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Major possesses a strong belief that God’s Word should be shared with clarity and conviction.

After undergraduate work at Liberty University and the Harvest Institute for Biblical Studies (Tennessee Temple), Major completed the Advanced Master of Divinity in Preaching & Pastoral Leadership from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.  He has also completed ThM and Ph.D.level studies in Homiletics.and is a Certified Biblical Counselor with BCI.  He is currently pursuing the Doctor of Ministry at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

In addition to pastoring churches in Tennessee and Texas, Major has spoke at revivals and conferences across the United States.  He has taught courses in Biblical Studies and Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and the Smith Biblical Institute for Pastoral Training.  He has also served as a Lead Researcher for Docent Research group (a nation wide ministry devoted to assisting high profile pastors and Christian communicators with research for preaching, speaking, & writing).

Major currently serves as Senior Pastor of Fairfield Baptist Church (a vibrant multigenerational church in East Tennessee’s beautiful Lakeway Region).

Major has been married to his high school sweetheart, Kim, for 22 years.  They have three children (Stephen, Nicholas, & Kristen).

The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative, by Steven Mathewson. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002. 279 pages.

While in seminary, I found great value in attending the chapel services offered to the student body. As a major in preaching, I found them not just spiritually enriching but also very helpful as insights into the homiletical and hermeneutical habits of many dynamic evangelical speakers who showed up with their best material and planning. As my studies neared completion, I was struck by a pattern that had alluded me for nearly three years. Most of the sermons preached were from the New Testament (77% in fact). The mathematics of this fact stunned me. Seventy-five percent of the biblical text rested outside the pericope where nearly eighty percent of the sermons were preached. Further, of the sermons we heard most were didactic in form.

Since biblical stories do not lend themselves readily to an Aristotelian deductive presentation, how is a preacher to prepare sermons which do justice to not only the content but also the form of the text. Building on the homiletical teachings of Haddon Robinson, under who the author conducted his doctoral work, The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narratives is Mathewson’s attempt to answer this question by writing the book he needed when his journey began (14).

This volume consists of three parts. Part 1 covers the hermeneutical side of the preaching event. His detailed method walks the reader from text to textual concept. Using golf as a paradigm, the author address four prerequisite perspectives that make the process work. In chapter three the author highlights four key elements found in all stories: plot, characters, setting, and point of view. Preachers must evaluate the text looking through the lens of each element. Chapter four presents the value of characters in the text and how to draw from their descriptions and dialogue. Chapter five stresses the importance of a text’s placement in time and pericope. Next the author addresses the importance of perspective presented by the text’s author. Finally the author concludes the hermeneutical portion of his work with pointers on narrowing the focus of a text to a single textual idea.

Part two of the author’s work aids the preacher in descending from the heights of exegesis back to the contemporary context with palatable truth. Chapter eight presents the three types of thought development which aid in probing the dimensions of understanding (explanation), belief (validation), and behavior (application). Chapters nine and ten provide insights for packaging the big idea of the text and developing from that idea a specific concrete purpose. Following this, the author walks the reader through the various forms available for preaching narratives, and in chapter twelve assisting in converting that form into a sermonic outline. Chapters thirteen through fifteen provide sage wisdom for sermon delivery that faithfully represents the form of the text.

Part three offers select model sermon manuscripts on Old Testament texts to provide concrete examples of what the author is suggesting with his approach. Contributors include Paul Borden, Alice Matthews, Don Sunukjian, Haddon Robinson, and finally Mathewson himself presents a sermon from Genesis 22:1–19. Each manuscript is accompanied with a sermon analysis by the author and an interview with the preacher.

The author is to be commended for directly addressing the practice of segmenting narratives in to propositional points which results in a great deal of principlization. The author confronts the all to frequent practice of verse-by-verse preaching that treats the sermon like a running commentary “without unity, outline, and pervasive drive” (22). The solution is for the preacher to exposit narratives concentrating on moving scene-by-scene or paragraph by paragraph rather than verse by verse.

The greatest value of this work is the author’s instructions for discerning the main point of a text and converting that point to a purpose sentence. At the end of the process, if Mathewson’s guide has been followed, the preacher will have written four concise summary statements. First the exegetical idea will intimate the meaning of the text. Next the theological idea will describe the broad theological point being unfolded. Third, this theological point is contemporized into a carefully crafted slogan he calls the preaching point. It is at this point where some homiletical guides stop, but Mathewson’s work sets itself apart by pushing the reader to carry the preaching point to sermonic application. Once they have developed the main idea for the sermon, the preacher should formulate that idea into a single statement of purpose (109). This purpose sentence will present some form of the author’s original purpose in terms specific enough to be measurable (111).

Unfortunately, this strength becomes its greatest weakness. In an attempt to create precision with a statement of application, the reader will want to be careful that he does not inadvertently create disjunction between the actual text meaning and the sermonic point. For example: formulating a father’s day sermon from Genesis 22, the author presents the theological idea from the account of Abraham’s call to sacrifice Isaac as “God tests his people by forcing them to choose between worshiping him or the children he has given them” (128). As a result, the author proposes an application point as “The greatest thing you can do for you child is not worship them.” Here the author would have done well to follow the principles laid out in chapter five related to inter-textual setting. If the context were allowed to speak to the application point, the obvious application would have something to do with trusting God with blind faith (a recurring theme in Abraham’s life which he had subsequently failed at every turn).

In the author’s own words, he has written “as an evangelical pastor to other evangelical pastors who have the amazing privilege and awesome responsibility of proclaiming the Word of God to their congregations week after week” (15). But this reader’s greatest concern is that the average pastor will often lack the time and/or discipline to fully adopt Mathewson’s methodology. Specifically, the author’s assertion that a sermon manuscript be produced and rehearsed prior to delivery is a suggestion outside the reach of many busy and bi-vocational pastors. Perhaps a discussion on “living in the text” through deep meditation and visualization throughout the week as one prepares would be more appropriate.

This work’s numerous charts which synthesize the author’s approach and his sensible flow allows the reader to easily track with the author through the process without losing place. While the author’s depth in his topic will engage the advance homiletical student, the readability of this book makes it a legitimate option for non-academic studies as well. In keeping with the preaching philosophy he espouses, the author couples abstract concepts with illustrations and reinforces preaching principles with numerous examples of their proper employment.

While Mathewson’s work is conditioned for Old Testament narratives, he acknowledges that much of the material will apply to narratives in the New Testament as well (21). The author has contributed a detailed and thoughtful treatise on this very precise topic. This reader highly recommends the work to biblical preachers and teachers who seek to obtain a better grasp of the hermeneutical and homiletical assumptions behind the interpretation and preaching of narrative texts, particularly of the Old Testament. By presenting a specific method of moving from text to sermon, the author has created a volume which will doubtless improve the narrative preaching of those who employ his insights.