A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. J.H. (Hans) Kouwenberg is Editor of Channels.
A Primer for Preachers. Ian Pitt-Wilson. Baker Book House, 1986. 112 pp.
Ian Pitt-Watson, professor of preaching at Fuller Theological Seminary, manages, in half the space of the average book, to reprime my pump for preaching. His stated intention is both to inspire beginning students of homiletics and to refresh and recharge experienced pulpiteers. As one who has sought to present the Word in the pulpit “alive and active” for fifteen years, I can attest to receiving a renewed thrill, some genuinely different perspectives, and several helpful suggestions for the preaching task.
What thrilled me is that at times Pitt-Watson’s book soars like a sermon. That he is a preacher as well as a professor is evident in his suggested sermon outlines, snatches and snippets. I particularly appreciated his exposition of John 18: 33-38 portraying the confrontation between Pilate and Jesus Christ in chapter eight of his book. The first few pages of this chapter struck me as particularly sermonic. For demonstrating the sheer contrast of between Pilate’s and Jesus Christ’s, the world’s and the Christian’s conception of truth, with some helpful work expositions, and practical conclusions, the opening pages of this chapter are among the best illustration of the do-as-I-do school of homiletics to be found in the book (pp. 94-98). I did not appreciate the two opening chapters of his book as much; they appear more theoretical; nevertheless, throughout the book one is inspired by Pitt-Watson’s careful use of words, appropriate quotations of Scriptures, happily remembered stories, and convincing snatches of poetry and song.
Among the different perspectives on preaching I gained from this brief book were Pitt-Watson’s emphasis on story-telling as the method and message of Scripture and the insightful analogy of producing a sermon as being more akin to giving birth than designing and constructing a building. Pitt-Watson’s emphasis points the way to a more organic and natural development of the sermon than I was previously taught. And 1 have to say that that is how some of my best sermons have been in gestation and given birth! I realize that the emphasis on storytelling is a more recent, current and common one in many books on preaching; however, it is somewhat new to me and productive in conceiving of “illustrations” as naturally arising out of what Pitt-Watson calls the text of Scripture and the text of life (rather than being artificially mind out of sermon illustration manuals)!
Perhaps because of the book’s brevity, helpful suggestions leap off the page. I particularly found some of Pitt-Watson’s strategies of sermon development helpful. He suggests that after reading the text (in several translations) that one might think the theme, feel the theme, activate (or check for the imperatives of) the theme, invert the theme (a novel suggestion — “Whatever we are preaching about we should turn it upside down and see what it look likes from there.” p. 81), augment and diminish the theme (“For the preacher it means changing scale — from personal to societal to global to cosmic” p. 81) and, finally, picture and story the theme.
I thought it was interesting (theologically) that Pitt-Watson began his discussion of “the story” of Scripture with the “Christ story” in John 1:1 -5 in the New Testament (p. 26) and only later came to the “the Adam story” in the Old Testament as part of the larger story (p. 28). I am not sure that Pitt-Watson has taken enough time beyond a quote from Colossians 1:16 (“The whole universe has been created through him and for him”) to make the case that “then there is nothing in the physical world from the galaxies to the atom that cannot be a theophany, a Christophany, a revelation of God in Christ” (p. 28). I personally, too, appreciate that Christ can be seen in “a thousand places and faces” but a more adequate theology of this needs to be presented. I note that most of Pitt-Watson’s scriptural quotes are from the N.E.B., a more British than North American translation, but this is only a quibble.
The book is so rich in allusive thought, analogy, and advice that I have recommended it as a “first volume” to read to my associate Director of Youth and Lay Ministries who is preparing to study for the ministry of Word and Sacrament.