I’m currently working through Lloyd-Jones’ book “Preaching and Preachersâ€. Thus far am really grateful for the insightful wisdom he gives to the topic. Here is a gleaning of some of my favorite quotes thus far:
—He has been sent, he is a commissioned person. In other words he is not there merely to talk to them, he is not there to entertain them. He is there—and I want to emphasis this—to do something to those people; he is there to produce results of various kinds; he is there to influence people. He is not merely to influence a part of them; he is not only to influence their minds, or only their emotions, or merely to bring pressure to bear on their wills and to induce them to some kind of activity. He is there to deal with the whole person; and his preaching is meant to affect the whole person at the very centre of life. Preaching should make such a difference to a man who is listening that he is never the same again. Preaching, in other words, is a transaction between the preacher and the listener. It does something for the soul of man, for the whole of the person, the entire man; it deals with him in a vital and radical manner
—We are to preach the Gospel, and not to preach about the Gospel.
—There is nothing more important in a preacher than that he should have a systematic theology.
—The preacher must always be saying the ‘whole thing’ as it were, even while he is putting particular stress and emphasis on certain individual matters for the moment.
—A preacher must always convey the impression that he himself has been gripped by what he is saying. If he has not been gripped nobody else will be.
—Where has this notion come from that if you are a great intellect you show no emotion? How ridiculous and fatuous it is! A man who is not moved by these things [the truths of God’s Word], I maintain, has never really understood them. A man is not an intellect in a vacuum; he is a whole person. He has a heart as well as a head; and if his head truly understands, his heart will be moved.
—Any man who has had some glimpse of what it is to preach will inevitably feel that he has never preached. But he will go on trying, hoping that by the grace of God one day he may truly preach.
—Preachers are born not made. […] You will never teach a man to be a preacher if he is not already one.
—What matters? The chief thing is the love of God, the love of souls, a knowledge of the Truth, and the Holy Spirit within you. These are the things that make the preacher. If he has the love of God in his heart, and if he has a love for God; if he has a love for the souls of men, and a concern about them; if he knows the truth of the Scriptures; and has the Spirit of God within him, that man will preach.
—————————————————
Read More Posts Like This
Review of John Piper’s “The Supremacy of God in Preaching”
You must be logged in to post a comment.