Deus Misereatur

Preaching as Reminding: Stirring Memory in an Age of Forgetfulness by Jeffrey D. Arthurs My rating: 5 of 5 stars I have read my fair share of books on preaching through the decades. Many of them are encouraging and helpful, unpacking the "Why" and "What" of Christian preaching before they get into the "How". Each one normally has a unique perspective and pursuit. Some are trendy, many others are traditional. Jeffrey D. Arthurs, professor of preaching and communication at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, MA, has recently added his assessment and angle in a new 192 page softback, “Preaching as Reminding: Stirring Memory in an of Forgetfulness”. These seven chapters are easy to read and retain, while supplying strengthening substance. The first three chapters of “Preaching as Reminding” look carefully at the role of remembering and forgetting in Sacred Scripture, and how the preacher is called to be a reminder, a remembrancer. A reme...

Memorials are good things! Everything from regularly repeated national holidays every year to historical markers on the sides of dusty back highways. They place before our eyes and minds that there is something worth remembering, and thus something to be gained from remembering. The opposite of memorials and remembering is forgetfulness. It’s when we forget that we often stray off and lose our way. In Scripture, to forget is placed on the same level as despising God’s gifts, refusing to heed His words and outright unbelief. A quick perusal through Psalm 106, for example, makes this connection clear. The writer describes how YHVH delivered His people from Pharaoh and Egypt through the plagues and the Red Sea, and how the people of God responded to this great deliverance, “Then they believed His words; They sang His praise” (v.12). But then, with an almost breathless speed: “ They soon forgot His works ; They did not wait for His counsel, But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness,...