Co-taught by the late theologians Tim Keller and Edmund Clowney, the lecture series “Preaching Christ in a Postmodern World” has been newly released by Reformed Theological Seminary and The Gospel Coalition as a free online course. These lectures were tremendously helpful to me when I first heard them. I’m thrilled about the reintroduction of this material in a better format than the version I listened to more than a decade ago on my second-generation iPod Shuffle.
In this course, Keller and Clowney masterfully explore redemptive-historical preaching—a method of preaching and applying Christ from all of Scripture in a way that connects unbelievers and believers alike with their need for Christ and his grace. The approach isn’t novel. As Keller and Clowney demonstrate, redemptive-historical preaching is both biblical and historical. The apostle Paul summed up his preaching methodology as “declaring . . . the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27)—and elsewhere, to “preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:23).
Redemptive-historical preaching is both biblical and historical.
Resources on Christ-centered preaching have experienced a resurgence for nearly 50 years. But with Clowney on the forefront of reintroducing this redemptive-historical approach to a new generation in the 1980s and Keller implementing it at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in the 1990s and beyond, this course is a mother lode of foundational theory and methodology. As such, it’s uniquely suited to help both aspiring and experienced preachers. It may be the most important contemporary treatment of redemptive-historical preaching.
Here are three ways these lectures put Jesus into my sermons—and into the sermons of another pastor in a surprising place.
1. Keller and Clowney had answers to questions I was asking—and questions I didn’t know I needed to ask.
When I first listened to these lectures, I had just graduated Bible college and was serving at a church plant in small-town Kansas. My day job was at a local factory, and on my shifts I devoured every MP3 I could find related to preaching Christ from all of Scripture. I was discovering an interconnectedness and unity to Scripture’s storyline that I hadn’t seen before.
I knew this must affect my preaching, of course, but it wasn’t until Keller and Clowney’s lecture series that the pieces came together: the unity of the Bible’s redemptive narrative and what this meant for preaching Christ from all of Scripture. I listened three times while running my machine and unloading trailers full of materials. I couldn’t get enough.
One of the most profound ways the lectures affected me was through the Q&A sessions, which are included in this free course. There I discovered I wasn’t the only young preacher asking similar questions about Christ-centered preaching:
- “If Jesus is the point of every sermon, won’t every sermon sound the same?”
- “Sure, the New Testament authors saw Jesus in this or that text, but they were writing under inspiration. Can we read and preach the Bible that way too?”
- “Are there controls on our Scripture interpretation if we take this approach?”
Keller and Clowney answered these questions and others (including many that hadn’t occurred to me) with clarity, grace, and good humor. I especially enjoyed hearing the older Clowney rib and course-correct some of Keller’s responses. Keller usually conceded the point, even if he didn’t always agree with his mentor. The personal touch of their interactions is priceless.
2. Keller and Clowney had resources I didn’t know I needed to read.
As Christ-centered preaching became increasingly compelling, it was hard to know where to begin. But these lectures pointed the way. Keller would casually say, “D. A. Carson talks about this”—and I’d jot down the reference. “I was reading Greidanus’s book on that”—another resource would go on the list.
As I now prepare my weekly sermons, many of the books I take from my shelf were put there at Keller’s or Clowney’s recommendation. I encourage you to acquaint yourself with the required and recommended reading for this TGC course. Your ministry will be enriched if you do.
3. Keller and Clowney had experience I needed to learn from.
As with many skills, preaching is often more “caught” than “taught.” My preaching doesn’t follow the same structure as Keller’s or Clowney’s; every preacher is different, and even these brothers preached differently from one another.
Their goal wasn’t to create clones of their styles. Rather, they sought to provide insights that can be adapted and applied to whatever ministry context the Lord calls you to serve in.
Surprising Contexts
For several years, I served in Cuba through a daily radio broadcast and through preaching seminars held across the island. The seminars’ foundation was the beloved “Clowney Triangle,” which he explains in the lectures. (For the Cuban context, we styled this method—moving from type to meaning to Christ to application—as a baseball diamond. We dubbed it “The Baseball of Christ-Centered Preaching.”)
As I now prepare my weekly sermons, many of the books I take from my shelf were put there at Keller’s or Clowney’s recommendation.
After one seminar at a Nazarene seminary outside Havana, a local pastor came up and put his arm around me. I’ll never forget what he said: “I’ve been a pastor for more than 20 years, and no one has ever shown me how to preach Christ from all of Scripture.”
I cherish that moment because it shows that the legacy of this course will carry far beyond a Manhattan church plant or a Reformed seminary campus. “Preaching Christ in a Postmodern World” put Jesus into my sermons—and it put Jesus into this Cuban pastor’s, too. May the republication of these lectures lead to a rediscovery of the redemptive-historical method in even more surprising places.