This book is for preachers who want to communicate the Gospel. Actually, anyone who speaks or teaches would benefit from this book. In a brief Foreword, Haddon Robinson of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary summarizes the book’s thrust. “Let’s face it. We don’t teach the Bible. We teach people the Bible….we must know our audience.” Robinson is right. We can have the best content in our message, but if we do not know the audience and know how to put the content in their framework, they will not get the message.

As I read this book, I thought about much of the preaching and teaching today and the status of the church. The church may be doing a better job of communicating with those inside than outside. However, studies seem to indicate that people within the church are influenced by the same things as those outside; perhaps many are not getting the message after all.

Too many people say that if the content is right the Holy Spirit will see to it that the people get the message. It is true that our message must be right and that the Holy Spirit must make life application. But He uses us in that process, and the more aware we are of people’s circumstances, the easier it will be for us to make that message real to them.

As the title suggests, we live in a postmodern world. What does that mean? It means that while the message is always the same, because it is God’s story, the issues and questions of the people in the pews have drastically changed. We must know how to frame our message in a way that touches those issues and questions or we will not communicate.

Johnston has done an excellent job of summarizing postmodernism and describing how it impacts and infiltrates our everyday lives. He quotes philosopher-theologian Diogenes Allen, “Our intellectual culture is at a major turning point. A massive intellectual revolution is taking place that is perhaps as great as that which marked off the modern world from the Middle Ages. The foundations of the modern world are collapsing, and we are entering a post-modern world.”

Allen is right about the intellectual revolution, but as Johnston underscores throughout this book, it is no longer a revolution for intellectuals. Francis Schaeffer used to emphasize that the prevailing philosophy of the day will work its way into every nook and cranny of our lives. Postmodernism is in every home, church, and school.

Johnston reminds us that preachers and teachers have two burdens: to reach the listener, and to uphold the Word of God with faithful integrity. “To lose either of these two burdens results in not being heard or in having nothing to say….much of Western civilization wallows in fragments of Christian clichés and paraphernalia. People do not know what Christianity is all about, even though they may think they do.”

Johnston writes that at the very heart of preaching burns a desire to touch listeners at the very core of their being which requires that we preach the message of Christ with freshness, relevance, and meaning to a generation of listeners who don’t know what they’re missing. This book helps the reader fulfill that desire through practical thoughts and ideas.

This is an important book because too many people—even regular church attendees—fail to see how what they hear from the pulpit touches their lives every day. The Gospel message is not at fault; the fault lies with the way it is presented.

This will undoubtedly be the book to read for this year on this topic. It is one of the six books on preaching that every preacher should read. The others are: Bryan Chapell’s Christ-Centered Preaching, John R. W. Stott’s Between Two Worlds: The Art of Preaching in the 20^th Century, Craig Lascalzo’s Apologetic Preaching, Mark Galli and Craig Brain Larson’s Preaching that Connects; and Haddon Robinson’s Biblical Preaching.

- Charles Dunahoo, CEP Coordinator