Redemptive-historical preaching

Redemptive-historical preaching is a method of <a href="/facts/Preaching/AT5m7TaU">preaching</a> that emerged from the <a href="/facts/Reformed_churches/l95AzJtn">Reformed churches</a> of the Netherlands in the early 1940s. The debate concerned itself with the question: "How are we to preach the historical narratives of the <a href="/facts/Christian_Bible/SqkRTKCh">Bible</a>?"
On one side of the question were the proponents of "exemplaristic" preaching. This method of preaching taught that the biblical narratives in general, and the <a href="/facts/Old_Testament/YFNzQVcK">Old Testament</a> stories in particular, were to be preached as examples of how <a href="/facts/Christians/15hE11VR">Christians</a> today should (or should not) live their lives. Old Testament believers were held up as examples (or anti-examples, as the case may be, see for example <a href="/facts/Anti-Judaism/dTKbNC0y">anti-Judaism</a>) of how we should conduct ourselves.
On the other side of the debate were the advocates of preaching that was "redemptive-historical" (the term used to translate the Dutch heilshistorisch). These included <a href="/facts/Klaas_Schilder/zMqf1pHV">Klaas Schilder</a> and <a href="/facts/Benne_Holwerda/9kqqK8ea">Benne Holwerda</a>. They argued that Old Testament narratives are not primarily to be moral examples, but as revelations of the coming <a href="/facts/Messiah/KfWyxrNK">Messiah</a>. The narratives of the Old Testament served as <a href="/facts/Typology_(theology)/zHRM4YUY">types</a> and shadows pointing forward in history to the time when <a href="/facts/Jewish_messianism/BH7VnEQe">Israel's messiah</a> would be revealed in the person and work of <a href="/facts/Jesus/Hcd9hEzI">Jesus</a>. In support of this view, the advocates of redemptive-historical preaching drew heavily upon the text of <a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke%2024:27&version=nrsv">Luke 24:27</a>, where Jesus is teaching the disciples on the road to Emmaus: "And beginning with <a href="/facts/Moses/D0pp5HMQ">Moses</a> and all the <a href="/facts/Prophet/SHXDfAAj">Prophets</a>, he interpreted to them in all the <a href="/facts/Scriptures/H2HjQEYv">Scriptures</a> the things concerning himself" (English Standard Version). Further support was taken from verse 44 of the same chapter, where Jesus says, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the <a href="/facts/Law_of_Moses/GlgjvbMj">Law of Moses</a> and the <a href="/facts/Neviim/xUD11bQw">Prophets</a> and the <a href="/facts/Psalms/QbfaqRCY">Psalms</a> must be fulfilled."

Redemptive-historical preaching open-in-new

Redemptive-historical preaching