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An important intention of preaching ministry is to connect the written Word of God in the Bible with the present congregational context so that the present congregation may listen to the proclaimed Word of God and to follow the will of God as revealed in the Bible. In order to accomplish this divine purpose in preaching, preacher need to expect the applicable dimension of the Biblical text at the first interpretative step. In order to apply the Word of God to the audiences􀁳lives, preacher need to interpret exactly both the Biblical text and audiences􀁳multidimensional contexts. Audiences who listen to preaching do not exist alone, but are situated at the center of the spiritual warfare which happens in the family, church congregation, and the local society. In this spiritual warfare, preaching audiences need to seek their perspective change, character change, and action change. Therefore preachers who seek the relevant preaching ministry should consider the multidimensional congregational lives and the variety of change by proclaimed message, and need to deliver the relevant preaching message with the relevant application.

The primary purpose of this article is to suggest an alternative for new revival in the Korean church, which has lately been stagnant due to the prosperity gospel. Churches in today’s world are really in a crisis. It would be fair to say that there are some painful problems in the pulpits of today’s churches. One of the most significant influences that has caused negative effects is the prosperity gospel, or the prosperity theology. What is the prosperity gospel? The prosperity gospel was heavily influenced by secular pragmatism. Prosperity gospel is the message that God wants you to be prosperous and, indeed, that God gives prosperity to favored people. Proponents of the prosperity gospel assert that we can become materially wealthy and healthy by praying the right kind of prayers and giving the right kinds of gifts. This gospel has been ascribed many names, such as the “name it and claim it” gospel, the “health and wealth” gospel, the “word of faith” movement, and the “gospel of success.” People who preach the prosperity gospel espouse some sort of “seed money” or “faith offering.” They tell us that if we do the right kinds of things, God will bless us. It is a very sophisticated technique that implies that we can manipulate God, but the prosperity gospel is constructed upon a faulty and incorrect theology. Many of its doctrines, including the teachings concerning wealth, are erroneous and wrong, which is why the prosperity gospel has had a harmful impact on contemporary preaching. We, therefore, conclude that using the “indicative+imperative” sermon pattern is the best option for true revival in the Korean church. This “indicative+imperative” pattern covers all of the three types of problematic sermons that are mentioned above. This sermon frame is an effective tool for balanced biblical preaching.

Application in expository preaching is the hermeneutical mechanism to bridge the gap between the ancient world and the contemporary world. In response to the absence of a well-balanced theoretical relevance model in hermeneutical areas and a lack of a life-changing application paradigm in contemporary homiletics, this dissertation is to suggest the necessity of a legitimate application paradigm. I attempt to identify the necessity of a hermeneutical application paradigm by redrawing the relationship between hermeneutics and application and by reexamining some scholars􀁳application paradigms. In reevaluating a few application models, I point out the following reasons of the necessity for an appropriate application paradigm: (1) the ostensible gaps, (2) some limitations and inappropriateness of recent applicational bridge paradigms, and (3) the need of a legitimate application paradigm rooted in biblical and historical models. With the seven reasons of the dispensability of an application paradigm in mind, this study suggests the necessity of further examinations: (1) hermeneutical foundations, (2) biblical models, (3) historical prototypes, and (4) the four-bridge application paradigm.

Observing the current western church situation, the influence of the emerging church movement arisen with a remarkable growth of emerging churches is increasingly expanding. Following this trend, Korean churches’ surging interest in the emerging churches and the emergent church movement fueled translations and publications of many such related books regardless of favorable or unfavorable views and positions. The fundamental purpose of this study is to, first and foremost, organize and introduce, by selecting Dan Kimball and Mark Driscoll, the actual leaders of the current emerging church movement, certain characteristics of their preaching from the perspective of homiletics. In order to do so, I would like to, first, introduce the emerging church movement that has such immense influence, through continued discussions since mid-1990s, in not only liturgics and homiletics, but also systematic theology, missiology and biblical hermeneutics. Second, distinctions of major leaders within a main emerging church movement are discussed. And among the leaders, preachings of Dan Kimball and Mark Driscoll, who are considered relevants, are extensively considered. Through this kind of study, it is hoped that it may spark in-depth researches on future, although not widespread at the moment, Korean emerging churches and preachings that are currently affected in many ways by the emerging church movement.

According to George Barna’s chronological division of modern generations and their birth years, Generation Xers who were born between 1965 and 1983 have been profoundly impacted by the entertainment culture. Generation Xers get easily bored with unified preaching forms such as “three-point” or “verse-by-verse.” A form-sensitive sermon can attract Generation Xers’ attention because the different forms in the text utilize various modes of language and rhetorical devices. For example, deductive (stentic) or inductive (tensive) modes of language have different functions and different oral rhetorical devices create various experiences. This writer asserts that a form-sensitive sermon is a strategic contact point that delivers the biblical propositional notion to the current generation. This paper will analyze the sociological and cultural background of Generation Xers, and then will explicate the types of literary form, oral rhetorical devices and the language function behind each textual form.