Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Preaching Ecclesiastes (plans)

I'm wondering about perhaps preaching Ecclesiastes on Sunday mornings when I finish my current series on the 10 Commandments. We learnt about honouring our parents on Father's day, by the providence of God or the contrivance of the Vicar, or both, but certainly not the careful planning of the curate.

Any thoughts? Tips? Resources? Esp. free online stuff?

I'm wondering how many sermons to go for. 3 might be good for the main thrust. But I'd like to get into some of the detail so I reckon maybe 6? Would 12 be too much for people / a bit samey / not a healthy balanced diet? (I'm preaching a long sermon series on John in the evenings. The Vicar is doing Philippians in the mornings and Amos in the evenings at the mo.)

At the moment I have Derek Kidner (IVP BST), Jeffrey Meyers and Barry Webb, Five Festal Garments on my shelf. I'm thinking of getting a couple more. I need one big technical commentary for help on details. I'm wondering about maybe Tremper Longman, Charles Bridges, Michael Eaton, James Limburg and or Craig Bartholomew. Any others?

The person to ask about all this is Dr Thomas Renz, of course, but it seems a bit cheeky to email him about it. He can't be expecting to bother with every former student who wants to know anything about the OT after all. He might have better things to do. Like write books about Old Testament Wisdom literature, for example....

9 comments:

James Oakley said...

Tremper III - very helpful. From memory, he's quite good on rhetorical impact as well as on meaning.

Also, taking the same line through the book, Andrew Jones's 4 talks are available here. (They're free if you don't buy the MP3 set, but click through to the individual talk and then download the MP3 one talk at a time).

For a different approach to the book, listen to Jonathan Gould's sermons. Much as with AJ, this is Eccl turned into good, well-applied preaching, just taking different interpretive decisions.

Marc Lloyd said...

Thanks very much, James.

Have you preached on it yourself?

James Oakley said...

Not yet. I'd love to, though, as I think it's a very poignant book for people today, both within and without the church.

I'm sure you'll keep blogging your experiences and thoughts as you prep it.

Ros said...

Seow is worth the money.

Ros said...

Oh, and I have the Bartholomew commentary available for review if you're interested.

Marc Lloyd said...

Thanks, Ros.

Let me just confirm with the boss that I'm going to preach on it and if so, yes, please.

Neil Jeffers said...

We did a whole series in Eccl last Autumn

Neil Jeffers said...

Wilson also has a little one called "Joy at the End of the Tether", which takes quiye a different approach from Meyers. I enjoyed Meyers and found it very useful, though I've heard some people say it's not so good.

We did 6 sermons from 1:1-7:12, then jumped to ch. 12! The 6 didn't feel samey or repetitive at all, it's really a varied book.

Marc Lloyd said...

We also should have mentioned Peter Leithart, Solomon Among The Postmoderns