Doctrine That Dances

I love to read, but I do not love every book I read. I love Doctrine That Dances. I have underlined over and over again within the pages of this book (I switched to underlining when my wife got tired of hearing the hightliter squeak in bed). As an African American man, Robert Smith preaches in ways that I cannot, but there is much to learn from Smith, not only because of his African American heritage, but because of his call for preachers to return to doctrinal preaching.

Doctrine does not have to be boring, and Smith makes that apparent as he compares the sermon to jazz music…living, moving, and active. Smith’s book is ripe with illustrations and practical wisdom. It is as well written as it is researched, and he closes to book with two sermons to show that he can not only write about preaching, he can also construct sermons that make doctrine dance.

I was most impacted by Smith’s emphasis on creating word pictures in our preaching. The sermon needs to come alive, people must experience it as well as hear it, and it is through the preacher’s ability to relate doctrine through experience, illustration, and carefully crafted story-telling, that the hearer is able to experience and be impacted by the sermon.

This is a valuable new book that any serious expositor of the word can learn from. I am thankful to my friend David Easler for this gift, it has impacted my preaching in a great way.