“Milton speaks of the close palm of logic, and the open palm of rhetoric” (Shedd, Homiletic and Pastoral Theology, p. 193).
Don’t Just Point at the Point, Make It
“When a rich and fertile argument has been discovered, the preacher should not leave it, until he has made the common mind feel the whole sum of its force” (Shedd, Homiletic and Pastoral Theology, p. 190).
The Wrong Kind of Rightly Dividing
“‘Some ministers,’ says an old homiletist, ‘do with their texts, as the Levite with his concubine, — cut, and carve it into so many several pieces'” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, p. 188).
Just Like That
“We too often listen to sermons which remind us of that Galatian church which began in the spirit, but ended in the flesh” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, p. 182).
With His Whole Weight
“The text is or should be, the keynote to the whole sermon. The more bold, the more undoubted and undisputed, its tone, the better . . . Nothing remains then, but for the preacher to go out upon it, with his whole weight; to unfold and apply its evident undoubted meaning, with all the moral …
Exegesis, In Other Words
The preacher’s “business is not to involve into the text, something that is extrinsic, but to evolve out of it, something that is intrinsic” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, pp. 168-169).
Not the CEO
“Much of the problem of preaching today in respect of its lack of biblical content is due to the fact that men are too busy running the ecclesiastical machinery of their churches to soak their minds and spirits in the truth of Holy Scripture” (Martin, What’s Wrong With Preaching Today? p. 20).
On Not Breaking a Sweat
“An idle minister — what will become of him? A pastor who neglects his office? Does he expect to go to heaven? I was about to say, ‘If he does go there at all, may it be soon.’ A lazy minister is a creature despised of men, and abhorred of God” (Spurgeon, The Greatest Fight …
A Dangerous Calling
“M’Cheyne said, ‘The man who loves you the most is the man who tells you the most truth about yourself'” (Martin, What’s Wrong With Preaching Today? p. 18).
As Paul Would Have Said
“He that cannot be safely imitated ought not to be tolerated in the pulpit” (Spurgeon, The Greatest Fight in the World, p. 40).