Narrative Preaching

In recent years, the paradigm shift from a rationalistic worldview to a world in motion has shifted attention in biblical studies and preaching away from propositional statements to story. Narrative preaching draws on the Scripture as story and seeks to communicate through the form of story. The Importance of Story Narrative preaching is story-formed preaching-preaching that takes seriously, in method and form, Clark Pinnock's suggestion that "the essence of the gospel is the biblically narrated epic story of salvation through Jesus Christ" (Tracking the Maze [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990], 154). Flowing out of the recent trend in biblical studies, theology, and ethics to make narrative their guiding construct, many contemporary preachers have also made narrative their touchstone. As Edmund Steimle, Morris Niedenthal, and Charles Rice stated in their collaborative work on narrative preaching: We are trying to find that formative image that could both articulate what preach…