Walter Brueggemann

William Carl Placher

Brian K. Blount

In these reflections, the authors write that the Bible, as the live word of the living God, will not submit to the accounts we prefer to give of it. They note that taking the Bible most seriously means struggling to understand its meaning as well as affirming its truth.

Struggling with Scripture

The whispers of faith, hope, and ethical direction that flow out of the New Testament materials have always taken their fleshly shape in light of the context in which African Americans have found themselves. Blount analyzes the differences between the first century context, which prompted the biblical writers to reflect ethically upon their faith statements as they did, and the present reality of African Americans in the United States, which motivates their Christian leaders to reflect upon these same statements in such radically different ways.

New Testament Ethics in an African American Context

Then the Whisper Put on Flesh

Our world and our churches are neither sinful nor lost, they are dead. This dead world is the one that God engages and into which Jesus invaded with a radically different vision of life. In this groundbreaking work, based on his 2011 Yale Beecher lectures, Brian K. Blount helps preachers effectively proclaim resurrection in a world consumed by death. Recognizing that both popular culture and popular Christianity are mesmerized by death and dying, Blount offers an alternative apocalyptic vision for our time—one that starts with a clear vision of life that obliterates death and reveals life’s essence. Blount explores the portrait and meaning of resurrection through the New Testament (the Book of Revelation, the letters of Paul, and the Gospel of Mark) and explores how to biblically and theologically reconfigure apocalyptic preaching for today. With three illustrative sermons, this book is an ideal resource to help preachers proclaim the power of resurrection.

Preaching Resurrection

Invasion of the Dead

Gary W. Charles

Brian Blount and Gary Charles team up to introduce us anew to Mark's Gospel. Reinterpreting Mark through sermons preached out of very different socio-cultural contexts, Blount draws parallels between Mark's message and the African American church's heritage of slavery and oppression while Charles wrestles with making the Gospel relevant to well-educated white suburbanites. Each chapter begins with an exegetical study and sermon by one author. Then, the other preacher responds from his own context, offering a different view of the text.

Preaching Mark in Two Voices

In this accessible and provocative study, Brian Blount reads the book of Revelation through the lens of African American culture, drawing correspondences between Revelation's context and the long-standing suffering of African Americans. Applying the African American social, political, and religious experience as an interpretive cipher for the book's complicated imagery, he contends that Revelation is essentially a story of suffering and struggle amid oppressive assimilation. He examines the language of "martyr" and the image of the lamb, and shows that the thread of resistance to oppressive power that runs through John's hymns resonates with a parallel theme in the music of African America.

Reading Revelation Through African American Culture

Can I Get a Witness?

Go Preach! connects the apocalyptic message of Mark's Gospel to principles and programs of socio-cultural transformation in the life of the Black church today. Brian Blount begins his study of Mark by examining the social significance of Jesus' proclamation of the coming Kingdom of God. This was a future event that was at the same time breaking through in the present. Through Jesus, "God's future power invaded and transformed the human present." This experience of the Kingdom empowered the disciples to "Go preach" the Kingdom message in word and deed, to finish the story that Marks narration about Jesus began.Blount goes on to show that the Black church occupies a situation analogous to that in which the Gospel arose, and explores the implications of apocalyptic theology for the pastoral mission of the Black church today. Go Preach! makes an important contribution to understanding the meaning of the Kingdom of God. At the same time it also demonstrates the value of a sociolinguistic approach to scripture, both in interpreting the text in its original context and in unpacking its meaning for today. It is required reading for biblical scholars, students, and clergy.

Mark's Kingdom Message and the Black Church Today

Go Preach!

Blount's commentary provides a sure and confident guide through this sometimes difficult and troubling book, seeing Revelation as both a prophetic intervention and an awe-inspiring swirl of disturbing violence and breathtaking hope. All those who love the book of Revelation will appreciate Blount's theological sensitivity, and those who are mystified by Revelation will find clarifying wisdom.

A Commentary

Revelation

This new title in the 'New Testament Library Series' provides a concise and confident guide through the complex passages of the book of 'Revelation'.

Brian K. Blount

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