Preaching Character

In this final installment from the long-running and celebrated Conference on Preaching book series, an energetic group of scholars join together across ethnic and theological divides to consider one lasting question: "What is a life well-lived in the world that Wisdom fashions?" For over a decade, the Conference on Preaching has generated conversation among evangelicals, postliberals, and mainline Protestants by bringing together well-known biblical scholars and homileticians across the theological spectrum. In Preaching Character, editors Dave Bland and David Fleer turn to the papers from the October 2009 conference on preaching and wisdom. Wisdom is fundamentally about the formation and transformation of character, they write. When God created the world, God breathed wisdom into its essence; the world operates by wisdom. Thus wisdom is essential to living responsibly in this world. It is by wisdom that God empowers humans to negotiate the complexities of life. And it is by wisdom that we deepen our relationship with God and with others. Believing that the task of preaching biblical wisdom is about shaping the character of the faith community and its individual members, the contributors to this book seek to echo wisdom's call to embark on a fascinating and often unpredictable adventure. Intrigue, disappointment, joy, suffering, conflict, dialogue, and satisfaction fill the journey. Wisdom offers no guarantees along the way regarding rewards or financial security or physical well-being. But the journey with wisdom does guarantee the kind of character that enables individuals to live responsibly in community, reflecting the very nature of the God they serve. With Preaching Character, Dave Bland and David Fleer complete a collection of books exploring different focuses in preaching.