T. David Gordon

This is a reactionary book, which makes for great reading. Gordon is passionate, and has some very important things to say. He critiques four types of bad preaching, and argues that they are in large measure the result of a pastoral mind shaped by image and noise rather than text. The answer for Gordon is to encourage pre-seminarians to major in English lit, to broaden their minds and give them the ability to interact meaningfully with a text, to communicate in a clear, ordered fashion, and show more to do so before the study of Greek and Hebrew, and before souls are dependent on the preacher for their food.

Wise counsel, and I for one could not have been better prepared for seminary than the liberal arts degree I have, but I do wonder if Gordon overplays his hand a bit. Of course, even if he does, he is pushing the pendulum back in the right direction, and the chances of this book causing a massive overcorrection are slim.

All in all, a helpful and stimulating book. show less

Really good points especially first half. Somewhat repetitive, overly critical of guitars and contemporary music but still points out legitimate flaws and reasons for being so critical. Very well written and helpful in forming a God-glorifying focus for why we sing and why what and howwe sing matters.

This book should be mandatory reading for pastors, teachers, and seminarians. It should be highly recommended for everyone else. Gordon does an excellent job of showing us how our cultural upbringing works against our ability to construct and deliver worthwhile sermons (or speeches, or lectures, etc.). It's well-written and just the right length: all necessary points are made, none are belabored.

This book was okay, albeit not what I had been hoping for. It has some good bits about the high Reformational view of preaching, but other than that, Gordon mainly focuses on the sensibilities he believes to be lacking in most preachers in the post-television era--the ability to read texts closely and to write clearly--and which ministers must go out of their way to cultivate if they wish to preach well. The book is heavily anecdotal in its assessment of contemporary preaching, and on the show more whole I just wasn't too impressed, even though I wouldn't disagree sharply with much of anything he proposed. show less