Privilege The Text!

Though the preacher's task is haunted by the gap between biblical text and context and contemporary audience, Abraham Kuruvilla (Ph.D, University of Aberdeen) proposes a theological hermeneutic for preaching which values genre, theological, and exegetical considerations while giving authority to sermonic application. This innovative hermeneutic argues that the Scriptural pericope projects an ideal world in front of the text-rather than behind the text-allowing the present world to be reoriented by the sermon. Coupled with the theology of the pericope, he argues for a Christo-iconic interpretive model as a better model than the dominant Christotelic interpretation. Profuse with examples from both Testaments and many genres, he demonstrates how this hermeneutic intersects with and drives the homiletic endeavor.