Preacher, Keep Yourself From Idols

Derek Tidball, Inter-Varsity Press, $19.95

For the last half-century every decade has witnessed the publication of a landmark book on the art of preaching.

From memory, roughly in chronological order: W. E. Sangster’s The Craft of the Sermon; James Stewart’s Heralds of God (he was selected by Preaching Magazine as the 20th century’s greatest English-language preacher), John Stott’s I Believe in Preaching, John Claypool’s The Preaching Event (he’s the best preaching writer or writing preacher in the English language, in my view), Fred Craddock’s Youtube talks (he’s better heard than read), Tom Long’s The Witness of Preaching, William Willimon’s Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry, Walter Brueggeman’s Finally Comes the Poet, anything by Eugene Peterson — I could go on.

In this decade Tidball’s latest book on the subject will be hard to beat. An evangelical British Baptist pastor-theologian, he’s “walked the walk”, pastoring churches and teaching ministerial students at the London School of Theology, Spurgeon’s College and elsewhere.

Challenging, and sometimes — for us preachers — scary!

Rowland Croucher