Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

CHAPTER SIX
FURTHER CONSIDERATION AND CONCLUSION
I. Introduction
Chapter five offers an overview of responses to a
survey of lecturers who teach preaching in Great Britain.
After stating the overall picture, it compares responses of
contrasting subgroups of lecturers. The lecturer
subgroupings were based on several different criteria.
The theological division of lecturers supports this
study's basic premise that a lecturer's theology determines
his teaching of preaching (particularly in its content).
Tables 40-42 display the statistical results of that
subgrouping. Those figures raise three questions critical
to the practice of Christian preaching and document the
lecturers' contrasting answers.
The questions? (1) "From what source(s) should
preachers draw sermon content?" (2) "By what criteria
should preachers select material from that source (those
sources)?" (3) "What principles should preachers follow in
preparing for actual preaching moments?"
This chapter considers these three questions in greater
depth. These questions bear similarity to others considered
in chapters two and three. There, each of seven important
twentieth century preacher—theologians is given opportunity,
as it were, to explain his thought in relation to six
foundational aspects of preaching: content, source, setting
(recipients), purpose, communication factors, and the