Reading for Preaching
The Preacher in Conversation with Storytellers, Biographers, Poets, and Journalists
Author Cornelius Plantinga ISBN 9780802870773 Binding Trade Paper Publisher WM B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Publication Date November 30, 2013 Size 140 x 216 mm
In Reading for Preaching Cornelius Plantinga makes a striking claim: preachers who read widely will most likely become better preachers.Plantinga -- himself a master preacher -- shows how a wide readi
In Reading for Preaching Cornelius Plantinga makes a striking claim: preachers who read widely will most likely become better preachers.
Plantinga -- himself a master preacher -- shows how a wide reading program can benefit preachers. First, he says, good reading generates delight, and the preacher who enters the world of delight goes with God. Good reading can also help tune the preacher?s ear for language -- his or her primary tool. General reading can enlarge the preacher?s sympathies for people and situations that she or he had previously known nothing about. And, above all, the preacher who reads widely has the chance to become wise.
This beautifully written book will benefit not just preachers but anyone interested in the wisdom to be derived from reading.
Works that Plantinga interacts with in the book include
Plantinga -- himself a master preacher -- shows how a wide reading program can benefit preachers. First, he says, good reading generates delight, and the preacher who enters the world of delight goes with God. Good reading can also help tune the preacher?s ear for language -- his or her primary tool. General reading can enlarge the preacher?s sympathies for people and situations that she or he had previously known nothing about. And, above all, the preacher who reads widely has the chance to become wise.
This beautifully written book will benefit not just preachers but anyone interested in the wisdom to be derived from reading.
Works that Plantinga interacts with in the book include
- The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
- Enrique's Journey, by Sonia Nazario
- Silence, by Shusaku Endo
- "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" by Leo Tolstoy
- "Narcissus Leaves the Pool" by Joseph Epstein
- Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
Review & Expositor
"What makes Plantinga's book so helpful is not just the list of authors and titles we might pick up (a very impressive list) but the practical ideas he includes along the way."
Restoration Quarterly
"Any preacher who already reads widely will be pleased to find in this book justification for this practice. Any preacher who does not read widely will find this book compelling enough to provide motivation to read a novel, and short enough to leave plenty of time to do so."
Richard Lischer
-- author of Stations of the Heart and The End of Words
"Cornelius Plantinga's Reading for Preaching represents the gift of a lifetime. Plantinga has spent many years mapping great fiction, poetry, biography, and journalism. In this book he shares that map with technologized, digitalized, busy preachers who badly need what he has to offer. This is not a guide to `pretty sermons,' as Niebuhr called them, but to human, deeply textured reflections. . . . I can't imagine a preacher who will not benefit from this gift."
Walter Brueggemann
-- author of The Prophetic Imagination and Truth Speaks to Power
"Two matters are unmistakably clear in this book. First, Plantinga loves words, phrases, sentences, and stories. He remembers them, relishes them, and knows their durable power. Second, Plantinga cares about ministers. He knows the burdens and wonders of ministry, and treats preachers with deep respect. . . . Preachers will find in these pages a colleague and fellow traveler who exudes courage and pathos and joy in our common calling."
Thomas G. Long
-- author of The Witness of Preaching and What Shall We Say?
"With wit, wisdom, and a fresh supply of his own compelling prose, Cornelius Plantinga invites us into the whitewater adventure of good reading. He speaks directly to preachers, to those who bear the load of weekly sermons and who wonder where they can find language that bristles with energy and faithful imagination. But he also gathers in all Christians who hunger for the old words of the faith - sin, hope, salvation, providence -- to come alive in the vibrant metaphors, rich stories, and telling insights of great literature. This book is about delightful reading, and it is itself a delight to read."
John Ortberg
-- author of If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat
"Jesus once said we are to love God with all our mind -- I know of no one who does this better than Neal Plantinga. He seems to be incapable of crafting an uninteresting or unedifying sentence. To be able to learn from him how to stock a mind for greater preaching is beyond price. Whatever this book costs, it's not enough."
Publishers Weekly
"Plantinga's sympathetic understanding of the preacher's `daunting task,' combined with his concrete guidance for enhancing homiletic skill, makes this a valuable resource for new and veteran preachers alike."
John Buchanan
-- editor/publisher of The Christian Century
"Reading is the necessary backdrop to relevant twenty-first-century preaching. There is no shortcut or substitute. When the gospel and the preacher's personal faith and experience are informed by wide, disciplined, varied, and sustained reading, lively and compelling sermons will be the result. Cornelius Plantinga, an avid and creative reader himself, provides the community of preachers with a very valuable resource and the impetus for all of us to read, read, read."
Lillian Daniel
-- author of When "Spiritual but Not Religious" Is Not Enough
"Why don't preachers read more? Preachers are writers who produce more content each week than the average newspaper columnist. Why don't we ravenously read in order to feed the beast of each Sunday's deadline? The truth is that a million pressing callings invade the small space that pastors reserve for reading. And so I give thanks for the deep reading that Cornelius Plantinga has done over the years, and for this gentle guide to words that are worth reading."
Fleming Rutledge
-- author of And God Spoke to Abraham: Preaching from the Old Testament
"This treasure of a book by Neal Plantinga offers substantial help to a generation of young preachers (and older ones too) who have not fully grasped the importance of furnishing the mind with great literary writing. . . . Plantinga is discerning, witty, humane, up-to-date, and profoundly pastoral. I urgently recommend this ear-opening book to a host of
View Review quote
"What makes Plantinga's book so helpful is not just the list of authors and titles we might pick up (a very impressive list) but the practical ideas he includes along the way."
Restoration Quarterly
"Any preacher who already reads widely will be pleased to find in this book justification for this practice. Any preacher who does not read widely will find this book compelling enough to provide motivation to read a novel, and short enough to leave plenty of time to do so."
Richard Lischer
-- author of Stations of the Heart and The End of Words
"Cornelius Plantinga's Reading for Preaching represents the gift of a lifetime. Plantinga has spent many years mapping great fiction, poetry, biography, and journalism. In this book he shares that map with technologized, digitalized, busy preachers who badly need what he has to offer. This is not a guide to `pretty sermons,' as Niebuhr called them, but to human, deeply textured reflections. . . . I can't imagine a preacher who will not benefit from this gift."
Walter Brueggemann
-- author of The Prophetic Imagination and Truth Speaks to Power
"Two matters are unmistakably clear in this book. First, Plantinga loves words, phrases, sentences, and stories. He remembers them, relishes them, and knows their durable power. Second, Plantinga cares about ministers. He knows the burdens and wonders of ministry, and treats preachers with deep respect. . . . Preachers will find in these pages a colleague and fellow traveler who exudes courage and pathos and joy in our common calling."
Thomas G. Long
-- author of The Witness of Preaching and What Shall We Say?
"With wit, wisdom, and a fresh supply of his own compelling prose, Cornelius Plantinga invites us into the whitewater adventure of good reading. He speaks directly to preachers, to those who bear the load of weekly sermons and who wonder where they can find language that bristles with energy and faithful imagination. But he also gathers in all Christians who hunger for the old words of the faith - sin, hope, salvation, providence -- to come alive in the vibrant metaphors, rich stories, and telling insights of great literature. This book is about delightful reading, and it is itself a delight to read."
John Ortberg
-- author of If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat
"Jesus once said we are to love God with all our mind -- I know of no one who does this better than Neal Plantinga. He seems to be incapable of crafting an uninteresting or unedifying sentence. To be able to learn from him how to stock a mind for greater preaching is beyond price. Whatever this book costs, it's not enough."
Publishers Weekly
"Plantinga's sympathetic understanding of the preacher's `daunting task,' combined with his concrete guidance for enhancing homiletic skill, makes this a valuable resource for new and veteran preachers alike."
John Buchanan
-- editor/publisher of The Christian Century
"Reading is the necessary backdrop to relevant twenty-first-century preaching. There is no shortcut or substitute. When the gospel and the preacher's personal faith and experience are informed by wide, disciplined, varied, and sustained reading, lively and compelling sermons will be the result. Cornelius Plantinga, an avid and creative reader himself, provides the community of preachers with a very valuable resource and the impetus for all of us to read, read, read."
Lillian Daniel
-- author of When "Spiritual but Not Religious" Is Not Enough
"Why don't preachers read more? Preachers are writers who produce more content each week than the average newspaper columnist. Why don't we ravenously read in order to feed the beast of each Sunday's deadline? The truth is that a million pressing callings invade the small space that pastors reserve for reading. And so I give thanks for the deep reading that Cornelius Plantinga has done over the years, and for this gentle guide to words that are worth reading."
Fleming Rutledge
-- author of And God Spoke to Abraham: Preaching from the Old Testament
"This treasure of a book by Neal Plantinga offers substantial help to a generation of young preachers (and older ones too) who have not fully grasped the importance of furnishing the mind with great literary writing. . . . Plantinga is discerning, witty, humane, up-to-date, and profoundly pastoral. I urgently recommend this ear-opening book to a host of