In the 18 books on preaching I have read this year, among the most quoted and referred to has been ‘Preaching with Purpose’ by Jay Adams, so it was with a real sense of anticipation that I turned to his as Book no 19. I have to confess to being less than overwhelmed. I know there will be some great fans of Adams out there who will not approve of that but I certainly didn’t find him up to the mark of many of the others I have recently read. To be honest, one of the more annoying features of the book, especially in the light of my opening comments is his over frequent recommendations of his own writings and books. In fact I could only find about two references to works other than his own.

Having said that, there is good in this book. Adams has a particularly engaging style of writing that makes for very easy reading and he does emphasise some issues not heavily covered by others. One of these was his caution of application and stress on implementation. He urges preachers to be careful how they seek to apply Scripture, pointing out that in the Bible God has already applied that word and we have no warrant to apply it in any other way - “Just as we have no right using a preaching portion for purposes other than that which God intended it to serve, neither do we have the option to ‘apply’ it, as many do, to any and all circumstances that we may choose.” (p133) Moving from application to implementation, he contends that “Bible believing preachers….have been good at telling congregations what to do, but notoriously poor at telling them how to do it.” (p13 and, coming from his well-known emphasis on nouthetic counseling, he urges preachers to also be counselors in the way they handle the Word of God.

Another point Adams labours is that of long-term planning for preaching. He advocates preparing sermons six months in advance maintaining the following benefits (in summary): “1. You gain plenty of lead time. 2.You gain perspective in the text. 3. Illustrations come naturally. 4. When preaching a series of sermons on a book, you can preach the first sermon in the light of the exegesis of the entire book. 5. You solve the problem of an exegetical conscience (I’ll let you find out what that is!). 6. Planning large blocks of sermons, well in advance requires thought about balanced feeding of the flock.” (p81) While I can see where he is coming from and appreciate the logic, personally I would find this very difficult to do but maybe there’s a subject there for ‘The Big Debate’.

One thing I would take issue with Adams over would be in his section on illustrations and storytelling materials. “Many preachers use Scripture, especially the Old Testament, illustratively. Don’t do it……Nowhere do New Testament preachers use the Old Testament illustratively.” (p103) I would differ here, and I think there are examples to the contrary, for instance when Jesus compared his forthcoming resurrection to Jonah’s emergence from the fish’s belly after three days. I agree there are dangers in using Scriptural material as illustrations, doing so in such a way that appears to weaken the historical authority or reality of the event, person etc, but I don’t see why they should be avoided altogether.

Adams is very strong on the single purpose idea; what he calls “Determining the Telos“. He says, “For the preacher we may say, ‘Get the telos; in all your getting, get the purpose.’ You must never preach on a passage until you are certain you understand why the Holy Spirit included that passage in the Bible.” (p27) He suggests the following test - “This matter of purpose is such an important consideration in preaching that if your wife were to awaken you on Sunday morning at 4 o’clock and ask, ‘What is the purpose of this morning’s message?’ you ought to be able to rattle it off in one crisp sentence, roll over and go to sleep again, all without missing a single stroke in your snoring.” (p31)

For all my negative comments to start with, a good and worthwhile read, but it wouldn’t be in my top 10.