20 Questions to Ask the Text

Praise for 20 Questions to Ask the Text: Year A

Christians expect to hear God speak through scripture by posing respectful, expectant questions to the biblical text. Preachers interrogate scripture in order to speak to God’s people through the sermon. Pastor Kurt Lammi's 20 Questions provide an excellent pattern for enabling scripture to speak to preachers so that we may speak God’s word.Will Willimon, Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry, Duke Divinity School, United Methodist Bishop, retired, author of Preachers Dare: Speaking for God in the Sermon.

Those of us who teach preaching tell students the vital importance of a proper interrogation of the biblical text at hand. What here is genuinely and humanly interesting? Why should 21st century people tune in to some dusty passage from long ago and far away? Kurt Lammi both models such careful interrogation and spurs the preacher on to even further reflection. Asking questions that are both scholarly and at times whimsical as well as questions that are about both the text back then and our world today, Lammi sparks excellent engagement with Scripture and fresh, vibrant sermons for our current time and place.Scott Hoezee, Director, The Center for Excellence in Preaching at Calvin Theological Seminary

Kurt Lammi’s “20 Questions to Ask the Text: Year A” sets out a comprehensive set of exegetical questions that encompasses the world in front of, in, and behind the text. The questions are both pointed and profound, directed at text, preacher, and context. The book will be of great benefit to lectionary preachers seeking to preach compelling sermons that connect the world of the text with experiences of contemporary congregations.Alyce M. McKenzie, Le Van Professor of Preaching and Worship, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University; Director, The Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence at SMU

Preachers are looking for sermon resources that spark the imagination and provoke creativity while being exegetically honest and theologically responsible. Kurt Lammi poses twenty questions the preacher can ask of any text that do just that. The questions work on two levels: (1) inviting identification with the setting of the text, the characters, what happens in the text as well as (2) pondering analogies and other connections for today. Lammi asks these questions with provocative results for Year A. Preachers can use these questions by themselves or in clergy colleague preparation groups or even with groups of laypeople.”Ron Allen, Professor of Preaching, and Gospels and Letters, Christian Theological Seminary (Emeritus), and author of several books on biblical interpretation, and theology in preaching, most recently Second Thoughts about the Second Coming: Understanding the End Times, Our Future, and Christian Hope.

Questions are a preacher’s friend! They move us from a one-way analysis of a biblical passage to drawing us into a dynamic two-way conversation with God’s Word. Pastor Kurt Lammi has done preachers a tremendous service by identifying twenty reliably helpful and creative questions by which to enter into a meaningful dialogue with the living Word. Moreover, he has used those questions to invite preachers into conversation with the principal gospel readings from Lectionary Year A. In this way, Lammi’s book offers preachers a trove of insights as well as a creative process by which to engage Scripture so as to find a fresh and invigorating word for contemporary hearers.Dr. David J. Lose, senior pastor at Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, former president of The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, and author of the “Making Sense” series of books.