“Where application begins, there the sermon begins”
Charles Spurgeon, as quoted in Olford, Anointed Expository Preaching, p. 251
Use the Wide-Angle Lens
“I think that it would give to our preaching just the quality which it appears to me to most lack now. That quality is breadth. I do not mean liberality of thought, nor tolerance of opinion, nor anything of that kind. I mean largeness of movement, the great utterance of great truths, the great enforcement of great duties, as distinct from the minute, and subtle, and ingenious treatment of little topics, side issues of the soul’s life, bits of anatomy, the bric-a-brac of theology”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 32
Troubleshoot From the Right End
“The age has no aversion to preaching as such. It may not listen to your preaching. If that proves to be the case, look for the fault first in your preaching, and not in the age.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 30
Not Like a Hose
“Preaching is the bringing of truth through personality . . . it must come through his character, his affections, his whole intellectual and moral being. It must come genuinely through him”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, pp. 26-27
Where Was I?
“Meandering through a message is not only hard to follow, it can give the impression that the subject is not significant and that the preaching event is not critical”
Olford, Anointed Expository Preaching, p. 209
When the Dogs Ate Jezebel
Introduction: American Christianity has lost its prophetic voice, and the reason this has happened to us is that we have lost our prophetic eye. If we truly saw as we ought to see, then we would be ...
Audio Reading of Post
No Other Option
“The preacher must recognize that spiritual warfare is taking place as people are thinking through the implications of the truth”
Olford, Anointed Expository Preaching, p. 195
Keeping It Honest
“It is important though that the prayer be a genuine prayer rather than an introduction to the sermon”
Olford, Anointed Expository Preaching, p. 190
Credit It, Of Course, But Especially Live It
“This activity of relating the message to the life of the preacher is especially significant if the preacher is preaching a lot of material he has gleaned from others . . . The bigger issue is that the ‘borrowed’ material needs to become a message that can be preached authentically through the preacher . . . You can use it, giving due credit; but make sure you have ‘heard’ it and responded to it, that the message is yours by virtue of personal submission and commitment.”
Olford, Anointed Expository Preaching, p. 178
Confession of Sin as Sermon Prep
“Personal spiritual issues, also, must be dealt with in this regard. In fact, certain issues in the preacher’s life should be dealt with as part of sermon preparation. If not, the spiritual blocks can remain, denying the preacher the liberty to hear, see, respond to, and rejoice in the truth personally.”
Olford, Anointed Expository Preaching, p. 109