Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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lecturers state the preacher's most critical task: to
find, within their source(s), the truth God intends them
to preach.
In contrast to this, the 'Stewart'+'Tillich
lecturers' appear to give priority, in the selection of
preaching material, to the satisfaction of congregational
needs (8:Purpose, 9:Congregation, 12:Relevance).
Thus, the prime contrast between the
'Lloyd—Jones'+'Rahner' and 'Stewart'+'Tillich' lecturer
groups appears to be in their responses to these broad
questions: In selection of preaching content from his
source (whether that be the Bible or other sources) is
the preacher dependent primarily u pon direction from God
(tradition')? Or, does he choose his content because
he thinks that what he preaches answers meanin g fully the
questions (or meets the needs) of his congregation?
A fine line distinguishes this question from the one
considered in the previous section. There, the question
was: "From what 'store' does the preacher select his
sermon material?" Here the question is: "Once inside
the 'store', how does the preacher select 'food items' to
take with him and serve to his people?"
As before, two of the theological groups put forth
relatively simple answers, while the others offer a more
complex answer. (Again, the word "emphasis" might be
more accurate. As evidenced by the infrequency of zero
percent or one hundred percent fi gures on either side of
table 41, both groups of lecturers share many features,