The recent separation in the church of biblical interpretation and preaching, argues Duke Divinity professor Ellen Davis, has obscured the fact that the two are interconnected. This separation ignores the fact that the purpose of interpretation is to edify the church, and that, historically, preaching has been the platform for the majority of Christian biblical interpretation. In her book, based on the 2003 Beecher Lectures, Davis begins with the assertion that the Old Testament is an urgent and speaking presence for preaching, not a difficult text separated from us by a vast theological, moral, and historical chasm. By exploring preachers such as, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Donne, and Lancelot Andrewes, Davis makes the point that preaching is an art. In these chapters, she shows these artists at work and lets us see how they deal with problems and puzzles that the text presents, and try to learn from them basic principles of biblical interpretation and communication. Her interest throughout is practical: what can ordinary preachers like ourselves learn from these masters of the art? Included are some of her own sermons, not as models but as contemporary examples of how the traditio
