“The preacher . . . addresses questions to his text, especially two. First, what does it mean? Perhaps better, what did it mean when first spoken or written . . . ‘a text means what its author meant’ . . . The second question to ask is what does it say? That is, what is …
The Need for Experience Not Absolute
“All of us have to preach on death before we have died” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 219).
Winging It Is Not How the Holy Ghost Flies
“The great preachers who have influenced their generation have all borne witness to the need for conscientious preparation” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, pp. 212-213).
Both of Which Are Easier Than Thinking
“I can always tell when the clergy have given up any serious attempt to read or think: it becomes obvious at about the age of forty-five. If a man is an Anglo-Catholic, he becomes a bigot; if he is an Evangelical, he becomes a sentimentalist” (Cyril Garbett, Bishop of Southwark, as quoted in Stott, Between …
Bounded Service
[Overworked pastors] “respond to every conceivable need, and feel guilty if they are not readily available to anybody at any time. One cannot fault their dedication, their enthusiasm or their commitment. And indeed the pastor is called to serve people, as Christ himself did. But they have forgotten that there were times when Jesus himself …
Grab n’ Go Study
“I have come to believe in the cumulative value of shorter periods of study” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 202).
And From the Pulpit
“A weak conscience is an over-scrupulous conscience. And although, even when mistaken, it is not to be violated, it does need to be educated” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 194).
So It All Works Out Then
“We need, then, to ask people questions and get them talking. We ought to know more about the Bible than they do, but they are likely to know more about the real world than we do” (Stott, p. 192).
Depending on the Library
“As Austin Phelps put it at the end of the last century, a thoroughly trained preacher is first a human being, at home among human beings, and then a scholar, at home in libraries” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 191).
Of Course, Neither Are We Supposed to Be
“It is essential to give up the illusion that we come to the biblical text as innocent, objective, impartial, culture-free investigators, for we are nothing of the kind” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 185).