Privilege the Text!: A Theological Hermeneutic for Preaching

Finally, a book on the hermeneutics of preaching from the Old Testament that takes the biblical texts seriously. Responding to many approaches that pay lip service to authorial intent in Old Testament texts but then quickly impose typological and christocentric meanings on them, Kuruvilla asks seriously what biblical authors were doing with their words. With patience and great skill he guides us in how we may first interpret biblical texts to discover their intended meaning, and then he explains how the message of those texts is authoritative for Christian readers. This is the best book on preaching on the Old Testament to come out in a long time.

This is a magnificent work, showing us how to move from the then of the text to the now of the audience. . . . Kuruvilla repeatedly demonstrates how paying attention to the details of the text leads to the underlying truth that spans all generations. His discussion of how all parts of the law-civil,moral, and ceremonial-are applicable today is worth the price of the book. You will understand your task as a preacher as never before and find yourself with a renewed excitement for it.

I commend Abe Kuruvilla's book to you for its intriguing proposal on how better to relate hermeneutics and homiletics. I have read, and benefited from, his earlier book, but this one goes further. In identifying this new ugly ditch, he also makes an original contribution to the theological interpretation of Scripture. Kuruvilla's homiletics rightly emphasizes the theology of the text and the importance of the congregation's response. His focus is squarely on edifying the church. This is a book on preaching rooted in theology rather than communication skills, and for this I am very grateful!

Christian interpreters have placed the sermon or homily at the heart of their practice of scriptural interpretation, yet the move from text to preaching is not a straightforward one .... It requires a theologically- and hermeneutically-informed reflection, lacking in much of the more recent literature in the fields both of homiletics and the theological interpretation of Scripture. It is this lack that Abe Kuruvilla addresses in this thought-provoking and highly original book, which takes as its starting-point the "pericope"-the section of Scripture ... on which preaching is based-as the primary form in which the biblical Word is encountered.