by Gu Kwon
The Gospel and Praxis, 79 (2026.5)
The decline of the Korean church today is rooted not merely in demographic shifts, but in the loss of homiletical efficacy─the failure of proclaimed messages to shape the actual lives of congregants. This study seeks to identify the transformational mechanisms by which Text-driven Preaching moves beyond pulpit proclamation to become a Text-driven Life that reshapes the daily existence of listeners.
The study advances three central arguments. First, the authority of preaching is grounded in the divine authority of Scripture, and the preacher must embody an ethos shaped by personal appropriation of the Word. Second, the transformational dynamic of preaching lies in the speech act of the Holy Spirit, whose illocutionary force operates through the biblical text to produce concrete perlocutionary effects in listeners’ lives─ moving them toward the ontological transformation (metamorfou,meqa) described in 2 Corinthians 3:18. Third, this mechanism requires principalizing and parallelizing the text in relation to the listeners’ Sitz im Leben, culminating in a single Spirit-charged sentence─the Take-home Truth─inscribed upon the hearts of the congregation.
Building on these findings, this study proposes the ECHO preaching model as a practical integrative strategy: Exegesis, Christocentric Principle, Homiletical Appropriation, and One-sentence Truth. The revitalization of the Korean church begins not with programmatic innovation, but with the recovery of transformational preaching in which the life-giving power of the biblical text becomes incarnated in the daily language and habits of the congregation.
