Haddon W. Robinson - Models for Biblical Preaching

T his is a collection of sermons based on the Old Testament. Many Christians might dismiss this effort as a waste of time. They wonder why anyone would bother with the Old Testament when everyone is attracted to whats new. Walk down the aisle of a local supermarket and new is everywhere. From chips and dips to brooms and mops, new moves the merchandise. One well-known evangelical leader reports that he doesnt preach the Old Testament, only the New. He simply uses the Old Testament to illustrate New Testament teachings. Others would agree with him that the best preaching comes from passages written by Paul, Peter, James, John, Matthew, Mark, or Lukethose that are part of the New Testament.

Perhaps if we called the first thirty-nine books of the Bible the First Testament they would receive a heartier welcome. After all, the First Testament was the only Bible the first-century church possessed. As Christians gathered for teaching and worship, someone in the group would open up to a God-breathed passage from the First Testament, read it slowly, and teach what it said.

Thats what the preachers who contributed to this array of sermons tried to do. Each one believes that Christians who dont regularly read or study the First Testament are losing part of our spiritual heritage.

The sermons in this collection were prepared for listeners in the twenty-first century AD. That presents challenges both for preachers and for their modern audiences. From the written conversations that follow the sermons, its clear that each preacher wrestled not only with the message of the text but also with how that message might be heard by listeners today. How do you take passages written in the long ago and far away and help modern men and women see the eternal significance? That is a challenge whether the passage is from Leviticus or Luke.

The preachers who contributed sermons to this collection speak to all kinds of audiences. Most of the sermons were addressed to church congregations. A couple were presented to seminary audiences. One was given as an after-dinner talk. Some were preached to crowds of several thousand while others were delivered to much smaller audiences. Two were prepared and preached by women. One is a first-person narrative sermon. Keep in mind that none of the sermons were prepared with a book like this or a reader like you in mind; rather they are the product of each contributors ordinary pulpit ministry.

All of the contributors to this volume share one thing in common: they were students of Haddon Robinson at either Denver Seminary or Gordon-Conwell Seminary. Clearly, they are not clones. They gleaned what they could use from class and put some other teaching aside. They talked about that in the conversations we had together. They are their own people.

These printed sermons resemble cadavers. Cadavers are lifeless bodies that medical students dissect to discover how muscle, sinew, and nerve are put together. While printed sermons fall far short of being living sermons with breath and fire and spirit, it is profitable to study them and see what the preachers intended to do and how they planned for the sermon to have life and coherence. In what follows, eleven preachers offer sermons on the First Testament. All but one are expository. The final sermon is a topical exposition, but we have included it to demonstrate how an evangelistic sermon can be put together.

How can this collection best be used? You could simply sit back and read each sermon, allowing God to speak to you again through his Word. However, if you want to learn how each preacher works to prepare messages every week, then read the interviews after each sermon to get a look at the creative process.

Quite a bit of content in this collection may need further explanation. If you are a student of sermons, you would be helped by reading Haddon Robinsons Biblical Preaching , the book that explains the theory on which these sermons are based.

God bless you as you hear these passages from the First Testament again for the first time.