April 15, 2026

Ancient Wisdom, Modern Fire: 10 Tips To Transform Your Preaching! (Top 10 Preaching Quotes of the Last 2000 Years.)

Show Notes
Transcript

2000 years of amazing preaching advice from John Piper to John Chrysostom, from Tim Keller to Augustine and Gregory the Great, From Martyn Lloyd Jones to Haddon Robinson to Gregory the Great to Thabiti Anyabwile, we've got ELEVEN fantastic tips to help YOU teach and preach the Word of God better. Not only that, but we have some amazing stories in this episode too, such as:

What preacher railed at his listeners for buying solid silver toilets? What preacher and future Pope tried to escape from the Roman Emporer in a wicker basket? What Evangelical icon preferred beer over water and NAMED HIMSELF after a dead dog? What famous pastor desired to be a doctor, but a severe bout with mononucleosis in college changed his mind, causing us to miss out on 2000 episodes of the possibly awesome Ask Doctor John Podcast?? You will find this AND MORE on this BONUD episode of the Every Church Flourishing Podcast.

This episode takes listeners on a fast-moving tour through nearly two thousand years of Christian wisdom on preaching and teaching, gathering counsel from church fathers, classic pastors, and modern evangelical voices. The central claim is simple: truly effective preaching has not fundamentally changed. Across the centuries, the best counsel still calls preachers to be prayerful, biblical, heartfelt, holy, and courageously faithful rather than clever, trendy, or applause-driven.

The episode begins with Augustine, who reminds us that preaching is born first in prayer, not in performance. Before becoming “a man of words,” the preacher must become a man of prayer, drawing deeply from God before attempting to pour truth into others. From there, Thabiti Anyabwile brings the same warning into the present: a preacher without a Bible has no authority, and a preacher must never go beyond what God has actually said. Scripture governs both the substance and the limits of faithful preaching.

John Chrysostom adds a needed rebuke for every age: preaching must aim at pierced hearts, not amused intellects. Sermons are not meant to be religious entertainment or polished performances designed to win praise. Martyn Lloyd-Jones echoes that concern in a different register, insisting that preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire and that its goal is to give people a sense of God and His presence. Together, they remind us that preaching should be spiritually weighty, not merely interesting or impressive.

Gregory the Great shifts the emphasis to the preacher’s life. Those who teach others must first be corrected by the truth themselves. Hypocrisy in the pulpit is not a minor flaw; it is a scandal. Augustine returns later with another practical insight: do not drone on endlessly, and do not preach without real feeling. Preaching should be animated by genuine enthusiasm born from a heart gripped by the beauty and urgency of God’s Word.

The modern voices deepen the same themes. Tim Keller argues that a good sermon should cut to the heart like a sword, not club the will into external compliance. John Piper describes preaching as “expository exultation,” joining exposition and worship so that the sermon becomes truth proclaimed with wonder. C.S. Lewis closes with a sharp warning against tailoring Christianity to public demand. The preacher’s job is not to guess what people want to hear, but to faithfully proclaim what God has said. The bonus insight from Haddon Robinson then adds a practical challenge: sermons need clarity, unity, and focus, not scattered good ideas. Altogether, the episode argues that the best preaching across the centuries is not man-centered performance, but God-centered proclamation that is prayerful, biblical, holy, vivid, and aimed at transformation.

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And hello, everybody, and welcome into episode number 14 of the Every Church Flourishing Podcast.

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But really, it's more of a bonus episode. I just have to number it that way

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for Apple Podcasts to keep up with everything.

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Today, we're going to look at 2,000 years of the best preaching advice from

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the early church fathers to modernity.

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I want to give you a top 10 list of the best quotes and writings and inspiration

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for preaching that have been taught and uttered over the past 2,000 years.

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If you are already a faithful listener to the podcast, you will have probably

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heard the first three of these tips because I included them at the end of the last episode.

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But don't worry, we have eight more full tips today, which is like a top 10 plus one bonus one.

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And I think they are going to be incredibly useful tips and quotes for ministry.

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And I do know that not everybody who listens to the Every Church Flourishing podcast is a pastor.

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In fact, of the people I know who listen.

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Most of them are not church pastors, but are deacons and leaders and teachers

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and small group leaders and youth pastors, etc.

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But I think the advice we're going to be doing today is helpful for pretty much every Christian,

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every Sunday school teacher, every small group leader, every mom and dad,

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every youth pastor and youth minister that disciples anybody.

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So we're going to have sort of like I said in the last episode,

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it's going to be like a mini seminary in a podcast, but

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I'm not going to be the professor because I've gotten into my handy dandy time

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machine and jumped back into the past and looked up the greatest preachers and

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teachers in the history of Christendom and basically asked them what their advice is.

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And if you want to read this advice from them, including the sources,

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now I'm not going to say the sources on this episode because that would be kind of boring.

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I might mention a source or two, but I'm not going to give you the fullness

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of the sources, but you can find that at our website, everychurchflourishing.com.

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That's everychurchflourishing.com. And I want to start out, and we're kind of

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going to alternate between ancient wisdom and modern wisdom.

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On preaching and teaching. And number one, ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching

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from a guy named Augustine of Hippo, who lived 354 to 430 AD.

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He was an African writer, theologian, and bishop.

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He wrote the books, The City of God and the Confession of Augustine.

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Before his conversion to Christianity, he lived a highly educated,

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but a bit of a profligate or hedonistic lifestyle.

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He took a concubine at a very young age, lived with her for over a decade, had a son out of wedlock.

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He stole pears from a vendor as a teenager and threw them to pigs.

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He was in a cult for nine years, but later in life, he actually hated and vigorously

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disputed against the slave traders in his area in his day.

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In his book, Dei Doctrina Christiana, or on Christian doctrine,

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on Christian teachings.

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It's a series of four books on how to pastor, preach, and teach. And this is what he says.

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The preacher should be in no doubt that any ability he has, and however much

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he has, derives from his devotion to prayer rather than his dedication to oratory.

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And so by praying for himself and for those he is about to address,

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he must become a man of prayer before becoming a man of words.

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As the hour of his address approaches.

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Before he opens his thrusting lips, he should lift his thirsting soul to God

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so that he may utter what he is drunk in and pour out what has filled him.

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Ah, it's great. Great stuff.

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Number two, modern wisdom on preaching and teaching. This is from Tabidi Anwabili,

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who is the pastor at Anacostia River Church in Washington, D.C.

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Before that, he pastored in the Bahamas. And if I was him, choice between D.C.

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And the Bahamas, I think I would have stayed in the Bahamas.

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That's an amazing place. But apparently Pastor Tabidi is not a huge fan of the beach.

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But back in the day, he was with the Gospel Coalition. He's written a lot of books and articles.

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And he says this.

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First, a preacher without a Bible has no authority.

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He's really not a Christian preacher at all. He can't be trusted.

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Even some men with Bibles can't be trusted. Surely the one who leaves it off

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altogether is better ignored than followed.

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Closed Bibles should result in closed mouths.

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The preacher should not go beyond what is written.

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Let us be careful of the temptation to insert our own opinions and rules under

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the guise of application or exposition.

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Let us be wary of the subtle coercion of God's people with a,

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thus saith the Lord, when the Lord has not said.

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Let us be watchful of our logical deductions and theological conclusions when

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they're really just our own preferences born of our convenience and human wisdom.

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Let's declare the whole counsel of God, which is to proclaim all he says in

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a text and nothing he leaves out.

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Good, good, solid word there. Number three, ancient wisdom on preaching and

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teaching from John Chrysostom, who was an early church father and preacher.

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He lived 347 to 407 AD.

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He eventually became the Archbishop of Constantinople.

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He was known to be an incredible public speaker and preacher.

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In fact, that name Chrysostom is not his last name.

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It's his nickname, and it means golden mouth or golden tongue.

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And that was way before James Bond was ever thought of.

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He was such a good preacher and teacher and so popular to be listening to.

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The Roman emperor Arcadius in 397 decided that he wanted John to be in a bigger

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place instead of where he was at Antioch.

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He wanted him to be the new archbishop of Constantinople, but the emperor knew

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that the people would not want that.

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So he arranged for a meeting of John and his people outside the city walls of Antioch.

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And once John was outside for that meeting, he was swiftly thrown into a carriage

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and basically kidnapped by Arcadius'

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military and secretly whisked away to go to Constantinople to be consecrated

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as the archbishop against his will.

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Well, here is his preaching advice. He says, there are many preachers who make long sermons.

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If they are well applauded, they are as glad as if they had obtained a kingdom.

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If they bring their sermon to an end in silence, you know, without clapping.

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Their despondency is worse, I may almost say, than hell.

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It is this that ruins churches, that you do not seek to hear sermons that touch

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the heart, but sermons that will delight your ears with their intonation and

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the structure of their phrases, just as if you were listening to singers and lute players.

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And we preachers humor your fancies instead of trying to crush them.

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Yep, he said that in the 300s. Just as Paul warned Timothy that people would

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have itching ears in the church, so did John Chrysostom say that was happening in the 300s.

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He is exhorting here preachers to not give out candy sermons that tickle ears,

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but powerful spiritual medicine sermons that come from the word and throne of

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God. And along those lines, he said,

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The goal of preaching is a pierced heart, not an amused intellect.

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Sermons are meant to be instruments of spiritual surgery designed to awaken

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dead souls, correct error, and conform the hearer to the image of Christ.

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The preacher who desires popularity will eventually domesticate the gospel serving

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ice cream to a sick child who desperately needs medicine.

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Well, preacher friends, let's not do that. Let's not give candy to those who

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need something far more powerful and deeper.

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Number four, some modern wisdom on preaching and teaching from my guy,

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Martin Lloyd-Jones, who was a Welsh pastor, preacher who lived from 1899 to 1981.

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Well, modern in the sense that it was in my lifetime anyway.

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He says preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire.

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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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Well, Martin Lloyd-Jones was originally a medical doctor who became a preacher,

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and he's one of our best, in my opinion, modern pastoral theologians.

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He preached with fire, and I love to listen to his sermons.

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You can still hear them. In fact, you can hear a lot of them free on the internet.

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He's telling us in his quote that preaching and teaching should be aware of

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the presence of God, stand in the presence of God, and seek to make people in

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the church who are listening aware of the presence of God.

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Preaching is not lecturing. It's not sharing one's theological opinion.

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Preaching should be bringing the word of God to people, making it understandable,

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applying it to their lives, and calling people to walk in the nearness and the presence of God.

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Number five, back to some ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching.

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This one from G2G, Gregory the Great, who lived from 540 to 604.

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And I'll just go ahead and give you a disclaimer.

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I don't agree with the theology of everybody I'm quoting on this episode.

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And Gregory I is one of those guys because he was a pope at one point.

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And to be fair to him, though, he was absolutely horrified by the idea of becoming

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pope. He, in fact, wrote letters to the emperor begging him not to confirm his

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election, his election.

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And according to historical legend, he, Gregory the Great, actually tried to

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flee Rome by having himself smuggled out of the city gates in a giant wicker basket.

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I myself am also horrified by the idea of becoming a pope. And in case that

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ever happens, I will also hide in a wicker basket if the president comes and

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tries to make you the pope or me the pope.

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Tries to make me the Pope, and I suggest you do the same.

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Gregory the Great did, however, write a very influential book on preaching and

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teaching and shepherding, and it was called On the Pastoral Rule or On the Pastoral Care,

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and it was an early guide for preachers and teachers, and this is what he says.

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Let them first, in other words, those who are speaking, pastors,

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preachers, and teachers, let them first correct their own sins through tears

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and then denounce what is punishable in others.

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But before they offer any words of exhortation, they should proclaim by their

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actions everything that they wish to say.

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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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Because such a sinner is honored by the dignity of his rank,

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his offenses spread considerably by way of example.

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And yet everyone who is unworthy would flee from such a great burden of guilt

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if, with the attentive ear of the heart, he pondered the saying of the truth.

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He that scandalizes one of these little ones who believes in me,

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it would be better for him that a millstone was hung around his neck and that

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he was cast into the depth of the sea.

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So G2G is on to something here.

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He's restating the plankide teaching of Jesus. As a pastor, that's a constant

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challenge for me and probably for a lot of you that are listening,

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and it should be a challenge for us.

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Very rarely, if ever, am I myself preaching on a command of God or of Jesus

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that I have mastered, and thus I always try to remind our congregation that

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I am under the Word of God just like they are under the Word of God.

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Hypocrisy is gross, and hypocrisy in preachers, pastors, and church leaders is mega gross. Yes.

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One more note on Gregory the Great. He would probably hate that nickname.

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He apparently hated arrogance in church officials, which is,

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of course, kind of ironic given the next few hundred years of the Catholic Church.

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But during his papacy, the patriarch of Constantinople, who was a guy called

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John the Faster, as in not speedy, but he fasted a lot.

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He started using the title for himself, universal bishop. So John the Faster,

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the universal bishop, to assert his dominance over the Eastern Church.

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And Gregory found this incredibly pompous, and he wasn't called Gregory the

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Great in his lifetime, right?

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He wrote furious letters telling John that whoever calls himself the universal

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priest is the forerunner to the Antichrist.

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And to kind of counter John the Faster's pride, Gregory adopted a new title

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for himself, which in Latin was service servorum Dei, which translates roughly

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to servant of the servants of God.

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And it was kind of a theological smackdown on Gregory's part,

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a bit like weaponized humility, but the title stuck.

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And then to this day, it's one of the official titles used by the Roman popes today.

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Unfortunately, so is Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church.

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So maybe we didn't learn quite as much from Gregory the Great as we could have.

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Also, if you've heard of Gregorian chant, that does come from the same guy,

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name-wise at least, but honestly, he almost had nothing to do with Gregorian chant.

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It seems like Gregorian chant kind of evolved and came around about 150 years after his death.

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All right, number six, we're back to the present.

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Modern Wisdom on Preaching and Teaching, Tim Keller, who lived from 1950 to 2023.

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I'm a Baptist, and Tim Keller's a Presby, and we probably don't agree on everything,

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but he has had a massive influence on my ministry and on my preaching.

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In my younger years of ministry, I was kind of a passionate, kind of hothead guy.

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I loved firebrand teachers like Leonard Ravenhill and John the Thundering Scott

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Knox and Dwight Moody and John Wesley and Charles Finney.

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But as I grew older in ministry, I kind of gravitated more to guys like John

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Piper, Charles Spurgeon,

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and Tim Keller, who combined deep theology with arrows of truth to the heart

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and some level of humility, I think.

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And Keller pastored Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City up until his

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death or right before his death.

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And he planted the church, but not everybody knows he was like the third choice

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of the Presbyterian Church in America to start that church.

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He was a bald, slightly awkward professory kind of seminary guy who not very

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charismatic and loud and passionate.

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He didn't fit the typical megachurch kind of deal. And the PCA tried to hire

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two other pastors before they hired him, but they both turned it down and therefore

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Keller kind of got the job.

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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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Lewis when she was a kid, which is wild.

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And here's what our guy Tim Keller says about preaching. Okay.

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A good sermon is not like a club that beats upon the will, but like a sword

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that cuts to the heart. Now, what does that mean?

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Well, lots of preachers go for the blunt force trauma of trying to pound people

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into submission and obedience with their words, their shouting, and their force.

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But that's like using a club. People can be scolded or beaten into temporary

00:16:55.355 --> 00:16:59.375
compliance without ever being inwardly pierced.

00:16:59.615 --> 00:17:01.535
Christian preaching ought to

00:17:01.535 --> 00:17:08.235
expose, woo, humble, awaken, and reframe the heart beneath the behavior.

00:17:08.395 --> 00:17:13.775
It should pierce the heart, not beat people to death, not bludgeon the person

00:17:13.775 --> 00:17:15.835
into cowering compliance.

00:17:23.725 --> 00:17:26.805
Number seven, ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching.

00:17:27.365 --> 00:17:34.745
Back to Augustine of Pippo in the 300s and 400s, despite being one of the foundational

00:17:34.745 --> 00:17:37.105
intellects of Western civilization,

00:17:37.705 --> 00:17:42.425
Augustine was actually a pretty reluctant student who, even though he spoke

00:17:42.425 --> 00:17:43.965
Latin, he hated learning Greek.

00:17:44.185 --> 00:17:50.385
And this was in an era where the Romans were expected to know Greek and Latin equally well.

00:17:50.985 --> 00:17:55.705
Augustine constantly complained about the difficulty of the language and the

00:17:55.705 --> 00:18:01.825
harsh beatings, yes, beatings, his teachers handed out when he failed to properly

00:18:01.825 --> 00:18:03.345
memorize his vocabulary.

00:18:03.965 --> 00:18:10.145
He was fine at Latin rhetoric and grammar, but his poor grasp of Greek meant

00:18:10.145 --> 00:18:14.085
he kind of had to rely on Roman translations,

00:18:14.345 --> 00:18:19.545
Latin translations, to read the foundational Greek philosophers and early church

00:18:19.545 --> 00:18:22.945
fathers for most of his life, and this is what he said about preaching.

00:18:23.205 --> 00:18:29.245
You have to acknowledge and complain that often because you talk too long and

00:18:29.245 --> 00:18:36.325
with too little enthusiasm, it has befallen you to become commonplace and wearisome even to yourself,

00:18:36.585 --> 00:18:41.405
not to mention him who you were trying to instruct by your discourse and the

00:18:41.405 --> 00:18:44.485
others who were present as listeners. Yeah.

00:18:44.962 --> 00:18:50.042
This is pretty simple, but it's also important. What Augustine is saying is

00:18:50.042 --> 00:18:55.602
don't talk too long and be enthusiastic and passionate about your message.

00:18:55.722 --> 00:18:57.862
In other words, don't be boring.

00:18:58.722 --> 00:19:04.482
Now, this doesn't mean fake enthusiasm. Most people can tell when you're faking

00:19:04.482 --> 00:19:09.642
it, and I don't think fake it till you make it is really great preaching advice at all.

00:19:09.642 --> 00:19:14.922
Rather, let the word go deeply into your heart until it is ignited the embers

00:19:14.922 --> 00:19:19.022
there so that you can truly proclaim it in a fiery,

00:19:19.262 --> 00:19:24.982
passionate way with joy and wonder as the life-giving truth that it is.

00:19:27.882 --> 00:19:33.122
Number eight, modern wisdom on preaching and teaching from John Piper.

00:19:33.362 --> 00:19:37.642
Piper's my guy. I love him. I listen to a ton of his sermons and podcasts.

00:19:37.642 --> 00:19:42.042
He's not only a great preacher, he's a great academic too, but he's passionately

00:19:42.042 --> 00:19:43.622
in love with God and his word.

00:19:43.862 --> 00:19:49.962
He combines heart and mind in what I believe to be a nearly perfect balance.

00:19:50.242 --> 00:19:54.622
If you aren't listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast, you probably should

00:19:54.622 --> 00:20:01.062
be because it's the best source I know for applying biblical truth to practical questions.

00:20:01.062 --> 00:20:05.402
And I think there's like over 2000 episodes. It's an incredible number.

00:20:05.402 --> 00:20:09.262
Now, not everybody knows that Piper, when he started out in college,

00:20:09.482 --> 00:20:12.102
did not intend to be a pastor or a theologian.

00:20:12.202 --> 00:20:17.282
He went to college, like Martyn Lloyd-Jones, to become a medical doctor.

00:20:17.482 --> 00:20:20.842
And during the summer of 1966, when he was at Wheaton College,

00:20:20.862 --> 00:20:27.462
he was taking chemistry courses in pursuit of his medical degree, pre-med, and...

00:20:28.263 --> 00:20:33.223
He came down with a severe case of monocleosis, and he got stuck in the campus

00:20:33.223 --> 00:20:35.943
health center for like three weeks.

00:20:36.183 --> 00:20:39.783
And during that time, just to keep from going crazy,

00:20:39.943 --> 00:20:44.103
he would listen to the college radio station, and he ended up listening again

00:20:44.103 --> 00:20:47.843
and again and again to the preaching of Harold John Okanga on the radio,

00:20:47.843 --> 00:20:53.543
which moved him so deeply in his sickbed that he resolved right then and there

00:20:53.543 --> 00:20:57.643
to drop organic chemistry and pursue ministry.

00:20:58.283 --> 00:21:03.883
And this is what Piper says about preaching. I felt more alive in the pulpit than anywhere else.

00:21:04.043 --> 00:21:10.803
I worshiped God more. I loved him more, enjoyed him more in the pulpit than anywhere else.

00:21:10.923 --> 00:21:16.863
What we are doing there and going hard after God in song and reading and what I did are seamless.

00:21:17.263 --> 00:21:24.843
That's my view of preaching. My view of preaching was I get to continue worship over the Bible.

00:21:25.063 --> 00:21:28.983
That's all I want to do. I just want to continue that over the Bible.

00:21:29.283 --> 00:21:35.343
My definition of preaching is expository exaltation.

00:21:35.483 --> 00:21:41.183
So he's rightly connecting worship to the proclamation of the word.

00:21:41.463 --> 00:21:48.403
And Piper's teaching us that preaching and teaching should be done with a worshipful

00:21:48.403 --> 00:21:51.523
heart and worshipful proclamation.

00:21:51.523 --> 00:21:57.623
Preaching is not a cold transmission of the truth, but rather an exulting proclamation

00:21:57.623 --> 00:22:03.563
of the wonders of God that should be really similar to worship without music.

00:22:07.990 --> 00:22:12.030
He did it. I was dead. I was dead for this.

00:22:14.770 --> 00:22:18.610
Number nine, ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching.

00:22:18.830 --> 00:22:23.450
Back to our guide, John Chrysostom. He might have been golden mouth,

00:22:23.670 --> 00:22:26.950
but he didn't like toilets made of precious metals.

00:22:27.750 --> 00:22:34.830
In one of his most famously blunt sermons, he went on a tirade in the late 300s

00:22:34.830 --> 00:22:39.810
against rich Christians who were letting the poor starve while they bought absurd.

00:22:52.190 --> 00:22:57.310
Silver. I'm ashamed to say it, but you are not ashamed to do it.

00:22:57.610 --> 00:23:02.530
Well, Chrysostom was such a good preacher that he considered forbidding his

00:23:02.530 --> 00:23:05.330
audience from clapping while he was preaching.

00:23:05.590 --> 00:23:10.090
And when he wrote about that, he said, believe me, I'm not speaking at random.

00:23:10.310 --> 00:23:17.070
When you applaud me as I speak, I feel at the moment the way it's natural for a man to feel.

00:23:17.190 --> 00:23:19.770
I will be honest about it. Why shouldn't I?

00:23:19.910 --> 00:23:24.310
I'm delighted and overjoyed. And when I go home and reflect that the people

00:23:24.310 --> 00:23:29.070
who had been applauding me have received no benefit, and indeed.

00:23:29.866 --> 00:23:35.106
That whatever benefit they might have had has been killed by the applauses and praises.

00:23:35.126 --> 00:23:40.966
I'm sore in my heart, and I lament and fail to tears, and I feel as though I

00:23:40.966 --> 00:23:43.326
had spoken altogether in vain.

00:23:43.446 --> 00:23:47.746
And I say to myself, what is the good of all your labor, seeing that your hearers

00:23:47.746 --> 00:23:51.206
don't want to reap any fruit at all out of what you say?

00:23:51.346 --> 00:23:56.846
And I have often thought, says John Chrysostom, of laying down a rule absolutely

00:23:56.846 --> 00:24:03.286
prohibiting all applause and urging you to listen in silence. Wow.

00:24:03.666 --> 00:24:08.706
So what do we learn from this? Well, I think we learn to be careful about seeking

00:24:08.706 --> 00:24:11.006
applause in the approval of men.

00:24:11.186 --> 00:24:17.526
Paul said in Galatians 1.10, am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God?

00:24:17.706 --> 00:24:21.546
Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people,

00:24:21.786 --> 00:24:24.646
I would not be a servant of God.

00:24:25.506 --> 00:24:31.726
Number 10, mostly modern wisdom on preaching and teaching from C.S.

00:24:31.886 --> 00:24:34.846
Lewis, who lived from 1898 to 1963.

00:24:35.466 --> 00:24:38.866
So Lewis was an Irish born. Yes, he was Irish.

00:24:39.286 --> 00:24:43.746
British adopted theologian and professor who may have been the best writer in

00:24:43.746 --> 00:24:47.126
Christendom for the past 500 years or so, at least according to me.

00:24:47.506 --> 00:24:52.366
Lewis is arguably the most famous Christian apologist of the 20th century.

00:24:52.366 --> 00:24:57.166
He's beloved for his towering intellect and his way with words.

00:24:57.366 --> 00:25:02.906
He created the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy, but behind his Oxford

00:25:02.906 --> 00:25:05.886
pedigree and his cigars and his...

00:25:07.054 --> 00:25:12.414
Tweed jackets and his very British persona. He was kind of a heavy drinker.

00:25:12.474 --> 00:25:15.894
He spent most nights at the Eagle and Child pub.

00:25:16.154 --> 00:25:21.954
He chained smoked cigarettes. And I think this was before we knew they were harmful.

00:25:22.174 --> 00:25:26.414
He was constantly puffing on a pipe. And according to his biographers,

00:25:26.634 --> 00:25:29.174
he had a boisterous and bawdy sense of humor.

00:25:29.394 --> 00:25:36.094
When a group of American admirers once visited him and offered him water when

00:25:36.094 --> 00:25:42.414
they were out to eat, he supposedly replied that water was only good for washing and he demanded a beer.

00:25:42.574 --> 00:25:45.674
So he's a pretty colorful guy, but he was a follower of Jesus.

00:25:45.954 --> 00:25:51.174
And his conversion came after several late night conversations with J.R.R.

00:25:51.334 --> 00:25:54.154
Tolkien, who wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

00:25:54.854 --> 00:26:00.374
But Lewis didn't become a Christian, however, until 1931, when he was riding

00:26:00.374 --> 00:26:04.414
in the side car of a motorcycle being driven by his brother,

00:26:04.634 --> 00:26:09.794
Warnie, and they were on their way to the Whipsnade Zoo, which is newly opened.

00:26:10.034 --> 00:26:16.894
And Lewis, when he started the motorcycle ride, was reflecting on his conversations with Tolkien.

00:26:17.114 --> 00:26:20.874
And by the end of it, he apparently became a Christian because what he said

00:26:20.874 --> 00:26:24.954
was, when I set out, I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.

00:26:25.074 --> 00:26:26.834
And when we reached the zoo, I did.

00:26:27.588 --> 00:26:33.428
So that's really interesting. Lewis's given name is Clive Staples Lewis.

00:26:33.768 --> 00:26:39.968
Clive, a name he absolutely despised. And this is really interesting because

00:26:39.968 --> 00:26:41.628
everybody called C.S. Lewis.

00:26:41.808 --> 00:26:46.228
They didn't call him Clive. They didn't call him C.S. They didn't call him Clive Staples.

00:26:46.408 --> 00:26:51.348
They called him Jack. And when he was just four years old, he had a puppy,

00:26:51.908 --> 00:26:54.368
Jaxie, who was run over by a car.

00:26:54.368 --> 00:27:00.208
And in response, Lewis marched up to his parents and he pointed to himself and

00:27:00.208 --> 00:27:05.868
he declared that from then on, he would only answer to the name Jaxie.

00:27:06.008 --> 00:27:08.688
And he stuck to that.

00:27:08.928 --> 00:27:14.128
So his parents eventually started calling him Jaxie. Then it became shortened to Jax.

00:27:14.308 --> 00:27:18.688
Then it became just Jack. And for the rest of his life, his family and all his

00:27:18.688 --> 00:27:24.168
friends called him Jack, which is amazing to me. This is what Lewis says.

00:27:24.897 --> 00:27:30.397
A man who first tries to guess what the public wants and then preaches that

00:27:30.397 --> 00:27:36.597
as Christianity because the public wants it would be a pretty mixture of fool

00:27:36.597 --> 00:27:39.077
and knave. I'm going to read it again. It's very short.

00:27:39.257 --> 00:27:44.077
A man who first tries to guess what the public wants and preaches that as Christianity

00:27:44.077 --> 00:27:50.137
because the public wants it would then be a pretty mixture of fool and knave.

00:27:50.377 --> 00:27:52.837
So what is Lewis saying to us here?

00:27:53.537 --> 00:27:59.017
It's really that preachers should not derive the subject or the focus of their

00:27:59.017 --> 00:28:03.197
preaching or their sermon from what is popular, from what is being demanded,

00:28:03.197 --> 00:28:08.417
or what itchy ears want to hear, but from the Word of God, but from the Bible.

00:28:08.597 --> 00:28:11.757
And of course, most of us, if you're listening to this, would agree with that.

00:28:11.897 --> 00:28:16.937
But we see some of the most successful numbers-wise churches in America being

00:28:16.937 --> 00:28:19.237
built on the opposite of this principle.

00:28:19.857 --> 00:28:24.857
You can gather followers by preaching what the public wants to hear about. That will grow.

00:28:25.277 --> 00:28:29.037
I was going to say it will grow a church. It'll grow an organization,

00:28:29.037 --> 00:28:31.317
but I don't think it'll grow the church.

00:28:31.457 --> 00:28:34.637
And I don't think you can make disciples of Jesus that way.

00:28:35.037 --> 00:28:37.717
OK, so that's 10 quotes on preaching.

00:28:38.157 --> 00:28:43.497
I've got 10 more and I'll eventually release them as part of the podcast, too.

00:28:43.957 --> 00:28:47.537
Like I said, they're going to be available for your reading and quoting and

00:28:47.537 --> 00:28:52.157
cutting and pasting pleasure on our website, everychurchflourishing.com.

00:28:53.326 --> 00:28:57.846
But as promised at the beginning, I've got one more bonus quote from you.

00:28:57.966 --> 00:29:00.806
And this is one I would really like your take on it.

00:29:00.946 --> 00:29:05.266
I'm wondering if you, the listener, think this is accurate.

00:29:05.446 --> 00:29:08.946
And I would just ask you, there's a way to contact us through our website.

00:29:09.106 --> 00:29:13.106
There's a way to leave us a voicemail through our website, everychurchflourishing.com.

00:29:13.166 --> 00:29:20.446
If you're a listener to this podcast, I want to hear your take on Haddon Robinson's quote on preaching.

00:29:20.446 --> 00:29:24.286
Now, Robinson lived from 1931 to 2017.

00:29:24.806 --> 00:29:30.746
He was the professor of preaching for many years at Gordon-Conwell Seminary,

00:29:30.746 --> 00:29:35.346
and he wrote seminary-level handbooks and textbooks on preaching.

00:29:35.346 --> 00:29:38.466
He had a PhD from University of Illinois.

00:29:38.466 --> 00:29:45.426
He was a big champion of expository preaching, and he was maybe the most influential

00:29:45.426 --> 00:29:49.446
professor of preaching in seminary in the entire 20th century.

00:29:49.446 --> 00:29:52.106
But before that, he was kind of a criminal.

00:29:52.326 --> 00:29:56.646
He grew up in a pretty rough section of Harlem called Mousetown.

00:29:56.866 --> 00:29:59.866
And during the 40s and 50s, he was part of a street gang.

00:30:00.046 --> 00:30:05.046
And one night, the police intercepted his gang right before a violent street

00:30:05.046 --> 00:30:06.626
fight was about to break out.

00:30:06.746 --> 00:30:13.266
And a police officer searched him and they found a sharp ice pick hidden inside his clothes.

00:30:13.486 --> 00:30:17.306
And the cop kind of asked him, What are you planning on doing with this weapon?

00:30:17.486 --> 00:30:21.146
And without missing a beat, Robinson said, chop ice.

00:30:21.406 --> 00:30:25.686
And the cop was not impressed and punched him out.

00:30:26.186 --> 00:30:30.786
Well, eventually he got saved and left the ice picking people for fun lifestyle.

00:30:30.786 --> 00:30:33.406
And on preaching, this is what he said.

00:30:33.866 --> 00:30:41.346
Three or four ideas not related to a more inclusive idea do not make a message.

00:30:41.346 --> 00:30:45.686
They make three or four sermonettes all preached at one time.

00:30:46.467 --> 00:30:50.727
A sermon should be a bullet and not buckshot.

00:30:50.947 --> 00:30:55.147
And if you know your guns, a bullet is one thing that fires straight ahead.

00:30:55.327 --> 00:31:00.387
Buckshot is several projectiles. It fires in sort of a scattered pattern.

00:31:00.607 --> 00:31:04.487
His take is that many sermons fail, not because they lack good material,

00:31:04.487 --> 00:31:07.007
but because they contain too much of it.

00:31:07.147 --> 00:31:14.087
A congregation usually remembers one clear, well-driven truth better than six

00:31:14.087 --> 00:31:16.627
thin, spread out sporadic truths.

00:31:16.827 --> 00:31:21.887
Atlanta megachurch pastor Andy Stanley also strongly agrees with this principle.

00:31:22.087 --> 00:31:27.227
But to a degree, I kind of go back and forth on it. And the reason is this.

00:31:27.467 --> 00:31:34.307
Most sermons I see in the Bible don't necessarily have just one point.

00:31:34.527 --> 00:31:38.807
Many of them have more than one point. They're kind of multifaceted.

00:31:39.007 --> 00:31:42.487
At least that's my take. What is your take?

00:31:42.767 --> 00:31:47.847
Should all sermons boil down to one good point.

00:31:48.067 --> 00:31:54.107