Elisabeth Jones is a theologian, preacher, pastor, author, storyteller, community builder, and lover of gardening, grandparenting, sourdough baking, and wor(l)d turning.
Working Preacher Books podcast /video now live!
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Working Preacher Books podcast /video now live! ~
In this episode of the Working Preacher Books Podcast, hosts Karoline Lewis and Rolf Jacobson talk with Elisabeth R. Jones, author of Midrashic Imagination: Texts and Textures for Pulpit and Pew(Fortress Press, 2026). Elisabeth unpacks “midrash” as a participatory, communal practice of biblical interpretation. She explains how naming discomfort with a text opens the door to curiosity and transformation.
The conversation covers the Jewish roots of midrash, how Christians can engage it respectfully, and the practice of "following the rabbit" to find what a biblical text is saying to these people, at this place, at this time. Jones shares a powerful example from her own congregation, where a hard text collided with a real-world crisis and changed how her community preached, and how they chose to live the Gospel.
This episode - and her book!- offers preachers a fresh way to approach scripture with honesty, imagination, and communal wisdom.
Available now
Midrashic Imagination: Texts and Textures for Pulpit and Pew
Fortress Press, 2026
Elisabeth R. Jones offers an approach to preaching that facilitates holy inspiration, transformational discipleship, and faithful public witness. Jones presents a tested method of midrashic biblical imagination that enables preachers and their communities of faith to explore the polyvalence of the biblical text. In Midrashic Imagination, she draws on ancient and contemporary biblical and literary interpretive practices that privilege curiosity, open-ended questioning, and faithful imagination.
Her approach to Scripture delays judgment of the text, highlights multiple interpretive possibilities, and works across confessional and theological differences while inviting inquiry and curiosity centered on the biblical text.
Midrashic Imagination invites working preachers to cultivate a community-grounded practice of scriptural interpretation that is rigorous while also creating space for whimsy, imagination, and spiritual engagement with the biblical text. This book is a good fit for preachers-and communities of faith-focused on the sacred connection between the lively word of God in Scripture and today's cultural landscape, spiritual longings, hopes, and fears.
