“Preaching is essential incarnation. If we would be followers of the Prince of Preachers, then all our preaching should be a ‘fleshing out’ of the pattern that Jesus left for us.”
Olford, Anointed Expository Preaching, p. 11
The Text Must Be Beneath the Feet
“In the strictest sense of the term, authentic preaching is expository preaching.”
Olford, Anointed Expository Preaching, p. 4
Who Sent You Here?
“Preaching has fallen on evil days because the sermon is regarded as just another form of human speech, rather than a special genre. The preacher is just another Christian without any special authority; the pulpit (whether within the church or on those frontiers where the church addresses the world) is just another platform or lectern—sometimes (even worse) it is a private stage. And when preachers believe this way, they lack the courage to speak with authority and to bless.”
James Daane, in Olford, Anointed Expository Preaching, p. 3
And Don’t Forget the Spine
“We need men with warm hearts, wet eyes, clear heads, and tongues aflame.”
Adrian Rogers, in the Foreword to Anointed Expository Preaching
When “Won by Sweetness” Means Not Being Won at All
Calvin (aside): We seen plenty of those who are most venomous when corrections and warnings are used.
Dissenters: Et quoy! Is that the way to teach? Ho! we want to be won by sweetness.
Calvin: You do? Then go and teach God his lesson.
Calvin (aside): Look at our fastidious gentlemen who cannot bear one single reproof when it is put to them! And why?
Dissenters: Ho! we want to be taught another way.
Calvin: Then go to the devil’s school. He will flatter you alright—to your destruction.
Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 145
The Opposite of Hoity Toity
Calvin “is certainly thinking of familiere in terms of language; for a little later he censures ambitious preachers who ‘babble in refined language.’ To make the Scriptural message familiere Calvin used a familiar, homely style of speaking.”
Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, pp. 139-140
Not a Babbling Brook
“The sermons are like rivers, moving strongly in one direction, alive with eddies and cross-currents, now thundering in cataracts, now a calm mirror of the banks and sky; but never still, never stagnant.”
Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 132
Which Comes as a Surprise to Some
“It is that faith is never without combats; that we cannot serve God without being men of war.”
Calvin, as quoted in Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 118
Drive It Home Like a Spear
“Calvin frequently said that it was useless for the preacher merely to declare the truths of the Bible and leave the congregation to accept them or not without more ado.”
Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 114
A Visual Echo
“Earlier we spoke of the expository preacher as a chameleon, taking his color from that of the passage on which he was alighted.”
Parker, Calvin’s Preaching, p. 103