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The Metaphor In Leonard Sweet's Giving Blood

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Continuously finding ways to effectively communicate the truth of the gospel is a challenged faced by every preacher. The pursuit of fresh perspectives and approaches to the Bible, sermon preparation and sermon delivery consume preachers seeking to grow and improve. Leonard Sweet, in his book Giving Blood, seeks to inspire preachers and equip them with new tools to more effectively preach the truth of the Gospel in ways that leads to life transformation. Sweet uses the metaphor of blood to outline a new homiletic paradigm based on the concept of narraphor. Through out his text, Sweet proposes approaches to sermon preparation, delivery, and the problems faced by many preachers. Each of the sections of his book end with a list of questions that …show more content…

The become what Sweet terms generally as the blood through which meaning flows. In his section “'B+' Blood Building” he concludes with several questions that aid the preacher in thinking more critically about the role of the metaphor in preaching narrative and how that might be used to communicate meaning. However, sometimes metaphor in the Bible need to be related to more contemporary metaphors to resonated with modern day listeners. Sweet, hoping to help pastors recognize the need for comparison and put the need into practice, poses the following question, “Paul's image of the body in 1 Corinthians 12 was a brilliant choice of metaphor. This may not be the metaphor you want to use for your people. Can you think of another metaphor that conveys a similar message?”4 This kind of metaphor can easily point to the use of another metaphor without sacrificing the need to remain faithful to the biblical passage and at the same time allowing for more effective communication. Paul's image of the body in 1 Corinthians 12 is an iconic use of imagery that is familiar to most Christians. That familiarity can often become a stumbling block to communication as the recipient will often assume they already know what is going to be said. In these times it is necessary to upset the status quo and put the message into a new box that breaks down the the walls of assumption like a Trojan horse. In this particular situation there are many modern packages that might be a suitable substitute for this metaphor without endangering the integrity of the intended

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