“Too much consultation of commentaries is apt to have a serious effect on the preacher’s resourcefulness, initiative, and originality” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 112).
Spadework
“There is no worth-while subject to which the preacher’s mind will not kindle if he thinks enough upon it and about it” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 110).
Which Can Explain Quite a Bit
“The preacher’s whole life, his whole experience is, in a way, a preparation for the sermon, even though it may be an unconscious one” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 108).
Because We Are Becoming Someone, Not Cramming for a Test
“So one can get spiritual, mental, and moral help from a good book, although he may not remember anything in the book a short time after he has read it” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 85).
Grazing in Good Metaphor
“Poetry is also good, for it stimulates the imagination, a faculty sadly neglected by the majority of preachers . . . the preacher ought never to part company with the poets. The objective is not to quote poetry in sermons — there is altogether too much of this — but to find worth-while sermon ideas, …
Gathering Comes First
“But this much certainly is true — wide reading in any worth-while field stimulates the mind and gives the reader something of use to him when he comes to prepare his sermon” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 76).
Imagine
“Napoleon said, ‘Men of imagination rule the world.’ The preacher of imagination is the prince of the pulpit” (Macartney, Peaching Without Notes, p. 75)
Witchery of Words
“Some of the greatest preachers have been metaphorical preachers . . . They understood, or had an unconscious instint for, the witchery of words” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 59).
What Illustrations Illustrate
“The purpose of illustration is not merely to make the truth clear, but to heighten its nobility and glory” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 32).
So Preach the Blood
“Evangelical preaching is the answer for all our church problems. It is the solvent of all heresies; and the drier and stonier the soil, the more solemn is the duty and responsibility of the preacher to sow the seed of the gospel” (Macartney, Preaching Without Notes, p. 27).