“The earnest man is intent on carrying his point. He has an aim, and his hearers feel it when he comes in contact with them” (Fish, Power in the Pulpit, p. 17).
Thorough Harvesting
“First I shake the whole tree, that the ripest may fall. Then I climb the tree and shake each limb, and then each branch and then each twig, and then I look under each leaf” (Martin Luther, as quoted in Murray, How Sermons Work, p. 58).
Cross Plough
“Industriousness lies at the base of pulpit power. We use it here as equivalent to hard study . . . A strong preacher must keep his mental powers in working order. He must be a man of rigid, unremitted diligence. He must plough, and cross plough, and subsoil his own mind, that it may yield …
The Solo Commentator
“Some preachers boast that they never read commentaries or sermons. Their congregations often wish they would” (Murray, How Sermons Work, p. 57).
Not As the Scribes
“We expect one who knows he is in the right to speak with boldness . . . We are prepossessed in favour of men who, in this world of uncertainly and perplexity, express themselves on a grave subject with confidence and command . . . Men dealt with thus fearlessly, acknowledge the preacher’s power. His …
A Sermon Is Not a Computer Printout
“It is indispensible that a minister . . . know men, too, as well as books. Many ministers are altogether too ‘bookish.’ They fail of influence from not knowing the material they have to operate upon. The heart of man must be interpreted, as well as the Word of God, by him who would have …
Soul to Soul
“The power consists in the action of the speaker’s soul on the soul of the hearer” (Fish, Power in the Pulpit, p. 12).
Getting Into the Pulpit, and Letting Fly
Sermons should not be “addressed to nobody, owned by nobody, and if an hundred people were to read it, not one of them would think himself concerned in its contents . . . [a sermon’s sentences should be] “pounded together until they crack, and where figure, trope, allegory, metaphor, antithesis, interrogation, anecdote — anything that …
And That, At Least, Is Plain
“A man who cannot make things plain is not qualified to fill a pulpit” (Fish, Power in the Pulpit, p. 7).
A Noble Task
“It is much easier to be unintelligible than intelligible. ‘Ah, my brethren,’ said Archbishop Usher, ‘how much learning it takes to make things plain'” (Fish, Power in the Pulpit, p. 7).