설교학 논문 Prophetic Preaching as Faithful Witness to the God's Word and the Community : Biblical Perspectives on the Social Role of the Prophet

Key Words: Prophetic Preaching, Social Role of the Prophet, Motif for Preaching

Prophetic Preaching as Faithful Witness to the God's Word and the Community : Biblical Perspectives on the Social Role of the Prophet

/ Huh, Do-Hwa (Professor of Liturgics & Homiletics, Keimyung University)

* 본 논문은「한국 기독교신학논총」 39권(2005):269-294에 실려 있음.

This work grows out of my own desire to gain clarity about the identity and the relevancy of prophetic preaching for our time. There are many ways to approach the task of preaching--that is, our theological recovery of the public voice and the renewal of fidelity to the gospel in preaching, and there are many models which works quite effectively. However, it is the thesis of this work that the renewal of the pulpit and the recovery of its relevance to modern life depend upon its learning to understand itself once again through prophetic preaching. This means that the pulpit must take its stand in a particular tradition of prophetic preaching whose homiletical roots reach back into the history of the prophets' preaching in Israel.

In recent years, as stress on social and cosmic world transformation needs to come to stronger expression in today's preaching, the need to reexamine prophetic preaching in the 1960s has increased in the fields of American homiletics. For example, in his lecture titled "The Future of Preaching" in 1993 at the College of Preachers in Washington, D. C., David Buttrick lamented the demise of "so-called prophetic preaching" of the Sixties. He urged preachers today to move to a reshaping of and recommitment to prophetic preaching criticizing present social structures.¹⁾ However, there have been few studies to illustrate the link between prophetic preaching in the 1960s and prophetic sermons at the parish level.²⁾ For ultimately most effective prophetic sermons, as Thomas Long insists, are not heard or showcased "round the corner and down the street by pastors who articulate the church's mission to these people in this place," but constantly uttered in local congregations.³⁾ In responding to this homiletical concern, this work attempts to describe and define prophetic preaching from the biblical perspectives. To the end, basic questions of the prophets' preaching in Israel will be discussed in relation to the prophet's role or performance in society. And then, this work will suggest some standards for the evaluation of prophetic sermons.

The present work is designed to provide some perspectives to anyone who wishes to respond to the following question: What is prophetic preaching? There are general questions and confusion about the true meaning, purpose, nature, form, and way of prophetic preaching. To meet the questions and to dispel some of that confusion lies in satisfying the following preliminary questions related to prophetic preaching: 1) Why is prophetic preaching appropriate for today?; 2) Who were the biblical prophets? 3) How did the prophets preach? 4) What did the prophets preach? ... (중략)