old text, and in part is the imaginative construction of the preacher which did not exist until the moment of utterance by the preacher. Like a conductor “rendering” Beethoven so that the particular music exists only in that occasion, so the preacher renders a text so that it only exists in that particular form in that particular occasion of speaking.17 Preaching, then, has to do with the construction of meaning. Its meaning is not “invented” or created ex nihilo. Rather, meaning in preaching is