Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

Rating:
Summary: Three strengths make this book a valuable resource.
Review: When it comes to books on preaching, it's pretty much all been said before. If you're looking for something new and novel, this is not the book for you. But, if you want a book that will strengthen your preaching in three areas, this book is a valuable resource. First, this book will help you build a bridge from the world of the Bible to today's world by giving you a helpful tool known as the "Fallen Condition Focus" (FCF) of the text. Second, this book contains an excellent chapter offering great insights on illustrating the sermon. Third, this book has probably the best treatment of application in preaching I've ever read. As long as contemporizing the biblical text, helping people see abstract truth in a way that is concrete, pictoral, sensible, and expreiential and driving home the practical significance of the Bible remain significant priorities for you as a preacher, this book will stand the test of time as a significant resource.

Rating:
Summary: The best book on preaching I've read yet
Review: While Martyn Lloyd-Jones' Preaching and Preachers is more comprehensive and is unsurpassed in addressing the life of the preacher, this is the best book on the actual preparation and delivery of sermons that I've read yet. Chapell takes preachers step by step through the process of preparing expository sermons which are faithful to the text, redemptive in focus, and application-oriented in style. His emphasis and teaching on finding their fallen redemptive focus of every text will help preachers keep the sermons redemptive and Christ-centered, rather than moralistic, legalistic, and discouraging. The balance Chapell suggests between explanation, illustration, and application is something more expositors need to heed. The book is well-written, well-documented (interacting well with most of the other material out there on preaching), and easy-to-apply. I cannot overstate how helpful this book has been for me. I recommend it very, very highly.