Preaching and Praxis (How To...)

[F]or Christians the proclamation of the Word of God through union with Christ is the living breath of the living God for all people. Accordingly the sermon has personal divine authority. Or, to put it more startling: through our union with Christ, whereby we share in the life of Jesus Christ, the sermon becomes a present form of the incarnation, an enfleshment in speech today of the once historical and always eternal and living one Word of God. The sermon is the Word of God. The basis on which all Christian ministries are built is this one Word of God, in which we participate and which must be proclaimed. Preaching, in other words, is a theological act in the true sense: it is an act whereby God “speaks,” for it is God’s address to the congregation, and not just a human reflective word concerning God. It is God’s personal and actual Word of address to the people gathered through the voice of the minister.

Andrew Purves Reconstruction Pastoral Theology (pg. 157)