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Ancient Wisdom, Modern Fire: 10 Tips To Transform Your Preaching! (Top 10 Preaching Quotes of the Last 2000 Years.) · Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association

0:00
Speaker0: And hello, everybody, and welcome into episode number 14 of the Every Church Flourishing Podcast.
0:06
Speaker0: But really, it's more of a bonus episode. I just have to number it that way
0:11
Speaker0: for Apple Podcasts to keep up with everything.
0:14
Speaker0: Today, we're going to look at 2,000 years of the best preaching advice from
0:19
Speaker0: the early church fathers to modernity.
0:21
Speaker0: I want to give you a top 10 list of the best quotes and writings and inspiration
0:30
Speaker0: for preaching that have been taught and uttered over the past 2,000 years.
0:34
Speaker0: If you are already a faithful listener to the podcast, you will have probably
0:39
Speaker0: heard the first three of these tips because I included them at the end of the last episode.
0:44
Speaker0: But don't worry, we have eight more full tips today, which is like a top 10 plus one bonus one.
0:51
Speaker0: And I think they are going to be incredibly useful tips and quotes for ministry.
0:56
Speaker0: And I do know that not everybody who listens to the Every Church Flourishing podcast is a pastor.
1:02
Speaker0: In fact, of the people I know who listen.
1:05
Speaker0: Most of them are not church pastors, but are deacons and leaders and teachers
1:11
Speaker0: and small group leaders and youth pastors, etc.
1:14
Speaker0: But I think the advice we're going to be doing today is helpful for pretty much every Christian,
1:21
Speaker0: every Sunday school teacher, every small group leader, every mom and dad,
1:25
Speaker0: every youth pastor and youth minister that disciples anybody.
1:30
Speaker0: So we're going to have sort of like I said in the last episode,
1:33
Speaker0: it's going to be like a mini seminary in a podcast, but
1:36
Speaker0: I'm not going to be the professor because I've gotten into my handy dandy time
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Speaker0: machine and jumped back into the past and looked up the greatest preachers and
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Speaker0: teachers in the history of Christendom and basically asked them what their advice is.
1:55
Speaker0: And if you want to read this advice from them, including the sources,
2:00
Speaker0: now I'm not going to say the sources on this episode because that would be kind of boring.
2:04
Speaker0: I might mention a source or two, but I'm not going to give you the fullness
2:08
Speaker0: of the sources, but you can find that at our website, everychurchflourishing.com.
2:14
Speaker0: That's everychurchflourishing.com. And I want to start out, and we're kind of
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Speaker0: going to alternate between ancient wisdom and modern wisdom.
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Speaker0: On preaching and teaching. And number one, ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching
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Speaker0: from a guy named Augustine of Hippo, who lived 354 to 430 AD.
2:34
Speaker0: He was an African writer, theologian, and bishop.
2:37
Speaker0: He wrote the books, The City of God and the Confession of Augustine.
2:41
Speaker0: Before his conversion to Christianity, he lived a highly educated,
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Speaker0: but a bit of a profligate or hedonistic lifestyle.
2:49
Speaker0: He took a concubine at a very young age, lived with her for over a decade, had a son out of wedlock.
2:56
Speaker0: He stole pears from a vendor as a teenager and threw them to pigs.
3:02
Speaker0: He was in a cult for nine years, but later in life, he actually hated and vigorously
3:07
Speaker0: disputed against the slave traders in his area in his day.
3:12
Speaker0: In his book, Dei Doctrina Christiana, or on Christian doctrine,
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Speaker0: on Christian teachings.
3:18
Speaker0: It's a series of four books on how to pastor, preach, and teach. And this is what he says.
3:24
Speaker0: The preacher should be in no doubt that any ability he has, and however much
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Speaker0: he has, derives from his devotion to prayer rather than his dedication to oratory.
3:36
Speaker0: And so by praying for himself and for those he is about to address,
3:41
Speaker0: he must become a man of prayer before becoming a man of words.
3:46
Speaker0: As the hour of his address approaches.
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Speaker0: Before he opens his thrusting lips, he should lift his thirsting soul to God
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Speaker0: so that he may utter what he is drunk in and pour out what has filled him.
4:01
Speaker0: Ah, it's great. Great stuff.
4:03
Speaker0: Number two, modern wisdom on preaching and teaching. This is from Tabidi Anwabili,
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Speaker0: who is the pastor at Anacostia River Church in Washington, D.C.
4:14
Speaker0: Before that, he pastored in the Bahamas. And if I was him, choice between D.C.
4:19
Speaker0: And the Bahamas, I think I would have stayed in the Bahamas.
4:23
Speaker0: That's an amazing place. But apparently Pastor Tabidi is not a huge fan of the beach.
4:28
Speaker0: But back in the day, he was with the Gospel Coalition. He's written a lot of books and articles.
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Speaker0: And he says this.
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Speaker0: First, a preacher without a Bible has no authority.
4:38
Speaker0: He's really not a Christian preacher at all. He can't be trusted.
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Speaker0: Even some men with Bibles can't be trusted. Surely the one who leaves it off
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Speaker0: altogether is better ignored than followed.
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Speaker0: Closed Bibles should result in closed mouths.
4:54
Speaker0: The preacher should not go beyond what is written.
4:57
Speaker0: Let us be careful of the temptation to insert our own opinions and rules under
5:04
Speaker0: the guise of application or exposition.
5:07
Speaker0: Let us be wary of the subtle coercion of God's people with a,
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Speaker0: thus saith the Lord, when the Lord has not said.
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Speaker0: Let us be watchful of our logical deductions and theological conclusions when
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Speaker0: they're really just our own preferences born of our convenience and human wisdom.
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Speaker0: Let's declare the whole counsel of God, which is to proclaim all he says in
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Speaker0: a text and nothing he leaves out.
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Speaker0: Good, good, solid word there. Number three, ancient wisdom on preaching and
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Speaker0: teaching from John Chrysostom, who was an early church father and preacher.
5:48
Speaker0: He lived 347 to 407 AD.
5:51
Speaker0: He eventually became the Archbishop of Constantinople.
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Speaker0: He was known to be an incredible public speaker and preacher.
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Speaker0: In fact, that name Chrysostom is not his last name.
6:03
Speaker0: It's his nickname, and it means golden mouth or golden tongue.
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Speaker0: And that was way before James Bond was ever thought of.
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Speaker0: He was such a good preacher and teacher and so popular to be listening to.
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Speaker0: The Roman emperor Arcadius in 397 decided that he wanted John to be in a bigger
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Speaker0: place instead of where he was at Antioch.
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Speaker0: He wanted him to be the new archbishop of Constantinople, but the emperor knew
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Speaker0: that the people would not want that.
6:33
Speaker0: So he arranged for a meeting of John and his people outside the city walls of Antioch.
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Speaker0: And once John was outside for that meeting, he was swiftly thrown into a carriage
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Speaker0: and basically kidnapped by Arcadius'
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Speaker0: military and secretly whisked away to go to Constantinople to be consecrated
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Speaker0: as the archbishop against his will.
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Speaker0: Well, here is his preaching advice. He says, there are many preachers who make long sermons.
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Speaker0: If they are well applauded, they are as glad as if they had obtained a kingdom.
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Speaker0: If they bring their sermon to an end in silence, you know, without clapping.
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Speaker0: Their despondency is worse, I may almost say, than hell.
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Speaker0: It is this that ruins churches, that you do not seek to hear sermons that touch
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Speaker0: the heart, but sermons that will delight your ears with their intonation and
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Speaker0: the structure of their phrases, just as if you were listening to singers and lute players.
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Speaker0: And we preachers humor your fancies instead of trying to crush them.
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Speaker0: Yep, he said that in the 300s. Just as Paul warned Timothy that people would
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Speaker0: have itching ears in the church, so did John Chrysostom say that was happening in the 300s.
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Speaker0: He is exhorting here preachers to not give out candy sermons that tickle ears,
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Speaker0: but powerful spiritual medicine sermons that come from the word and throne of
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Speaker0: God. And along those lines, he said,
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Speaker0: The goal of preaching is a pierced heart, not an amused intellect.
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Speaker0: Sermons are meant to be instruments of spiritual surgery designed to awaken
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Speaker0: dead souls, correct error, and conform the hearer to the image of Christ.
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Speaker0: The preacher who desires popularity will eventually domesticate the gospel serving
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Speaker0: ice cream to a sick child who desperately needs medicine.
8:38
Speaker0: Well, preacher friends, let's not do that. Let's not give candy to those who
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Speaker0: need something far more powerful and deeper.
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Speaker0: Number four, some modern wisdom on preaching and teaching from my guy,
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Speaker0: Martin Lloyd-Jones, who was a Welsh pastor, preacher who lived from 1899 to 1981.
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Speaker0: Well, modern in the sense that it was in my lifetime anyway.
9:02
Speaker0: He says preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire.
9:08
Speaker0: What is the chief end of preaching? It is to give men and women a sense of God in his presence.
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Speaker0: Well, Martin Lloyd-Jones was originally a medical doctor who became a preacher,
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Speaker0: and he's one of our best, in my opinion, modern pastoral theologians.
9:23
Speaker0: He preached with fire, and I love to listen to his sermons.
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Speaker0: You can still hear them. In fact, you can hear a lot of them free on the internet.
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Speaker0: He's telling us in his quote that preaching and teaching should be aware of
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Speaker0: the presence of God, stand in the presence of God, and seek to make people in
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Speaker0: the church who are listening aware of the presence of God.
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Speaker0: Preaching is not lecturing. It's not sharing one's theological opinion.
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Speaker0: Preaching should be bringing the word of God to people, making it understandable,
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Speaker0: applying it to their lives, and calling people to walk in the nearness and the presence of God.
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Speaker0: Number five, back to some ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching.
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Speaker0: This one from G2G, Gregory the Great, who lived from 540 to 604.
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Speaker0: And I'll just go ahead and give you a disclaimer.
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Speaker0: I don't agree with the theology of everybody I'm quoting on this episode.
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Speaker0: And Gregory I is one of those guys because he was a pope at one point.
10:23
Speaker0: And to be fair to him, though, he was absolutely horrified by the idea of becoming
10:28
Speaker0: pope. He, in fact, wrote letters to the emperor begging him not to confirm his
10:34
Speaker0: election, his election.
10:36
Speaker0: And according to historical legend, he, Gregory the Great, actually tried to
10:40
Speaker0: flee Rome by having himself smuggled out of the city gates in a giant wicker basket.
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Speaker0: I myself am also horrified by the idea of becoming a pope. And in case that
10:53
Speaker0: ever happens, I will also hide in a wicker basket if the president comes and
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Speaker0: tries to make you the pope or me the pope.
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Speaker0: Tries to make me the Pope, and I suggest you do the same.
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Speaker0: Gregory the Great did, however, write a very influential book on preaching and
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Speaker0: teaching and shepherding, and it was called On the Pastoral Rule or On the Pastoral Care,
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Speaker0: and it was an early guide for preachers and teachers, and this is what he says.
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Speaker0: Let them first, in other words, those who are speaking, pastors,
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Speaker0: preachers, and teachers, let them first correct their own sins through tears
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Speaker0: and then denounce what is punishable in others.
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Speaker0: But before they offer any words of exhortation, they should proclaim by their
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Speaker0: actions everything that they wish to say.
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Speaker0: No one does more harm in the church than he who has the title or rank of holiness and acts perversely.
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Speaker0: Because such a sinner is honored by the dignity of his rank,
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Speaker0: his offenses spread considerably by way of example.
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Speaker0: And yet everyone who is unworthy would flee from such a great burden of guilt
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Speaker0: if, with the attentive ear of the heart, he pondered the saying of the truth.
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Speaker0: He that scandalizes one of these little ones who believes in me,
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Speaker0: it would be better for him that a millstone was hung around his neck and that
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Speaker0: he was cast into the depth of the sea.
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Speaker0: So G2G is on to something here.
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Speaker0: He's restating the plankide teaching of Jesus. As a pastor, that's a constant
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Speaker0: challenge for me and probably for a lot of you that are listening,
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Speaker0: and it should be a challenge for us.
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Speaker0: Very rarely, if ever, am I myself preaching on a command of God or of Jesus
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Speaker0: that I have mastered, and thus I always try to remind our congregation that
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Speaker0: I am under the Word of God just like they are under the Word of God.
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Speaker0: Hypocrisy is gross, and hypocrisy in preachers, pastors, and church leaders is mega gross. Yes.
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Speaker0: One more note on Gregory the Great. He would probably hate that nickname.
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Speaker0: He apparently hated arrogance in church officials, which is,
13:04
Speaker0: of course, kind of ironic given the next few hundred years of the Catholic Church.
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Speaker0: But during his papacy, the patriarch of Constantinople, who was a guy called
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Speaker0: John the Faster, as in not speedy, but he fasted a lot.
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Speaker0: He started using the title for himself, universal bishop. So John the Faster,
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Speaker0: the universal bishop, to assert his dominance over the Eastern Church.
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Speaker0: And Gregory found this incredibly pompous, and he wasn't called Gregory the
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Speaker0: Great in his lifetime, right?
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Speaker0: He wrote furious letters telling John that whoever calls himself the universal
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Speaker0: priest is the forerunner to the Antichrist.
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Speaker0: And to kind of counter John the Faster's pride, Gregory adopted a new title
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Speaker0: for himself, which in Latin was service servorum Dei, which translates roughly
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Speaker0: to servant of the servants of God.
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Speaker0: And it was kind of a theological smackdown on Gregory's part,
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Speaker0: a bit like weaponized humility, but the title stuck.
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Speaker0: And then to this day, it's one of the official titles used by the Roman popes today.
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Speaker0: Unfortunately, so is Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church.
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Speaker0: So maybe we didn't learn quite as much from Gregory the Great as we could have.
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Speaker0: Also, if you've heard of Gregorian chant, that does come from the same guy,
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Speaker0: name-wise at least, but honestly, he almost had nothing to do with Gregorian chant.
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Speaker0: It seems like Gregorian chant kind of evolved and came around about 150 years after his death.
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Speaker0: All right, number six, we're back to the present.
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Speaker0: Modern Wisdom on Preaching and Teaching, Tim Keller, who lived from 1950 to 2023.
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Speaker0: I'm a Baptist, and Tim Keller's a Presby, and we probably don't agree on everything,
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Speaker0: but he has had a massive influence on my ministry and on my preaching.
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Speaker0: In my younger years of ministry, I was kind of a passionate, kind of hothead guy.
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Speaker0: I loved firebrand teachers like Leonard Ravenhill and John the Thundering Scott
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Speaker0: Knox and Dwight Moody and John Wesley and Charles Finney.
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Speaker0: But as I grew older in ministry, I kind of gravitated more to guys like John
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Speaker0: Piper, Charles Spurgeon,
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Speaker0: and Tim Keller, who combined deep theology with arrows of truth to the heart
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Speaker0: and some level of humility, I think.
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Speaker0: And Keller pastored Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City up until his
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Speaker0: death or right before his death.
15:41
Speaker0: And he planted the church, but not everybody knows he was like the third choice
15:45
Speaker0: of the Presbyterian Church in America to start that church.
15:49
Speaker0: He was a bald, slightly awkward professory kind of seminary guy who not very
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Speaker0: charismatic and loud and passionate.
15:59
Speaker0: He didn't fit the typical megachurch kind of deal. And the PCA tried to hire
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Speaker0: two other pastors before they hired him, but they both turned it down and therefore
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Speaker0: Keller kind of got the job.
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Speaker0: And not only is he a huge J.R.R. Tolkien guy, his wife, Kathy, was pen pals with C.S.
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Speaker0: Lewis when she was a kid, which is wild.
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Speaker0: And here's what our guy Tim Keller says about preaching. Okay.
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Speaker0: A good sermon is not like a club that beats upon the will, but like a sword
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Speaker0: that cuts to the heart. Now, what does that mean?
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Speaker0: Well, lots of preachers go for the blunt force trauma of trying to pound people
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Speaker0: into submission and obedience with their words, their shouting, and their force.
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Speaker0: But that's like using a club. People can be scolded or beaten into temporary
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Speaker0: compliance without ever being inwardly pierced.
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Speaker0: Christian preaching ought to
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Speaker0: expose, woo, humble, awaken, and reframe the heart beneath the behavior.
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Speaker0: It should pierce the heart, not beat people to death, not bludgeon the person
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Speaker0: into cowering compliance.
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Speaker0: Number seven, ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching.
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Speaker0: Back to Augustine of Pippo in the 300s and 400s, despite being one of the foundational
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Speaker0: intellects of Western civilization,
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Speaker0: Augustine was actually a pretty reluctant student who, even though he spoke
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Speaker0: Latin, he hated learning Greek.
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Speaker0: And this was in an era where the Romans were expected to know Greek and Latin equally well.
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Speaker0: Augustine constantly complained about the difficulty of the language and the
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Speaker0: harsh beatings, yes, beatings, his teachers handed out when he failed to properly
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Speaker0: memorize his vocabulary.
18:03
Speaker0: He was fine at Latin rhetoric and grammar, but his poor grasp of Greek meant
18:10
Speaker0: he kind of had to rely on Roman translations,
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Speaker0: Latin translations, to read the foundational Greek philosophers and early church
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Speaker0: fathers for most of his life, and this is what he said about preaching.
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Speaker0: You have to acknowledge and complain that often because you talk too long and
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Speaker0: with too little enthusiasm, it has befallen you to become commonplace and wearisome even to yourself,
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Speaker0: not to mention him who you were trying to instruct by your discourse and the
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Speaker0: others who were present as listeners. Yeah.
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Speaker0: This is pretty simple, but it's also important. What Augustine is saying is
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Speaker0: don't talk too long and be enthusiastic and passionate about your message.
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Speaker0: In other words, don't be boring.
18:58
Speaker0: Now, this doesn't mean fake enthusiasm. Most people can tell when you're faking
19:04
Speaker0: it, and I don't think fake it till you make it is really great preaching advice at all.
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Speaker0: Rather, let the word go deeply into your heart until it is ignited the embers
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Speaker0: there so that you can truly proclaim it in a fiery,
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Speaker0: passionate way with joy and wonder as the life-giving truth that it is.
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Speaker0: Number eight, modern wisdom on preaching and teaching from John Piper.
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Speaker0: Piper's my guy. I love him. I listen to a ton of his sermons and podcasts.
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Speaker0: He's not only a great preacher, he's a great academic too, but he's passionately
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Speaker0: in love with God and his word.
19:43
Speaker0: He combines heart and mind in what I believe to be a nearly perfect balance.
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Speaker0: If you aren't listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast, you probably should
19:54
Speaker0: be because it's the best source I know for applying biblical truth to practical questions.
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Speaker0: And I think there's like over 2000 episodes. It's an incredible number.
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Speaker0: Now, not everybody knows that Piper, when he started out in college,
20:09
Speaker0: did not intend to be a pastor or a theologian.
20:12
Speaker0: He went to college, like Martyn Lloyd-Jones, to become a medical doctor.
20:17
Speaker0: And during the summer of 1966, when he was at Wheaton College,
20:20
Speaker0: he was taking chemistry courses in pursuit of his medical degree, pre-med, and...
20:28
Speaker0: He came down with a severe case of monocleosis, and he got stuck in the campus
20:33
Speaker0: health center for like three weeks.
20:36
Speaker0: And during that time, just to keep from going crazy,
20:39
Speaker0: he would listen to the college radio station, and he ended up listening again
20:44
Speaker0: and again and again to the preaching of Harold John Okanga on the radio,
20:47
Speaker0: which moved him so deeply in his sickbed that he resolved right then and there
20:53
Speaker0: to drop organic chemistry and pursue ministry.
20:58
Speaker0: And this is what Piper says about preaching. I felt more alive in the pulpit than anywhere else.
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Speaker0: I worshiped God more. I loved him more, enjoyed him more in the pulpit than anywhere else.
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Speaker0: What we are doing there and going hard after God in song and reading and what I did are seamless.
21:17
Speaker0: That's my view of preaching. My view of preaching was I get to continue worship over the Bible.
21:25
Speaker0: That's all I want to do. I just want to continue that over the Bible.
21:29
Speaker0: My definition of preaching is expository exaltation.
21:35
Speaker0: So he's rightly connecting worship to the proclamation of the word.
21:41
Speaker0: And Piper's teaching us that preaching and teaching should be done with a worshipful
21:48
Speaker0: heart and worshipful proclamation.
21:51
Speaker0: Preaching is not a cold transmission of the truth, but rather an exulting proclamation
21:57
Speaker0: of the wonders of God that should be really similar to worship without music.
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Speaker0: He did it. I was dead. I was dead for this.
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Speaker0: Number nine, ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching.
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Speaker0: Back to our guide, John Chrysostom. He might have been golden mouth,
22:23
Speaker0: but he didn't like toilets made of precious metals.
22:27
Speaker0: In one of his most famously blunt sermons, he went on a tirade in the late 300s
22:34
Speaker0: against rich Christians who were letting the poor starve while they bought absurd.
22:52
Speaker0: Silver. I'm ashamed to say it, but you are not ashamed to do it.
22:57
Speaker0: Well, Chrysostom was such a good preacher that he considered forbidding his
23:02
Speaker0: audience from clapping while he was preaching.
23:05
Speaker0: And when he wrote about that, he said, believe me, I'm not speaking at random.
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Speaker0: When you applaud me as I speak, I feel at the moment the way it's natural for a man to feel.
23:17
Speaker0: I will be honest about it. Why shouldn't I?
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Speaker0: I'm delighted and overjoyed. And when I go home and reflect that the people
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Speaker0: who had been applauding me have received no benefit, and indeed.
23:29
Speaker0: That whatever benefit they might have had has been killed by the applauses and praises.
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Speaker0: I'm sore in my heart, and I lament and fail to tears, and I feel as though I
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Speaker0: had spoken altogether in vain.
23:43
Speaker0: And I say to myself, what is the good of all your labor, seeing that your hearers
23:47
Speaker0: don't want to reap any fruit at all out of what you say?
23:51
Speaker0: And I have often thought, says John Chrysostom, of laying down a rule absolutely
23:56
Speaker0: prohibiting all applause and urging you to listen in silence. Wow.
24:03
Speaker0: So what do we learn from this? Well, I think we learn to be careful about seeking
24:08
Speaker0: applause in the approval of men.
24:11
Speaker0: Paul said in Galatians 1.10, am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God?
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Speaker0: Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people,
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Speaker0: I would not be a servant of God.
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Speaker0: Number 10, mostly modern wisdom on preaching and teaching from C.S.
24:31
Speaker0: Lewis, who lived from 1898 to 1963.
24:35
Speaker0: So Lewis was an Irish born. Yes, he was Irish.
24:39
Speaker0: British adopted theologian and professor who may have been the best writer in
24:43
Speaker0: Christendom for the past 500 years or so, at least according to me.
24:47
Speaker0: Lewis is arguably the most famous Christian apologist of the 20th century.
24:52
Speaker0: He's beloved for his towering intellect and his way with words.
24:57
Speaker0: He created the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy, but behind his Oxford
25:02
Speaker0: pedigree and his cigars and his...
25:07
Speaker0: Tweed jackets and his very British persona. He was kind of a heavy drinker.
25:12
Speaker0: He spent most nights at the Eagle and Child pub.
25:16
Speaker0: He chained smoked cigarettes. And I think this was before we knew they were harmful.
25:22
Speaker0: He was constantly puffing on a pipe. And according to his biographers,
25:26
Speaker0: he had a boisterous and bawdy sense of humor.
25:29
Speaker0: When a group of American admirers once visited him and offered him water when
25:36
Speaker0: they were out to eat, he supposedly replied that water was only good for washing and he demanded a beer.
25:42
Speaker0: So he's a pretty colorful guy, but he was a follower of Jesus.
25:45
Speaker0: And his conversion came after several late night conversations with J.R.R.
25:51
Speaker0: Tolkien, who wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
25:54
Speaker0: But Lewis didn't become a Christian, however, until 1931, when he was riding
26:00
Speaker0: in the side car of a motorcycle being driven by his brother,
26:04
Speaker0: Warnie, and they were on their way to the Whipsnade Zoo, which is newly opened.
26:10
Speaker0: And Lewis, when he started the motorcycle ride, was reflecting on his conversations with Tolkien.
26:17
Speaker0: And by the end of it, he apparently became a Christian because what he said
26:20
Speaker0: was, when I set out, I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
26:25
Speaker0: And when we reached the zoo, I did.
26:27
Speaker0: So that's really interesting. Lewis's given name is Clive Staples Lewis.
26:33
Speaker0: Clive, a name he absolutely despised. And this is really interesting because
26:39
Speaker0: everybody called C.S. Lewis.
26:41
Speaker0: They didn't call him Clive. They didn't call him C.S. They didn't call him Clive Staples.
26:46
Speaker0: They called him Jack. And when he was just four years old, he had a puppy,
26:51
Speaker0: Jaxie, who was run over by a car.
26:54
Speaker0: And in response, Lewis marched up to his parents and he pointed to himself and
27:00
Speaker0: he declared that from then on, he would only answer to the name Jaxie.
27:06
Speaker0: And he stuck to that.
27:08
Speaker0: So his parents eventually started calling him Jaxie. Then it became shortened to Jax.
27:14
Speaker0: Then it became just Jack. And for the rest of his life, his family and all his
27:18
Speaker0: friends called him Jack, which is amazing to me. This is what Lewis says.
27:24
Speaker0: A man who first tries to guess what the public wants and then preaches that
27:30
Speaker0: as Christianity because the public wants it would be a pretty mixture of fool
27:36
Speaker0: and knave. I'm going to read it again. It's very short.
27:39
Speaker0: A man who first tries to guess what the public wants and preaches that as Christianity
27:44
Speaker0: because the public wants it would then be a pretty mixture of fool and knave.
27:50
Speaker0: So what is Lewis saying to us here?
27:53
Speaker0: It's really that preachers should not derive the subject or the focus of their
27:59
Speaker0: preaching or their sermon from what is popular, from what is being demanded,
28:03
Speaker0: or what itchy ears want to hear, but from the Word of God, but from the Bible.
28:08
Speaker0: And of course, most of us, if you're listening to this, would agree with that.
28:11
Speaker0: But we see some of the most successful numbers-wise churches in America being
28:16
Speaker0: built on the opposite of this principle.
28:19
Speaker0: You can gather followers by preaching what the public wants to hear about. That will grow.
28:25
Speaker0: I was going to say it will grow a church. It'll grow an organization,
28:29
Speaker0: but I don't think it'll grow the church.
28:31
Speaker0: And I don't think you can make disciples of Jesus that way.
28:35
Speaker0: OK, so that's 10 quotes on preaching.
28:38
Speaker0: I've got 10 more and I'll eventually release them as part of the podcast, too.
28:43
Speaker0: Like I said, they're going to be available for your reading and quoting and
28:47
Speaker0: cutting and pasting pleasure on our website, everychurchflourishing.com.
28:53
Speaker0: But as promised at the beginning, I've got one more bonus quote from you.
28:57
Speaker0: And this is one I would really like your take on it.
29:00
Speaker0: I'm wondering if you, the listener, think this is accurate.
29:05
Speaker0: And I would just ask you, there's a way to contact us through our website.
29:09
Speaker0: There's a way to leave us a voicemail through our website, everychurchflourishing.com.
29:13
Speaker0: If you're a listener to this podcast, I want to hear your take on Haddon Robinson's quote on preaching.
29:20
Speaker0: Now, Robinson lived from 1931 to 2017.
29:24
Speaker0: He was the professor of preaching for many years at Gordon-Conwell Seminary,
29:30
Speaker0: and he wrote seminary-level handbooks and textbooks on preaching.
29:35
Speaker0: He had a PhD from University of Illinois.
29:38
Speaker0: He was a big champion of expository preaching, and he was maybe the most influential
29:45
Speaker0: professor of preaching in seminary in the entire 20th century.
29:49
Speaker0: But before that, he was kind of a criminal.
29:52
Speaker0: He grew up in a pretty rough section of Harlem called Mousetown.
29:56
Speaker0: And during the 40s and 50s, he was part of a street gang.
30:00
Speaker0: And one night, the police intercepted his gang right before a violent street
30:05
Speaker0: fight was about to break out.
30:06
Speaker0: And a police officer searched him and they found a sharp ice pick hidden inside his clothes.
30:13
Speaker0: And the cop kind of asked him, What are you planning on doing with this weapon?
30:17
Speaker0: And without missing a beat, Robinson said, chop ice.
30:21
Speaker0: And the cop was not impressed and punched him out.
30:26
Speaker0: Well, eventually he got saved and left the ice picking people for fun lifestyle.
30:30
Speaker0: And on preaching, this is what he said.
30:33
Speaker0: Three or four ideas not related to a more inclusive idea do not make a message.
30:41
Speaker0: They make three or four sermonettes all preached at one time.
30:46
Speaker0: A sermon should be a bullet and not buckshot.
30:50
Speaker0: And if you know your guns, a bullet is one thing that fires straight ahead.
30:55
Speaker0: Buckshot is several projectiles. It fires in sort of a scattered pattern.
31:00
Speaker0: His take is that many sermons fail, not because they lack good material,
31:04
Speaker0: but because they contain too much of it.
31:07
Speaker0: A congregation usually remembers one clear, well-driven truth better than six
31:14
Speaker0: thin, spread out sporadic truths.
31:16
Speaker0: Atlanta megachurch pastor Andy Stanley also strongly agrees with this principle.
31:22
Speaker0: But to a degree, I kind of go back and forth on it. And the reason is this.
31:27
Speaker0: Most sermons I see in the Bible don't necessarily have just one point.
31:34
Speaker0: Many of them have more than one point. They're kind of multifaceted.
31:39
Speaker0: At least that's my take. What is your take?
31:42
Speaker0: Should all sermons boil down to one good point.
31:48
Speaker0: Well, we will tackle, well, I would love to include your feedback on that on
31:54
Speaker0: our next episode when we go through 10 more great quotes on preaching and teaching.
31:59
Speaker0: But for now, I will point you again to our website, everychurchflourishing.com.
32:04
Speaker0: I will invite you, as I always do, to review the show on Apple Podcasts and
32:08
Speaker0: tell a friend, tell a neighbor, Tell your family, tell a preacher about the show.
32:13
Speaker0: And that's how we grow by word of mouth. Thanks for listening.
32:17
Speaker0: Good day to you and Godspeed.