That John Wesley was not a systematic theologian is a point frequently made. Yet if that be the case, what kind of theologian was he? To look at his literary output over the course of his long life and ministry is to recognize the central role that sermons played. Thus, claims Michael Paquarello, Wesley was a homiletical theologian, one for whom the Word preached was the core means of reflecting on and understanding the meaning of the Gospel. In this "preaching life" of Wesley Pasquarello places Wesley's sermons in the larger religious, political, and intellectual world of their eighteenth-century context. Neither a biography nor an intellectual history, it is a homiletic history, one that both uses the details of Wesley's milieu to build a framework for understanding his sermons, and that illumines the practical wisdom embodied in the content, form, and style of Wesley's preaching. John Wesley: A Preaching Life vividly portrays the centrality of Wesley's preaching to the religious revival that transformed eighteenth-century England.

What kind of Christian wisdom and character are required to hear and speak the Word of God with authenticity? How does the person of the preacher -- his or her spiritual life, moral formation, wisdom, and virtue -- affect the spoken sermon? Following Augustine's assertion that the preacher must become -a living sermon- -- a person whose language and life are one with the truth of God incarnate in Christ -- Michael Pasquarello here puts forth a vision of preaching that is grounded in personal character, wisdom, judgment, and discernment. Pasquarello's holistic vision draws deeply from the Christian tradition, especially retrieving the wisdom of the great Dominican preacher Thomas Aquinas. Distinctive for its expansive, interdisciplinary approach to preaching -- as opposed to the how-to, technique-driven programs prevalent today -- Pasquarello's We Speak Because We Have First Been Spoken deals with some of the most significant yet neglected concerns related to preaching and pastoral leadership in our time.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906a1945) remains one of the most enigmatic figures of the twentieth century. His life evokes fascination, eliciting attention from a wide and diverse audience. Bonhoeffer is rightly remembered as theologian and philosopher, ethicist and political thinker, wartime activist and resister, church leader and pastor, martyr and saint. These many sides to Bonhoeffer do not give due prominence to the aspect of his life that wove all the disparate parts into a coherent whole: Bonhoeffer as preacher. In Dietrich: Bonhoeffer and the Theology of a Preaching Life Michael Pasquarello traces the arc of Bonhoeffer's public career, demonstrating how, at every stage, Bonhoeffer focused upon preaching, both in terms of its ecclesial practice and the theology that gave it life. Pasquarello chronicles a period of preparationaBonhoeffer's study of Luther and Barth, his struggleto reconcile practical ministry with preaching, andhis discovery of preaching's ethic of resistance. Next Pasquarello describes Bonhoeffer's maturation as a preacherahis crafting a homiletic theology, as well as preaching's relationship to politics and public confession. Pasquarello follows Bonhoeffer's forced itinerancy until he became, ultimately, a preacher without any congregation at all. In the end, Bonhoeffer's life was his best sermon. Dietrich presents Bonhoeffer as an exemplar in the preaching tradition of the church. His exercise of theological and homiletical wisdom in particular times, places, and circumstancesaBerlin, Barcelona, Harlem, London, Finkenwaldeareveals the particular kind of intellectual, spiritual, and moral formation required for faithful, concrete witness to the gospel in the practice of proclamation, both then and now. Bonhoeffer's story as a pastor and teacher of preachers provides a historical example of how the integration of theology and ministry is the fruit of wisdom cultivated through a life of discipleship with others in prayer, study, scriptural meditation, and mutual service.