Learning to Preach from the Apostles (Wagner)

Here’s a book I wish I had read some years ago when I was studying for Christian ministry: Tounges Aflame: Learning to Preach from the Apostles by Roger Wagner . This book is basically a deep dive into the sermons found in the NT, specifically the ones in Acts. Wagner argues that pastors today can (and should!) take the NT sermons as their primary source for homiletics, for learning how to preach. Of course, there’s more to the book than that, but that is the main argument.

It’s a beneficial book. If you’re a pastor, I’d say get it soon! If you’re not a pastor, it’s a good one to give your pastor as you support and pray for his preaching ministry. Anyway, back to Tongues Aflame. Here’s a good quote that gives an idea of its contents:

Since a wedge cannot be driven between the ministry and message of Jesus, on the one hand, and the ministry and message of the apostles, on the other, Luke can describe the ministry of the latter as a continuation of that which Jesus ‘began to do and to teach’ when he was on the earth (Acts 1:1). In a sense, then, the sermons in Acts are the messages of the risen Lord: both because he personally taught the apostolic preachers what and how to preach, and because, by his Spirit, he was preaching through them.

The apostolic preaching we find in Acts, therefore, is not only theologically and ethically foundational to the new covenant—it is homiletically foundational as well. These sermons have a unique character. It is distinctive from other collections of great Christian sermons, such as those of Chrysostom, Whitefield, or Spurgeon. These apostolic sermons are ‘God-breathed’ and thus can serve as valuable models of the art of preaching in both their content (which is often acknowledged) and in their form and presentation (which is often overlooked). We can certainly learn much from the example of Whitefield and Spurgeon, but the preacher of today will do well to look carefully at the patterns here in these apostolic sermons for insights that will help make his preaching more effective.

Roger Wagner, Tongues Aflame: Learning to Preach from the Apostles (Fearn, UK: Christian Focus Publications, 2004), 25–26.

Shane Lems
Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC)
Hammond, WI, 54015