Augustine’s classic guidebook for teachers and preachers. Covers basic exegesis, theology and practical wisdom for communication. Much of his advice is what we still teach today. Know your Bible, learn the languages, aim for love of God, and pray before you preach.

Really enjoyable. I hadn't known much about the book expect some general things that Augustine would cover. His exploration of how to rightly order one's loves in Book I was great, and I found it fascinating to see how he envisioned using different academic disciplines to understand and teach the Scriptures. The most in-depth exploration of this is in Book IV, where he works from Cicero's ideas about rhetoric: the speaker aims to teach in simple style, to guide his audience's pleasures and displeasures in a moderate style, and to persuade the audience in the grand style. Augustine adapts them to the goal of a teacher of Christian doctrine and gives examples of these rhetorical style in the Scriptures. I'd like to return to it again sometime.

Good and useful.

Book IV was great

In this later writing, Saint Augustine explains how and why it's important to study Scripture and be able to evangelize, as well as the features of the Christian preacher. It's part theological, part lingusitic, part educational, but interesting all around.

Book two is a slog but otherwise it is fascinating, especially if read as a manual for preachers.

In this relatively short work, St. Augustine tackles the interpretation of scripture and Church doctrine. While it is difficult to read the Fathers of the Church in translation, this work was very enlightening and would help many modern readers, especially those who commit the two great errors in Biblical interpretation; those who treat scripture a system of mythology and those who treat scripture as literally true in all cases. St. Augustine addresses both errors and sets forth a very intelligent approach to biblical interpretation.

One of the most important points that St. Augustine makes in this work was to consider that the Holy Spirit is the author of scripture, and since the Holy Spirit animates the Church, then scripture can't contradict Church teaching. So why does it seem as though some Church doctrine contradicts scripture? The answer is either that the believer does not understand the Church teaching in question or that he has an inadequate understanding of the interpretation of the scripture in question. One must always understand that any group that holds scripture as some sort of higher authority than the Church is never doing so in the interest of truth. Truth can't contradict itself, so the Church's teaching can't contradict a true understanding of scripture. If we approach scripture with this understanding, we will be able to delve far deeper into the scripture than we ever thought possible.

I would highly recommend that all Christian believers read this book. It will greatly improve the faith and understanding of the believer.

The hermeneutics in book 3 and the emphasis on knowing the languages in book 2 were excellent, riveting, exciting, like a good rafting experience. The parts about Philosophy... more boring then sitting through a Tuesday civ lecture and you are fading because you had too many carbs for lunch but the only thing keeping you awake is the uncomfortable seats that do not allow you to fall asleep due to the fact that they went through 2 world wars, a great depression, a housing market crash, a plane flying into the building, and a tornado. But other than the philosophy, an amazing book that really captures the essence of reading Scripture through the eyes of Augustine.

This is a phenomenal work on education. As an inspiration for James Smith, his work on ordered loves emphasizes the goal of education not as simply the formation of the mind, but the formation of the loves, the heart. Augustine takes as his guiding principle for Christian education: What skills do students need to read and communicate God's word effectively? The answer: language and grammar (especially w.r.t. ancient languages), literature (understanding genre, poetry, etc.), history, geography, formal logic (for making sound theological inferences from various Scriptures), rhetoric, a study of pagan literature, and he even includes an understanding of the natural world and mathematics (Augustine loves all the numbers in the Bible!) - essentially a classical liberal arts education. Brilliant. And Book IV on rhetoric is filled with sensible and practical wisdom for preaching. It is amazing how principles for communicating effectively transcend time and culture.

One negative: chapter and section headings from the editor would help greatly for following the logic of the book.

Loved the first half which speaks about the commandment to love God and neighbour, and I think that the uti-frui distinction is fascinating and defendable. The second half is about how to teach God's work and brings in a lot of Augustine's training in rhetoric and eloquence. This bit was less interesting to me and probably won't be too useful for me moving forward.

I read a rather fusty translation by J.F Shaw and hope to be able to look at a more contemporary version. In his peerless biography of the saint, Peter Brown offers some typically insightful thoughts on Augustine's book, namely, how the sanctification of the Bible required the secularization of classical culture. The great themes are the discovery and expression of Scripture. (John Behr's observation that true theology is 'exegetical and confessional' is an interesting contemporary application.) Other reviewers who have suggested that 'On Christian Teaching' might be a better translation make a good point although the push against over a millennium and a half of tradition is likely futile.

I'm surprised at myself for liking this as much as I did. I'm not really into that whole "Christian Doctrine" thing, but St. Augustine's approach to the Bible is fascinating: basically, if it doesn't make sense to read something literally, then read it figuratively. He's got a great knack for creating metaphors, and his musings are very relevant to literature and theories of language. In fact, his concept of signs - and particularly words as signs - is pervasive in literary theory.