ABSTRACT
One of the many recent advances in contemporary homiletical theory has involved the acknowledgement of the inter-relatedness of the various aspects of sermon development. Sermons have never really been seen, except in some exceedingly scholastic homiletics texts, as consisting of a set of ideas or units strung together, sharing a common theme, but otherwise disconnected. There has always been at least some awareness that the various facets of the sermon work together in some common act of communication. J. Randall Nichols' work is clearly the most advanced statement to date on the nature of sermon introductions. A sermon is not primarily a literary product; it is essentially an act of proclamation. Whatever literary and aesthetic merits a sermon may possess, they must be subordinated to the larger concern that the sermon communicate something to those who hear. It is clear that the understanding of the sermon as an integrated communicational event cannot be confined to a discussion of introductions.
