Stepping Inside the Story

"Tom Rogers' sermons face the hardest of real life's hard questions and find some surprising answers. The connections he makes between the world of scripture and ours are colorful and compelling. An expert storyteller, he weaves intriguing tales that subtly blend the threads of the biblical world with the threads of our daily lives."

Dr. Jana Childers

Professor of Homiletics

San Francisco Theological Seminary

"As one who does not usually get much out of sermon books, I can happily say that these sermons were very helpful Professor Rogers has not only given some great stories and content for us to chew on, but even more importantly, has modeled a way of preaching in story that can readily be utilized in the pulpit."

Pastor William Crabtree Senior Pastor

Emmanuel Lutheran Church

Lodi, California

Thomas G. Rogers writes that the drama of God's word is not a story to be observed by spectators at a distance. God invites each of us to be full participants in this drama. It is his hope the stories in these sermons may be preached and heard not simply as stories about someone else, but that God may grant Christians the grace to experience them as our own, once we step inside them.

The ten sermons in this book are based on First Lesson texts. Many of the sermons are from Jeremiah. The sermons follow the Revised Common Lectionary.

Thomas C. Rogers is associate professor of homiletics at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, California. Prior to teaching preaching, he was a parish pastor in California. He graduated from Wartburg Seminary.