Christ-Centered Preaching Quotes

“Our preaching should reflect the uniqueness of our personalities, but our lives should”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Success in the pulpit can be the force that leads a preacher from prayerful dependence on the Spirit.”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“John Calvin said he constantly “studied to be simple.”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4).”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“As a consequence, not only are the main ideas of a passage referenced in the sermon, but the ways those ideas are developed and supported by the biblical author also guide the thought of pastor and people.”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Lo que transforma corazones no es la capacidad del mensajero, sino la eficacia de la verdad de Dios.”
― Bryan Chapell, La Predicación Cristocéntrica

“A sermon that explores a biblical concept is in the broadest sense “expository,” but the technical definition of an expository sermon requires that it expound Scripture by deriving from a specific text main points and subpoints that disclose the thought of the author, cover the scope of the passage, and are applied to the lives of listeners.6”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“An expository sermon is designed for the study of the specific details, context, and development of a biblical passage in order to encourage and enable listeners to love God and to help them understand how to apply the truths of his Word to their lives.”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“By stating what a text means, placing that truth where it originates in the text, and proving how the text establishes that truth, you fulfill the fundamental obligations of an expositor: State what you know and show how you know.”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“The church’s greatest mistakes occur when the people of God honor what a leader says without examining that instruction in the light of Scripture.”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“To put the issue succinctly: since the message was first addressed to the ancient church, it requires explication; since that message now needs to be addressed to a contemporary church, it requires application.”17”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Long ago Augustine simply summarized, “When the Bible speaks, God speaks.”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Without an ultimate authority for truth, all human striving has no ultimate value, and life itself becomes futile. Modern trends in preaching that deny the authority of the Word 8 in the name of intellectual sophistication lead to a despairing subjectivism in which people do what is right in their own eyes— a state whose futility Scripture has clearly articulated (Judg. 21: 25).”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“An expository sermon may be defined as a message whose structure and thought are developed from a biblical text, covering its scope, in order to explain how the features and context of the text disclose enduring principles for faithful thinking, living, and worship intended by the Spirit, who inspired the text.”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Crisis results from having sufficient, relevant facts to create a problem that listeners have an interest in solving and that forces them to journey through a narrative to discover the resolution found in the climax. If preachers do not bring an audience to the edge of wonder, grief, anger, confusion, fear, or discovery, then their words have no point—no hook on which to hang meaning. The internal tensions of illustrations hold a congregation because they spotlight the very types of experiences that bring people to hear the minister.”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Garrison adds, “Words that name colors, shapes, sounds, odors, and other tangibles help create backgrounds that evoke moods. Anything that moves you can move your listeners—provided they are brought into firsthand encounter with stimuli that produced the emotion.”74”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Garrison explains why concreteness empowers illustrations and furthers understanding: “If I were to talk at length about my having been deeply moved by watching the setting of my son’s broken arm, this would constitute a report of my feelings. But when I describe some factors that contributed to my mood, you are brought into the experience and feel with me. To re-create a moving situation is quite different from testifying to having been deeply moved.”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“the humility appropriate for a fellow sinner, express the courage and authority of one confident of the Savior’s provision, exude the joy of salvation by faith alone, reflect the love that claims their souls, and perform their service without any claim of personal merit.14 Preaching”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Grace-focused ministers recognize the daily repentance that private prayers must include, confess to others the divine aid that grants them the strength of their resolutions, obey God in loving thankfulness for the forgiveness and future Christ supplies, model”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“No truth calls louder for pastoral holiness than the link between a preacher’s character and a sermon’s reception. If”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel.”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Great gifts do not necessarily make for great preaching. The technical excellence of a message may rest on your skills, but the spiritual efficacy of your message resides with God. The”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Neglect of prayer signals serious deficiencies in a ministry even if other signs of success have not diminished. We must always remember that popular acclaim is not necessarily the same as spiritual effectiveness. The”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Public ministry true to God’s purposes requires devoted private prayer. We should not expect our words to acquaint others with the power of the Spirit if we have not met with him.”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“The glory of preaching is that God accomplishes his will through it, but we are always humbled and occasionally comforted by the knowledge that he works beyond our human limitations.”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Without an ultimate authority for truth, all human striving has no ultimate value, and life itself becomes futile. Modern trends in preaching that deny the authority of the Word6 in the name of intellectual sophistication lead to a despairing subjectivism in which people do what is right in their own eyes—a state whose futility Scripture has clearly articulated (Judg. 21:25). The”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“As expository preachers, our ultimate goal is not to communicate the value of our opinions, others’ philosophies, or speculative meditations but rather to show how God’s Word discloses his will for those united to him through his Son. Truths of God proclaimed in such a way that people can see that the concepts derive from Scripture and apply to their lives preoccupy the expository preacher’s efforts. Such”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Such preaching puts people in immediate contact with the power of the Word. E”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Our own relationship with Christ teaches us that we must treat people with compassion as well as confront them with the authority of the Word. As we need a stern hand in some moments and a loving embrace at others, so too do the people we face from the pulpit. The soul made sensitive by the recognition of its own sin, the awareness of God’s sovereignty, and the miracle of the Savior’s love is the one best suited to guide the tongue in the sanctuary as well as in the circumstances of life. Consistently aggressive or combative preachers ill disguise the spiritually resistant recesses of their own hearts.”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

“Joseph Ruggles Wilson reminds us how unique is each preacher’s challenge: In other words, preaching is not an imitative exercise. Every preacher is to regard himself as an original exhibitor and enforcer of the terms of human salvation; a channel of gracious speech, markedly different from every other.    . . . Turn it which way we will, the conclusion is always before us, the preacher’s preaching is just another form of himself; i.e., if he does his own thinking; exhibits no emotions that he does not actually feel; and presents divine truth, not as a bundle of opinions which orthodoxy has agreed upon, but as so much vital blood that has been made to course in his veins, and therefore takes the form of his own Christian life. It is these live men whom God supremely calls; men who have eaten the word, as a prophet did, and into whom it has passed to become a perpetual throb in their hearts; so that when it comes forth again, it will proceed upon its errand, bearing the warmth of their innermost experiences; those experiences wherein are traced the musings which continued until they could find vent only in fire; the fire that burns quickly into other souls, melts where it burns, and remoulds where it melts.25”
― Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon