Books You Need to Add to Your Library: Valerius Herberger, "The Great Works of God" and they're on SALE
Poets read good poetry. This gives them inspiration for their own, but also teaches them something about the craft. Preachers read good sermons. This gives them inspiration in how to handle homiletically certain texts that have become familiar, but like the poet, instructs them in the homiletic craft.
These two volumes by Valerius Herberger,
The Great Works of God or Jesus, the Heart and Center of Scripture, do just that. Masterfully translated by Matthew Carver, these volumes use the best of English prose to translate faithfully the original without being wooden, archaic, or overly simple. While not full sermons, they are meditations on the text of Genesis that preach Christ, easily serving to bolster your own preaching on both the Old and the New Testaments. The text is laden with Scripture and scriptural allusions. And it is well referenced and footnoted, though the volumes do not have an index of Scripture, which is really their only drawback. But this is a minor flaw, overshadowed by their other benefits.
From the Translator's Preface,
"Throughout eastern Germany, Silesia, and the German-speaking areas of Poland, Herberger was widely know for his homiletic skill, and that mainly thourgh his written sermons which were printed often during his lifetime. . . . The Great Works of God, which is an ambitious edifice of devout meditations on the Scriptures as 'those that bear witness about Christ.' These he regarded rather like the linen cloths that wrapped the infant jesus in the manger, and traced his Lord in every little wrinkle."These two volumes are only a quarter of the work the Herberger did on the Old Testament. I pray that more translations of Herberger's The Great Works of God are forthcoming.
So get these books for your library. They're great for Bible Class preparation, sermon preparation, devotional use, or straight reading. And now until October 1st, the two volume set is 40% off. ORDER YOUR COPIES TODAY.