At the Intersection of Hermeneutics and Homiletics: Transgressive Readings for Transformational Preaching

by Yung Suk Kim (Editor)

Overview

While hermeneutics involves comprehensive study of the biblical text, whether through historical or literary or reader-focused approaches, homiletics is concerned with a selected theme/message and on the composition and delivery of sermonic discourse aimed at a particular audience. But the border between hermeneutics and homiletics is blurry because both disciplines require readers to engage the biblical text from their own contexts. This collection deals with the intersection of hermeneutics and homiletics by exploring two revelatory texts—one from the Hebrew Bible and the other from the New Testament: the book of Ruth and Matthew 15:21-28 (a Canaanite woman's encounter with Jesus). Both reflect agonizing issues that readers must tackle: (im)migration, family/community, identity/agency, race/ethnicity, gender, class, culture, economy, and religion. A diverse group of scholars brings their transgressive perspectives to the above texts. Unfolding new areas of interest, inquiry, and insight, they will transgress authoritative readings of biblical texts, fashion hermeneutic horizons in dialogue with the text, and forge homiletic trajectories toward contemporary audiences. Without limiting interpretation to a box, this volume looks to register bold voices to perennial issues in our day. Homiletic transformation occurs through the relentless, resistant reading of the text and through reimagining our world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781666774917
Publisher:	Pickwick Publications
Publication date:	04/18/2025
Pages:	298
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

Yung Suk Kim is professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Virginia Union University. He has written nearly twenty books, including How to Read the Gospels (2024), How to Read Paul (2021), Toward Decentering the New Testament (Cascade, 2018, coauthored with Mitzi J. Smith), and Christ’s Body in Corinth (2008). He has also edited several volumes, including Paul's Gospel, Empire, Race, and Ethnicity (Pickwick, 2023) and 1–2 Corinthians (2013).

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This carefully crafted volume is much more than an ‘intersection.’ It is an enlivening, collaborative dialogue between exegetes and preachers exploring together certain biblical texts from a variety of interpretive lenses. Transgressive texts in their own right, the book of Ruth and the story of Jesus’s encounter with the Canaanite woman provide a perfect pairing for readings that challenge traditional assumptions while offering fresh insights for the work of transformation. This volume heralds the future of biblical interpretation for communities of faith.”

—William P. Brown, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary, Atlanta, Georgia



“Yung Suk Kim has pursued the question of human transformation in his scholarship. In this edited volume, he invites thirteen distinguished scholars to collectively create a space where transformation can occur through preaching—enacted and emboldened by transgressive readings of the Scriptures. Readers will be surprised by the surplus of meanings that flow through the art of embodied interpretation and proclamation, which profoundly engage with current sociopolitical and communal contexts. I highly recommend this book.”

—Jin Young Choi, Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Rochester, New York

Editorial Reviews

This carefully crafted volume is much more than an ‘intersection.’ It is an enlivening, collaborative dialogue between exegetes and preachers exploring together certain biblical texts from a variety of interpretive lenses. Transgressive texts in their own right, the book of Ruth and the story of Jesus’s encounter with the Canaanite woman provide a perfect pairing for readings that challenge traditional assumptions while offering fresh insights for the work of transformation. This volume heralds the future of biblical interpretation for communities of faith.”

—William P. Brown, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary, Atlanta, Georgia



“Yung Suk Kim has pursued the question of human transformation in his scholarship. In this edited volume, he invites thirteen distinguished scholars to collectively create a space where transformation can occur through preaching—enacted and emboldened by transgressive readings of the Scriptures. Readers will be surprised by the surplus of meanings that flow through the art of embodied interpretation and proclamation, which profoundly engage with current sociopolitical and communal contexts. I highly recommend this book.”

—Jin Young Choi, Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Rochester, New York

From the Publisher