Evangelical Lutheran Homiletics

This translation of Reinhold Pieper’s Evangelical Lutheran Homiletics offers a fuller understanding of the history of preaching within the LCMS as typified by C. F. W. Walther. Pieper, a student of Walther who would serve as homiletics professor and president of Concordia Preachers’ Seminary from 1891–1914, dissects the task of preaching from start to finish as inspired by the classic German homiletics textbook by J. J. Rambach.

Within this work, Pieper outlines the following aspects of the preaching process, all while affirming the necessity of a ”strictly textual” sermon. 

• Meditation on the text 
• Outlining and writing the sermon 
• Memorizing the sermon
• Accounting for the preacher’s personal style
• And much more. 

This, the first official homiletics textbook for use in the LCMS, is an invaluable resource for any pastor or seminary student who wishes to gain a better understanding of thought and practice of Lutheran homiletics. 

Praise for Evangelical Lutheran Homiletics:

“Evangelical Lutheran Homiletics gives us a glimpse into a little explored part of our own history. . . . [May it] help to recover some of the vigor and biblical foundation that has been the hallmark of Lutheran preaching since the time of the Reformation.”
—Rev. Dr. Todd A. Peperkorn, assistant professor of pastoral ministry and missions, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana

“The church finally has access to arguably the most important and comprehensive Lutheran homiletics textbook to be written. Pieper’s text faithfully reproduces the work of Rambach and Walther while vitally introducing his own original thinking on arrangement.”
—Rev. Dr. Joshua H. Cook, Our Savior Lutheran Church and School, Louisville, Kentucky

“Johnson’s work contributes to the fuller understanding of the history of preaching within the LCMS and will be helpful for the deeper study of Lutheran homiletics in the American context.”
—Rev. Dr. David Schmitt, Gregg H. Benidt Memorial professor of homiletics and literature; professor of practical theology, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri

“With a thoroughness and precision more typical of his day than ours, Pieper shows how crucial are the fundamentals for communicating Law and Gospel that he and his successors have, for the most part, long taught.”
—Rev. Dr. Carl C. Fickenscher II, professor of pastoral ministry and missions, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana