All the Doctrine You Know

Posted on by Douglas Wilson

“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

Remember the Point

Posted on by Douglas Wilson

“Much of our preaching is like delivering lectures upon medicine to sick people. The lecture is true. The lecture is interesting . . . But still the fact remains that the lecture is not medicine, and that to give the medicine, not to deliver the lecture, is the preacher’s duty.”

Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 102

Preaching and Reading

Posted on by Douglas Wilson

“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

On Not Dialing It In

Posted on by Douglas Wilson

“Take, for instance, the matter of preaching old sermons. It is not good. A new sermon, fresh from the brain, has always a life in it which an old sermon, though better in itself, must lack . . . the main objection which the people have to the preaching of old sermons is in the impression that it gives them of unfaithfulness and idleness”

Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 86

On Not Preaching the Dregs

Posted on by Douglas Wilson

“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