In this insightful study, James Earl Massey offers an expanded version of the Twelfth Annual William E. Conger, Jr. Lectures on Biblical Preaching that he delivered at Beeson Divinity School in February 2004. Through a unique collection of informative lectures and illustrative sermons, the highly esteemed teacher and preacher considers four dimensions of the preacher as steward of the gospel story. Pastors will warmly welcome this book as it provides them with both practical guidance and insight about their identity as preachers.

Resources for preachers steadily appear, called forth by the perennial need on the part of working pastors for helpful and inspirational materials backed by tested experience, reverent scholarship, and creative insights. The essays in this book are of that cast, and each essay is the work of an experienced practitioner-scholar in the field of preaching. The chapters focus on the preaching ministry of Gardner Calvin Taylor, in whose honour the volume was prepared. They are offered, with affection and esteem, by colleagues, students, and friends, fellow preachers all, whose own attempts to speak the unsearchable riches of Christ owe much to the life and labours of Gardner C. Taylor. Considered by many as the greatest living American preacher, Gardner C. Taylor has often reminded other preachers about the need for divine help in fulfilling the call.

Pastor, teacher, and mentor James Earl Massey helps us see the encouragement, wisdom, and practical direction the Epistles offer to our generation. Easy-to-follow, step-by-step suggestions for leading a group are provided, as well as questions to facilitate group discussion. Easy-to-follow, step-by-step suggestions for leading a group are provided, as well as questions to facilitate group discussion. Immersion, inspired by a fresh translation--the Common English Bible--stands firmly on Scripture and helps readers explore the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual needs of their personal faith. More importantly, they ll be able to discover God s revelation through readings and reflections."

In this volume James Earl Massey explores both the sense of burden and the sense of joy that accompanies the preaching task. He gives attention to the preacher's sense of the inward side of the task, next to the outward side of preaching. He then considers the togetherness that earnest preachers seek to experience with their hearers, followed by reflections on the planning necessary for the eventfulness that preaching was ordained by God to offer. After almost fifty years of preaching, Massey offers insight and reflection that will remind, inform, stimulate, and encourage all who bear the necessary and perennial responsibility to prepare and preach the Word.

Providing fundamental homiletical principles, this classic book gives readers all the tools they need to prepare a meaningful sermon.

"Sermon design"--James Massey's contemporary, creative approach to shaping specific classifications of sermons--focuses on order (What is the preacher's goal?) and on movement (What structure is he or she using to get there?). The discussion of his approach begins with an appraisal of the sermon in context--in relation to goals, design, basic forms, contemporary concerns, and the "why" of it all.

Dr. Massey's specific forms for designing sermons include the narrative/story sermon--a subject which is receiving renewed interest today; the textual-expository sermon; the doctrinal/topical sermon; and the special occasion sermon, for which he has chosen the topic of the funeral. Suggestions are included for studying the methods of master preachers as a resource for more effective preaching. And three of the author's own tested sermons are used as illustrations of sermon design possibilities.