“What I plead for is, that in all your desire to create good sermons you should think no sermon good that does not do its work.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 95
Following the Contempt
“There is nothing worse for a preacher than to come to think that, he must preach down to people; that they cannot take the very best he has to give. He grows to despise his own sermons, and the people quickly learn to sympathize with their minister”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 94
A Preacher, Not an Artist
“A sermon exists in and for its purpose. That purpose is the persuading and moving of men’s souls . . . It is always aimed at men”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 92
Preaching and Reading
“Ordinarily, reading sermons is like listening to an echo. The words there, but the personal intonation is gone out of them and there is an unreality about it all . . . In general it is true that the sermon which is good to preach is poor to read and the sermon which is good to read is poor to preach.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 91
Pride Kills
“Never allow yourself to feel equal to your work”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 88
A Curriculum of Gratitude
One of the names for this meal is the Eucharist. That name comes from the Greek verb for giving thanks—eucharisto. Now of course, the center of our thanksgiving should be directed toward God for His indescribable gift—the death and resurrection of His Son for our salvation. But this is the kind of thanksgiving which, if …
The Future and the Little Flock
Sermon Video Introduction: Our attitude toward the future reveals, as few others things do, our actual doctrine of God, our actual theology. It is perilously easy to have our catechism truths ...
On Not Preaching the Dregs
“The man is not doing his best . . . he writes his sermons on Saturday nights. That last I could the crowning disgrace of a man’s ministry. It is dishonest. It is giving but the last flicker of the week as it sinks in its socket, to those who, simply to talk about it as a bargain, have paid for the full light burning at its brightest. And yet men boast of it. They tell you in how short time they write their sermons, and when you hear them preach you only wonder that it took so long”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, pp. 84-85
Assuming the Center
Introduction: There is a phrase that I have used and referred to for quite a number of years now, and I believe that this would be a good time to return to an explanation of it again. That phrase is ...
Audio Reading of Post
Transition at Bethlehem
Some of you have heard the news about Jason Meyer stepping down as the pastor of Bethlehem in Minneapolis. Naturally, some are using this as an opportunity to continue pushing a woke agenda, and these days so much is to be expected. From a cursory read through of that linked article, it appears plain that—by …