“Like the faithful farmer Robert Frost describes, resourceful preachers are always out to ‘clean the pasture spring’.”
Cornelius Plantinga, Reading for Preaching, p. ix
Leaving Some Perfect Little Teeth Marks
“She was doing pretty well until about three minutes into his presentation. He gestured expansively, with the kind of gesture that he had found so effective in the impressing of freshman girls, and Maria almost lost it. His right hand moved languidly toward the ceiling, and Dr. Rollins was unable to keep himself from looking at it as it went. The board members, being all men, didn’t notice, but Maria did, and started biting her forefinger.”
More Like Tomoyto
“‘Some might have expected a flood of controversy like this to damage our . . . testimony.’ He remembered just in time that Dr. Tom hated the word brand, and so he veered at the last minute over to testimony. Tomayto, tomahto.”
A Test, Not a Quiz
Luther “said that the ultimate test of a good preacher is whether he is prepared to face ridicule and to lose his life, his wealth and his good name because of his preaching.”
Luther as quoted in Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 108
Not Ready at All
“The carpet was a rich burgundy color, and the wainscot around the room was a nicely matched cherry. The room was solemn, elegant, dignified, and not ready for the meeting that was about to happen in it.”
None Higher
“The highest service that a man may attain to on earth is to preach the word of God.”
John Wycliffe, as quoted in Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 107
With Rust Up and Down the Blades
“This photoshop work must have been done with scissors stolen from a kindergartner, along with some library paste taken from the teacher lady. And while I am on the general subject, that Pledge of Allegiance edit job at KMOZ must have been done with a pair of hedge clippers that hadn’t been oiled for six years.”
Who Is Sufficient?
“The privilege is great, the responsibility heavy, the temptations many and the standards high.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 101
If Hipsters Were Eagles
“His name was Montaine Jacobs, which usually embarrassed him, and so he just went by Em. He was up in his office, which was high in the rafters of an old Portland warehouse. He got to it by means of a rope ladder he bought off an old fishing trawler that he found one time in a maritime salvage yard. There was a catwalk around the edges of the warehouse for the less adventurous secretaries. He liked it up there. If hipsters had eyries, his would be the one at the very tippy top. Better than Gwaihir’s.”
Must Be Something Else
“Why is this power missing in our preaching? I strongly suspect that the main reason is our pride. In order to be filled with the Spirit, we must first acknowledge our own emptiness.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 98