are sure to find some helpful resources right at the end of that chapter to take your study deeper. While you will not find many arguments or other understandings in the interpretation section, you will find his basic understanding of a variety of texts and genres from the beginning to the end.

Each chapter offered some helpful study questions, which encourages the reader to take the content to heart and truth understand what the author intended. Taken together with a helpful section of references to names, subjects, and scriptures found within Recapturing the Voice of God, the reader truly holds in his hand a helpful resource for sermon prep, particularly within the interpretation and communication sections. Also, the Bibliography takes some of the recommended resources found at the conclusion of each chapter into an exhaustive list of resources a preacher could consider for his library.

Throughout Dr. Smith’s book, you really find a helpful distinction between preaching FROM Scripture and preaching THE Bible, allowing the Word to take the driver’s seat of filling the substance, forming the structure, and revealing the spirit of the sermon. It is far too easy for preachers to place their structure onto a sermon text, but Dr. Smith offers this corrective in allowing the Scripture to structure the sermon. In other words, preaching the substance and structure of the Text, not merely our own, individual, or more comfortable frameworks. We should submit to the Text, not try to have the Text submit to our outline.

Personal Interaction
I commend Dr. Smith for his treatment of some of the more difficult genres like Revelation or Prophecy. That is rarely easy to do and suspect I will be less likely to hesitate to preach them with these bits of help in my back pocket. We should not fear to preach genres such as these, but they do pose a significant challenge. If I or any reader of this book take his help and utilize it, I believe they will be better equipped to handle some of the more landmine-laden texts in a truly Text-driven manner.

I found his unique genre of Scriptures rather compelling. while this was new to me and something I had never thought of, Dr. Smith does make a hearty case for placing each of the specific genres we are used to in the three broader categories by noting the macrostructures and microstructures therein. Nevertheless, this would not be something I find iron-clad, but a bit more preferential or arbitrary, but it does offer the reader or the preacher a decent framework within each of his categories.

As a relatively newer preacher, at least to the main pulpit of the church, I would have preferred to have Dr. Smith offer more examples of sermon structures taken from his interpretation. Since this seems to be one of the main focuses of the book, I simply found it odd that there was not more content here. What was there was extremely helpful; I simply believe he could have served pastors better by offering more.

One slight critique I would have, at least for this to have a broader appeal, would be a tone of vagueness throughout the book. There are great examples and content within this book, but occasionally I felt there was a lacking point Dr. Smith was trying to make. Nevertheless, this was a point of critique I had with the first few chapters and not something I had with the main content of the book from chapter four to the end. In fact, perhaps combining the first three chapters into a more robust introduction to the book would have sufficed and given Dr. Smith more room to offer further examples of sermon structures or sermons themselves.

If I were to boil down my criticism to one thing, it would probably be some kind of a combination of the editing and how Dr. Smith formatted the book. But then again, there will likely be some typos in this paper, so I always hesitate to make a remark about editing! Nevertheless, it was occasionally distracting. In other words, the content is superb, but more work could have been done on the editing stage and in how the headings are formatted throughout the book.

Conclusion
But at the end of the day, the primary question I sought to answer was whether or not Dr. Smith was able to “show a preacher or teacher how the genre influences the meaning of the text and give practical help for those who want to know how we can shape our sermons to reflect this meaning.” Finding his three categories helpful and a relatively clear defense therein, I would say he was largely successful in defending his thesis. This book does show pastors the importance of genres in the preaching of individual texts! I for one am grateful for this because early on in my ministry I was given an outline I practically followed exclusively whether I was preaching Genesis, the Psalms, Matthew, Revelation, or any book in between, let alone differences between the various genres. While I have moved on from that, this was yet another helpful reminder to let the Text’s structure be in the driver’s seat, not my own outlines or ideas.

Further, I wanted to know whether or not I would be able to recommend this to fellow pastors, especially newer or younger ones. It is one thing to read it for myself, but would I think one of my brothers in ministry would benefit from it? And the answer, in my opinion, is yes. In fact, apart from some of the editing issues (which might be corrected in subsequent publications), I have no reservations in giving this to my Sunday school teachers for their preparation time as well. But even beyond the young guys, I think this would be a great resource for veteran preachers to perhaps give a reset button press to their sermon prep.

Finally, I wanted to know if this was something that was going to stand the test of time in my library. I have many books and try to keep things whittled down to tools I will actually use and need in the future. I wholeheartedly believe Recapturing the Voice of God is one of those books. Therefore, I gladly recommend this book to my fellow young pastors, veteran preachers, and honestly, any person laboring to teach the Word of God effectively as He would have you.
… (altro)
½
 
Segnalato
matthenslee | Oct 17, 2017 |

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