One of the joys of a personal library is the ability to revisit a book whenever you want. I recently picked up Calvin Miller's Preaching: The Art of Narrative Exposition for my first serious visit in several years. The visit took me on a journey down memory lane.
Years ago, I was in a glorified internship with the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (today the North American Mission Board). I was right out of college, and I found myself preaching to over 200 senior adults every Sunday during the winter months. At the time, I had never had a formal class on preaching or on the Bible. I was desperate for help, and I found it in Calvin Miller. The first two preaching books I bought were his Marketplace Preaching and Spirit, Word, and Story. Those were the wrong books for someone just starting out, but I did not know that then. I devoured them, and later I devoured other works of his. His thoughts on preaching came to be a major influence in my life long before I ever heard him preach.
The gaps in my education have been filled through the years, and I have come to understand some issues differently than he did, but I never have lost an appreciation for Calvin Miller. I was writing a dissertation in 2006 when Preaching: The Art of Narrative Exposition was released, but I took the time to devour it in much the same way as its predecessors. My recent interaction with the same book was slower and more thoughtful.
Through the years, I was able to interact with him a few times in small group settings. We had a couple of conversations on the fringes of those meetings. One of those was about two weeks before he died. In person, I found him to be exactly the person he was in his books: a humble man with a sterling character and an intense devotion to Christ.
My recent interaction with Preaching led to pulling other Calvin Miller books from my shelves, to thumbing through some of them, and to re-reading sections of others. There are some concepts that I need to revisit and some ideas that I should reevaluate. Preaching is a subject that no one ever truly masters. It is always a work in progress. I remember some comments from Martin Luther along those lines, and I suspect that Calvin Miller would agree. As far as I can tell, he was not finished growing as a preacher until he had preached his last sermon.
Today, I am thankful for Calvin Miller and the legacy that he has left for us.
