“Spiritual eloquence should arise out of the preacher’s almost desperate love for the gospel truth itself and the people for whom accepting the truth is a matter of life and death” (Keller, Preaching, p. 14). … [Read more...]

“The social manners of the clergyman ought, therefore, to be a just mingling of gravity and affability” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, p. 374). … [Read more...]

“That which a man knows with certainty, will affect his character” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, p. 338). … [Read more...]

“Study, close, persevering study, improves his religious character. An indolent minister is not a spiritually minded man” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, p. 326). … [Read more...]

“In this connection, the habit of dialectically discoursing in prayer, should be guarded against . . . It is only when the clergyman forgets God, and addresses the congregation, that the prayer degenerates into a sermon” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, p. 312). … [Read more...]

“Yet, as it is the peculiar function of the preacher, as such, to address an audience, so it is the peculiar function of the audience, as such, to address God, as the result of the preacher’s address to them. Preaching should always end in worship” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral … [Read more...]

“If a thing be true, why confer with flesh and blood about it?” (Shedd, Homiletic and Pastoral Theology, p. 286). … [Read more...]

“A reader of English can always help himself by looking back a few lines and refreshing his mind. A hearer of English hear once for all, and if he loses the thread of your sermon in a long involved sentence, he very likely never finds it again” (Ryle, Simplicity in Preaching, p. … [Read more...]

“If I do not see my way through a text, I cannot preach on it, because I know I cannot be simple; and if I cannot be simple, I know I had better not preach at all” (Ryle, Simplicity in Preaching, p. 11). … [Read more...]

“All I say is, if we would be simple, there must be order in a sermon as there is in an army” (Ryle, Simplicity in Preaching, p. 9). … [Read more...]

“But if, on examination, they can neither find the sermon in the text, nor the text in the sermon, their minds are perplexed, and they begin to think the Bible is a deep book which cannot be understood” (Ryle, Simplicity in Preaching, p. 8). … [Read more...]

“I think a preacher should never take a text and extract from it, as a dentist would a tooth from the jaw, something which, however true in itself, is not the plain literal meaning of the inspired words” (Ryle, Simplicity in Preaching, p. 8). … [Read more...]

“For we are not treating of public religious address for the seraphim, but for the sinful children of men; and we shall commit a grave error, if we assume that the eternal and righteous truth of God, as a matter of course, must fall like blessed genial sun-light into the corrupt … [Read more...]

“If you want to attain simplicity in preaching, take care that you have a clear view of the subject upon which you are going to preach . . . If you yourself begin in a fog, you may depend upon it you will leave your people in darkness . . . Never choose a text of which you do not … [Read more...]