By the Word Worked

Fleming Rutledge on Biblical Preaching

Fleming Rutledge
By the Word Worked: Encountering The Power of Biblical Preaching
Edited by Kimlyn J. Bender.
Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2024.

I’ve read a few books on preaching this year, including by Mark Granville, Sam Chan, and now by Fleming Rutledge.

If you don’t know, Fleming Rutledge is a priest in the Episcopal Church in the USA, who is a very dynamic preacher and theological speaker. She represents perhaps the last of a generation of mainline Christians who are still interested in the catholic, apostolic, and evangelical traditions. Her book Crucifixion is brilliant, highly recommended! This book includes the three lectures she delivered at Truett Seminary about preaching.

The blurb reads:

In By the Word Worked, Fleming Rutledge exhibits a lifetime of wisdom gained from reflection upon the power of the Word of God to address, convict, comfort, and exhort the church. Rutledge contends that the Word of God is the very lifeblood of the church, with preaching, based upon Holy Scripture, calling the church into existence, determining its identity, providing its calling and commission, and enabling its faith in the ultimate triumph of its Lord. Despite Satan's interference, the revelation of God in his Word continues to show itself triumphant, relevant, transformative, and powerful in the modern era. Rutledge asserts that the continued proclamation of the Word of God is for the church life itself, never to be neglected even in the face of intense and targeted adversity.

In this initial volume of the Parchman Lectures series, Rutledge provides an incisive presentation of the power of the Word of God in its verbal form of Christian proclamation. Her call is for the reader to rediscover preaching that is not centered on human potential and the authenticity of the self, but on a divine Word of God that comes to us from outside ourselves, the Word of the Gospel, a Gospel that is both powerful in its effect and urgent in its appeal. These lectures challenge prevailing practices and paradigms in preaching but also present a faithful vision of Christian proclamation that is effective "by means of the Word worked."

This is not a homiletics textbook. Instead, it is a reminder that preaching is preaching God’s Word to the world and not our word about God’s Word! It is a book to excite preachers about faith and focus, it is about passion for proclamation.

Rutledge derides the sort of preaching that is moralistic, life-style advice, or is even concerned with the postmodern fixation on language and power.

She rejects the dichotomy between preaching Jesus as an example and Jesus as Redeemer and Lord.

It’s a short book to challenge and inspire preachers to take people to the mountain to see the Lord in all his glory!