“Reformed preaching is declaring biblical truth to promote biblical spirituality as it was rediscovered in the Reformation of the sixteenth century.”
Beeke, Reformed Preaching, p. 58
Which Shouldn’t Be a Shock
“Self-centered preaching produces self-centered hearers.”
Beeke, Reformed Preaching, p. 34
When There Is No War
“There are times that make artificial sins and artificial heresies, lest they should find no enemies to fight with. It is bad to cry, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace. It is just as bad, in some ways it is worse, to cry, ‘War, war!’ when there is no war.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 219
A True Summons
“Reformed experiential preaching uses the truth of Scripture to shine the glory of God into the depths of the soul to call people to live solely and wholly for God.”
Beeke, Reformed Preaching, p. 24
At the Latest
“If a preacher holds anything to be true and knows that his people think he is unwilling to speak his mind upon that point, he had better preach on it next Sunday morning.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 218)
No Sugar Coating
“Men are not won by making belief seem easy, nor are men alienated by the hardness of belief, provided only that the hardness seems to be something naturally belonging to the truth, and not something gratuitously added to it.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 214
And Sometimes Really Jealous
“Half a truth is often more jealous of the other half than of an error.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 195
Truth, Not Appearances
“He is saved from one of the great temptations of the ministry who goes out to his work with a clear and constant certainty that truth is always strong no matter how weak it looks, and falsehood is always weak, no matter how strong it looks.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 193
Preaching High and Inside
“Say nothing which you do not believe to be true because you think it may be helpful. Keep back nothing which you know to be true because you think it may be harmful.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 192
The Point is the Point
“The sermon is to be sacrificed to the soul, the system of work to the purpose of work always. It strikes at the root of all clerical fastidiousness and the tyranny of order.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 191