This manuscript was prepared and presented as the 1989 Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School. The Beecher Lectures are by definition addressed to the subject of preaching. In these lectures, the author has sought to address the crisis of interpretation the preacher faces in our culture, which has either dismissed or controlled the text. Preaching as an act of interpretation is in our time, demanding, daring, and dangerous.
