Published in 1989, this re-issue comes from a former pastor who now teaches communications and homiletics at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. A wordsmith sifts words or phrases and catches those that trap a listener's mind. Instead of settling for an abstract term like fall , a preacher can select a concrete word like stumble or collapse . The issue is not cleverness but specificity. A wordsmith will choose nouns and verbs that burst with flavor.
Miller advocates words like spark, stomp, slither, bang, scratch, slick , and whack .
This does not mean that a preacher carries this manuscript into the pulpit. Writing and editing a manuscript forces one to wrestle with word choice. Reading Miller and Eslinger won't make you a preacher. But if you're a preacher, they will help you preach sermons that roar rather than whimper. It's easy to get caught in the hype of competing Bible study products.