Theology That Bites Back
“God is not secretive. He delights to make himself known. Just as it is the nature of light to shine, so it is the nature of God to reveal himself. The chief reason why people do not know God is not because he hides from them but because they hide from him. Every preacher needs to take encouragement from the fact that God is light and longs to shine his light into the listener’s darkness (2 Cor. 4:4-6).”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 13
“The kind of God we believe in determines the kind of sermons we preach.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 13
“The secret of preaching is not mastering certain techniques but being mastered by certain convictions”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 12
“Our greatest need, as the Reformers kept insisting, is the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Christians believe that the living God is the Lord of history. We should ask him to push back back the forces of unbelief and thank him for what he is doing already around the world.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 11
“Finally, it is important to remember that preaching and worship cannot be divorced. The fact that they are so often separated today accounts for the low level of much contemporary worship. All worship is an intelligent and loving response to the revelation of God. Our worship is poor because our knowledge of God is poor; our knowledge of God is poor because our preaching is poor. But when the word of God is expounded in all its fullness, and the congregation begins to glimpse the glory of the living God, they bow down in solemn awe. It is preaching that accomplishes this. That is why preaching is unique and irreplaceable.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 9
“God himself supplies the best visual aids. He wants the pastor to be a visual aid to the congregation (Tit. 2:7; 1 Tim. 4:12). He also wants the congregation to be a visual aid to the watching world, indeed to the whole universe (Matt. 5:16; Eph. 3:10-11). Virtual images projected on screens are no substitute for real people and loving communities” ().
John Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 8
“Authority and humility are not mutually exclusive.”
John Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 4
“We need to remember that our authority to preach does not come from our appointment as preachers, not from the church that ordained us, but from the word of God.”
John Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 4
“The mind is free only under the authority of truth, and the will under the authority of righteousness.”
John Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 4
“Preaching is indispensable to Christianity because Christianity is based on the truth that God chose to use words to reveal himself to humanity . . . God’s speech makes our speech necessary”
John Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 1
