Category: Expository

“The truth is, no preaching ever had any strong power that was not the preaching of doctrine. The preachers that have moved and held men have always preached doctrine. No exhortation to a good life that does not put behind it some truth as deep as eternity can seize and hold the conscience. Preach doctrine, preach all the doctrine that you know, and learn forever more and more; but preach it always not that men may believe it; but that men may be saved by believing it.”

Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 103

“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

“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 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

“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

“Never allow yourself to feel equal to your work”

Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 88

“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