I assembled this book to remind students that we don’t invent preaching on Saturday night.  The proclamation of the gospel invented the church, and many practitioners have written about it—from Augustine to Barbara Brown Taylor, from John Chrysostom (the “Golden Mouthed”) to Oscar Romero.  They are all in this collection, along with 53 others, in the form of concentrated essays on the nature, purpose, and craft of preaching.  I organized the book in sections that represent the wisdom and tasks of preaching:  What is Preaching?  The Preacher.  Proclaiming the Word.  Biblical Interpretation.  Rhetoric.  The Hearer. Preaching and the Church.