Paul Scott Wilson, Preaching and Homiletical Theory

"I assume that while preaching is a gift of the Holy Spirit, it nonetheless requires knowledge and skills that can be taught. ... Preaching need not be learned only by doing. ... The standard homiletical approach, at least until recently, has been to state a thesis. This homiletical or rhetorical theory dates back to a least two centuries before Christ [e.g. Cicero]. ... Such as statement helps to ensure unity in the final speech."

Grady Davis: The sermon was to be an idea that grows.

Fred Craddock: "Where a deductive sermon begins with its premise and then proves it, Craddick's inductive sermon tests several possibilities and narrows to a conclusion. "What is the text saying? In one sentence, and as simply as possible, state the message of the text"."

[Paul Scott Wilson's approach] "is to break the text down into many short complete sentence statements and concerns. Then they select one main statement from these. This is called the major concern of the text (i.e. the theme statement), not because it is only one possible but because it is the major one that the preacher chooses. ... Most important in [Wilson's] understanding is that the thesis sentence focus on God in one of the persons of the Trinity."

"[Wilson] affirms four key beliefs [concerning the authority of Scripture]: (1) God's authority in the Word, (2) the necessity of the Holy Spirit to illuminate the Word, (3) the authority of the church in affirming scripture as the book by which it measures and guides its life, (4) Christ's commandment that we preach the Gospel."

Theology of preaching:

1. Preaching as Event: God's word is an event of God's encounter. Threefold form: (a) the written word of God, (b) the preached word of God, (c) the revealed word of God. Modern responses to Barth: "Barth in some ways all by destroyed preaching in the name of of the Bible. His stress on the objective nature of the event of God's self-disclosure implied that preacher and contemporary experience have no role in preaching. For Barth, preaching is 'from above'."
2. Performative Word: Not just an event, but performative: it did what it said. e.g. "I promise", "I pronounce you husband and wife". Therefore "the effectiveness of preaching cannot rest in the number of people who hear it, or the a preacher's ability to perform it, but in God's ability to bring about what is spoken. See Isa 55:11.
3. Preaching as transformation: see Richard A Jensen, Lucy Rose, David Brown. Also called narrative/imaginative/existential preaching. "Sermons should be an experience that transforms the worshippers" (Rose). Criticism: sees the congregation as backsliders who need a radical change each week. Wilson uses the term to mean "what is effected through preaching, lives are transformed and confirmed to the image of Christ."
4. Preaching as poetic language and structure: a shift away from logic/arguments/points/illustrations to poetry/imagination/metaphor/story. Introduced by Grady Davis. "Davis believed that a mechanical approach to sermon form left much to be desired because content and form affected each other."

(Paul Scott Wilson, Preaching and Homiletical Theory, Chalice Press, 2004)