In these 1997 Lyman Beecher Lectures in Preaching delivered at Yale Divinity School, Taylor focuses on the task of the preacher in a world where people thirst for a word from God. She examines the language with which we talk about God in theology and speak to God in prayer, and she explores what the silence of God means for preachers and how they may exercise "homiletical restraint" in speaking of the divine.