Page 156 - A Dissertation for Doctor of Philosophy

that “[p]reachers are not interested in what the text says first, but interested in meeting human

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need (or the preacher’s need in the situation of the church or society).”

As the risk of stating the obvious, the Bible is the paradigmatic book whose primary

purpose is to express God’s redeeming acts through Christ. Daily human circumstance is of

secondary or tertiary concern. The biblical mandate is for its readers to find the way of serving

God instead finding out how God can serve them. Therefore, the question a preacher needs to

ask is not how to interpret the Bible to make sense to in light of his circumstances, but rather

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how to “re-interpret” himself and the congregation “to suit the demands of the Bible?” By

doing this, preaching becomes Theo-centric, utilizing a Christo-centric exposition that transforms

both preacher and listener.

Walter Kaiser also argues that a Christo-centric perspective needs to be applied in

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the process of biblical hermeneutics. The New Hermeneutic, which places a heavy emphasis
on existential “self-understanding,” has lost its biblical meaning, i.e., what the transcendent God

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spoke to his people in objective truth. Larsen insists that the task of preaching is to ascertain
the meaning of the biblical text. Applying Christocentric perspective as a grid in the

hermeneutic process, however, ensures that one does not become lost in excavating the text for

meaning.

23
Ki Kim, “Analysis of Korean Preaching,” 111.
24
William Willimon, Shaped by the Bible (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1990), 63.

25
Walter C. Kaiser Jr., “Hermeneutics and the Theological Task,” Trinity Journal 12
(1991): 11.

26 David L. Larsen, The Anatomy of Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House,
1989), 159.