What if a sermon gets the facts right but misses the way God chose to tell the story?
Mike Neglia talks with Grace Campbell about why biblical genre matters for Bible interpretation and expository preaching. Scripture comes to us as narrative, poetry, wisdom, letters, parables and apocalyptic vision—not as interchangeable containers for three-point outlines. How can preachers attend to both what a passage says and what it does, helping listeners encounter the text rather than reducing it to a set of propositions?
The conversation moves from the Good Samaritan and Revelation to Ecclesiastes, where Grace shares how a family crisis changed the way she heard the book’s language of joy, grief and life’s fleetingness. For pastors and Bible teachers, this is an invitation to teach Scripture on its own terms.
About Grace Campbell
Grace serves alongside her husband Tom at Amazing Grace Community Church in West Cork, Ireland, working with children, teenagers and women. They are parents to Perran and Lily. She spent 12 years with the Irish Bible Institute and continues as adjunct faculty, teaching Bible Interpretation. Grace loves helping people engage with the Bible’s varied literary forms and “taste and see” that the Lord is good.
Resources Grace mentioned in the conversation
• Jeffrey D. Arthurs, Preaching with Variety: How to Re-Create the Dynamics of Biblical Genres
https://www.kregel.com/preaching/preaching-with-variety/
• Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth
https://zondervanacademic.com/products/how-to-read-the-bible-for-all-its-worth-4th
• William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg and Robert L. Hubbard Jr., Introduction to Biblical Interpretation
https://zondervanacademic.com/products/introduction-to-biblical-interpretation
• Leland Ryken and Tremper Longman III, eds., The Complete Literary Guide to the Bible
https://www.christianbook.com/the-complete-literary-guide-the-bible/leland-ryken/9780310230786/pd/230786
• J. Kent Edwards, Effective First-Person Biblical Preaching: The Steps from Text to Narrative Sermon
https://zondervanacademic.com/products/effective-first-person-biblical-preaching
• Haddon W. Robinson and Torrey W. Robinson, It’s All in How You Tell It: Preaching First-Person Expository Messages
https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/products/9780801091506_its-all-in-how-you-tell-it
• BibleProject
https://bibleproject.com/
Further reading recommended by Grace
• Eugene L. Lowry, The Homiletical Plot: The Sermon as Narrative Art Form (expanded edition)
https://www.wjkbooks.com/bookproduct/0664222641-the-homiletical-plot-expanded-edition/
• Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge
https://zondervanacademic.com/products/is-there-a-meaning-in-this-text
• Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “The Semantics of Biblical Literature: Truth and Scripture’s Diverse Literary Forms,” in Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon, ed. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge
https://wipfandstock.com/9781597521185/hermeneutics-authority-and-canon/
