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Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Some preachers preach for an hour and it seems like thirty minutes; others preach for thirty minutes and it seems like an hour. I wonder what the difference is?”
I am thinking of some amazing men that I enjoy hearing. Their length never bothers me and I am sad to see the sermon come to an end. God, help me to be able to captivate the people that you have given me to share your message with.
When preachers speak as heralds, they must cry out “the Word.” Anything less cannot legitimately pass for Christian preaching.
Ministers can proclaim anything in a stained-glass voice at 11:30 on Sunday morning following the singing of hymns. Yet when they fail to preach the Scriptures, they abandon their authority. No longer do they confront their hearers with a word from God.
Something fills us with awe when God confronts individuals through preaching and seizes them by the soul.
Preaching is a living interaction involving God, the preacher, and the congregation,
Regrettably, many preachers fail as Christians before they fail as preachers because they do not think biblically.
God, please keep and preserve us from this present evil world.
First, as exegetes we struggle with the meanings of the biblical writer. Then, as people of God we wrestle with how God wants to change us. Finally, as preachers we ponder what God wants to say to the congregation through us.
“Doctrines must be preached practically, and duties doctrinally.”
A sermon should be a bullet, not buckshot. Ideally each sermon is the explanation, interpretation, or application of a single dominant idea supported by other ideas, all drawn from one passage or several passages of Scripture.
State the idea so that your listeners sense you are talking to them about them.
Application
A mist in the pulpit can easily become a fog in the pew.
“Always grab the reader by the throat in the first paragraph, sink your thumbs into his windpipe in the second, and hold him against the wall until the tag line.”
I’ve felt this before!
The language of effective preaching should be the language of stimulating conversation between thoughtful people.
Ministers are the only professionals who have people come to hear them on a regular basis. Physicians, lawyers, and teachers are professionals, but they do not have people assemble weekly to hear what they have to say. We preachers use words as tools, and we ought to use them with both thought and skill. We owe that to the men and women who come Sunday after Sunday to hear us.
sermons do not come into the world as outlines or manuscripts. They live only when they are preached. A sermon ineptly delivered arrives stillborn.
technical knowledge and training in the art of public address cannot take the place of conviction and responsibility.
