[Concerning Ps. 104:14-15] “And lest anyone’s heart leap for joy because it mentions herbs ‘for the service of man,’ it is talking about your salad, and not about your stash.”
Devoured by Cannabis, p. 25
On Not Dialing It In
“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
Because You Must Rule Yourself First
“The book of Proverbs is given to all God’s people. And the word that mean ‘to speak a proverb’ is also a word that mean ‘to rule.’ Learning to live in accordance with the proverbs God gave us is preparation for dominion”
Devoured by Cannabis, p. 24
Placement Matters
“What these people have in common is that they are all engaged in a hedonistic pursuit of sensual pleasure. They all want to get laid and loaded. The name of the game is sensory overload. Now if I were looking for a place to shelve ‘stoned out of his gourd,” would I be more likely to put it after joy and before peace, or after excess of wine and before revelling?”
Devoured by Cannabis, p. 20
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
Clustered Vices
“Sins are like grapes, they come in bunches . . . Sins tend to cluster, and when you go down into the middle of that crowd, you are more likely to find a pot dealer there than, say, if you were at a quilting bee.”
Devoured by Cannabis, p. 20
Catching at Words
“When someone says that Paul prohibited ‘drunkenness’ but not ‘getting high,’ we have an example of this kind of catching at words. Paul also says not to get drunk with wine. Does that mean gin is all right? Beer? Rubbing alcohol?”
Devoured by Cannabis, p. 17
Keep the Center Central
“Fasten yourself to the center of your ministry; not to some point on the circumference. The circumference must move when the center moves”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 82
Pot and Alcohol?
“Maybe this is simply a generational divide. One generation likes a dry martini after work, and a new generation prefers a smoky kick. Couldn’t it just be a matter of generational taste? One prefers a smoky kick with actual smoke, while the other wants the smoky kick of Laphroaig, which, as the ad copy once put it, ‘ tastes like a burning hospital’”
Devoured by Cannabis, p. 10
Aim Higher
“The bringing of truth, of Christ the Truth, to man, of the whole Christ to the whole man, you can think of no work larger in its idea than that.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 80