“If a thing be true, why confer with flesh and blood about it?” (Shedd, Homiletic and Pastoral Theology, p. 286).
Don’t Convolute It
“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. 13).
Preaching Clearly Means Seeing Clearly
“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).
The Right Kind of Order
“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).
On Not Baffling the Flock
“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).
And Some Do It Without An Anesthetic
“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).
We Are Not Preaching Where It Is Not Needed
“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 human heart, and make …
Now There’s a Pro Tip
“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 …
Useful Simplicity
“I ask all my readers to remember that to attain simplicity in preaching is of the utmost importance to every minister who wishes to be useful to souls” (J.C. Ryle, Simplicity in Preaching, p. 4).
The Solution is Seen for What It Is
“He who knows, with a vivid and vital self-consciousness, what guilt means, knows what atonement means as soon as presented” (Shedd, Homiletic and Pastoral Theology, p. 275).