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

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.

1. Ancient Wisdom on Preaching and Teaching: Augustine of Hippo(354–430) AD was an African writer, theologian, philosopher and Bishop who wrote The City of God and Confessions. Before his conversion to Christianity, Augustine lived a highly educated but notoriously hedonistic lifestyle. He took a concubine at a young age, lived with her for over a decade, and had a son out of wedlock. Augustine stole pears as a teenager and threw them to pigs, was in a cult for 9 years, and hated and vigorously worked against slave traders in his day.

De doctrina Christiana ('On Christian Doctrine' or 'On Christian Teaching') is a series of four books written by Augustine that are all about how to interpret, preach and teach the Word of God.

He says, “[The Preacher] should be in no doubt that any ability he has and however much he has derives more from his devotion to prayer than his dedication to oratory; and so, by praying for himself and for those he is about to address, he must become a man of prayer before becoming a man of words. As the hour of his address approaches, before he opens his thrusting lips he should lift his thirsting soul to God so that he may utter what he has drunk in and pour out what has filled him.” Source: Augustine, On Christian Teaching, IV §87.

2. Modern Wisdom on Preaching and Teaching:Thabiti Anyabwile is a Christian pastor at Anacostia River Church in Washington D.C. and before that pastored in the Bahamas. I think I would have stayed in the Bahamas. He is a convert from Islam. He was with the Gospel Coalition, and has written many books and articles. While speaking at the massive Together for the Gospel (T4G) conference in 2008, he broke the ice by deadpanning to the audience that the name "Thabiti" is actually a Swahili word that loosely translates to: "Sure, invite the black guy to talk about race."

“First, a preacher without a Bible has no authority. He’s really not a Christian preacher at all. He can’t truly be trusted. Even some men with Bibles can’t be trusted; surely the one who leaves it off altogether is better ignored than followed. Closed Bibles should result in closed mouths…Third, the preacher should not go beyond what is written. Let us be careful of the temptation to insert our own opinions and rules under the guise of application or exposition. Let us be wary the subtle coercion of God’s people with a “Thus saith the Lord” when the Lord has not said. Let us be watchful of our “logical” deductions and “theological” conclusions when they’re really just our preferences born of our convenience and “wisdom.” Let us declare the whole counsel of God–which is to proclaim all He says in a text and nothing He leaves out.”

3. Ancient Wisdom on Preaching and Teaching: John Chrysostom (347-407) was a Church Father who served as Archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, and was nicknamed “Golden-mouth” or “Golden-tongue” way before James Bond was ever thought of. In fact, Chrysostomos wasn’t John’s last name, it was his nickname. He was such a good preacher that, in 397, the Roman Emperor Arcadius decided he wanted John to be the new Archbishop of Constantinople. Knowing the people of Antioch would revolt if they found out, an imperial official invited John to a meeting outside the city walls. Once John was outside, he was swiftly thrown into a carriage and secretly whisked away under military escort to the capital to be consecrated as Archbishop against his will. On preaching, he says:

"There are many preachers who make long sermons: if they are well applauded, they are as glad as if they had obtained a kingdom: if they bring their sermon to an end in silence, their despondency is worse, I may almost say, than hell. It is this that ruins churches, that you do not seek to hear sermons that touch the heart, but sermons that will delight your ears with their intonation and the structure of their phrases, just as if you were listening to singers and lute-players. And we preachers humor your fancies, instead of trying to crush them." Yes, John Chrysostom said that in the 300s. Just as Paul warned Timothy that people would have itching ears in the church, so did John Chrysostom say was happening in the 300s. He is here exhorting preachers to not give out candy sermons that tickle ears, but powerful spiritual medicine sermons that come from the Word and throne of God.

He further says, “The goal of preaching is a pierced heart, not an amused intellect. Sermons are meant to be instruments of spiritual surgery, designed to awaken dead souls, correct error, and conform the hearer to the image of Christ. The preacher who desires popularity will eventually domesticate the gospel, serving ice cream to a sick child who desperately needs medicine.”

Source: https://biblicalpreaching.net/2010/12/13/chrysostom-on-applause/ From John Chrysostom S. Chrys. Hom. xxx. In Act. Apost. c. 3, vol.ix. 238., quoted by Edwin Hatch in The influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, 1897, p111.

4. Modern Wisdom on Preaching and Teaching: Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Welsh pastor/preacher (1899-1981) “Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire … What is the chief end of preaching? It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence.”

MLJ was originally a medical doctor who became a preacher, and is one of our best modern pastoral theologians. He preached with fire, and I love listening to his sermons. He is telling us here that preaching and teaching should be aware of the presence of God, stand in awe of the presence of God, and seek to make listeners aware of the presence of God. Preaching is not merely lecturing, nor is it sharing one’s theological opinion. Preaching should be bringing the Word of God to people, making it understandable, applying it to their lives, and calling people to walk in the nearness of God.

Source: Tony Sargent, Gems from Martyn Lloyd-Jones: An Anthology of Quotations from “the Doctor” (Milton Keynes, England; Colorado Springs, CO; Hyderabad, AP: Paternoster., 2007), 232.

5. Ancient Wisdom on Preaching and Teaching: Gregory the Great, (540-604.) I don’t agree with the full theology of everyone on this list, and our guy Gregory I, one of the popes is certainly an example of that. To be fair to him though, Gregory was absolutely horrified by the idea of becoming Pope. He wrote letters begging the Emperor not to confirm his election and, according to historical legend, actually tried to flee Rome by having himself smuggled out of the city gates hidden inside a wicker merchant's basket. I am also horrified by the idea of becoming pope, and will likely also hide in a wicker basket if the Emporer tries to make my pope, and I suggest you do the same. GTG did, however, write a very influential book called “On the Pastoral Rule/Care” which was an early guide for pastors and ministers.

"Let them first correct their own sins through tears and then denounce what is punishable in others. But before they offer any words of exhortation, they should proclaim by their actions everything that they wish to say…“No one does more harm in the Church than he who has the title or rank of holiness and acts perversely. … [B]ecause such a sinner is honored by the dignity of his rank, his offenses spread considerably by way of example. And yet everyone who is unworthy would flee from such a great burden of guilt if, with the attentive ear of the heart, he pondered the saying of the Truth: ‘He that scandalizes one of these little ones who believes in me, it would be better for him that a millstone was hung around his neck and that he was cast into the depth of the sea.’"

GTG is on to something here - and he is restating the plankeye teaching of Jesus. As a pastor, this is a constant challenge for me, and it should be. Very rarely, if ever, am I preaching on a command or truth that I have mastered, and thus I often try to remind our congregation that we are ALL under the Word of God. Hypocrisy is gross, and hypocrisy in preachers, pastors and church leaders is mega-gross. Source: https://kirkmillerblog.com/2025/09/14/42-quotes-from-the-pastoral-rule-by-gregory-the-great/

One more note on Gregory the Great, who would probably hate that name! Gregory he apparently hated arrogance in church officials, which is kind of ironic given the next few hundred years in the Catholic church. During his papacy, the Patriarch of Constantinople (John the Faster) started using the title "Universal Bishop" to assert his dominance over the Eastern Church. Gregory found this incredibly pompous and wrote furious letters telling John that whoever calls himself the "Universal Priest" is the forerunner to the Antichrist. To counter John's pride, Gregory adopted a new official title for himself: Servus servorum Dei, which translates to "Servant of the Servants of God." It was an incredible theological smackdown, almost a bit like weaponized humility. The title stuck, and it is still one of the official titles used by Popes today. Unfortunately, so is ”Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church,” so maybe we didn’t learn as much from GTG as we could have.Also, “Gregorian Chant” comes from GTG, but honestly, he almost certainly had nothing to do with Gregorian chanting, which came about around 150 years after his lifetime.

6. Modern Wisdom on Preaching and Teaching: Tim Keller (1950-2023) I’m a Baptist, Keller’s a Presby, and we probably don’t agree on everything, but he has had a massive influence on my ministry and on my preaching. In my younger years, I loved firebrand preachers like Leonard Ravenhill, and John “The Thundering Scot” Knox, Moody, Finney and Wesley, but as I grew older in ministry, I gravitated more to John Piper, Charles Spurgeon, and Tim Keller, who combined deep theology with arrows of truth to the heart. Keller pastored Redeemer in NYC, and planted the church, but he was the third choice of the PCA denomination. Keller was a bald, slightly awkward seminary professor who didn't fit the typical flashy "megachurch planter" mold at all, and the PCA tried to hire two other pastors to plant Redeemer before Keller agreed to pastor the church. Not only is Keller a huge J.R.R. Tolkien guy, his wife Kathy was pen pals with C.S. Lewis when she was young. Here is what Keller says about preaching:

“A good sermon is not like a club that beats upon the will but like a sword that cuts to the heart.”

He embodied this truth well. Lots of preachers go for the blunt force trauma of trying to pound people into submission and obedience with their words, their shouting, and their force, but this is like using a club. People can be scolded into temporary compliance without ever being inwardly pierced. Christian preaching ought to expose, woo, humble, awaken, and reframe the heart beneath the behavior. It should pierce the heart, not bludgeon the person into cowering compliance.

7. Ancient Wisdom on Preaching and Teaching: Augustine of Hippo(354–430)

Another nugget about our guy Augustine, “Despite being one of the foundational intellects of Western civilization, Augustine was a reluctant student who actively hated learning Greek. In an era where highly educated Romans were expected to be bilingual, Augustine constantly complained about the difficulty of the language and the harsh beatings his teachers handed out when he failed to memorize his vocabulary. He mastered Latin rhetoric with ease, but his poor grasp of Greek meant he had to rely on translations to read the foundational Greek philosophers for most of his life.”

Here is some more advice from him about preaching:

“You have had, moreover, to acknowledge and complain that often, because you talked too long and with too little enthusiasm, it has befallen you to become commonplace and wearisome even to yourself, not to mention him whom you were trying to instruct by your discourse, and the others who were present as listeners.”

This is pretty simple, but also important: Don’t talk too long, and be enthusiastic and passionate about your message. Hear me - this doesn’t mean FAKE enthusiasm. Most people can tell when you are faking it, so don’t fake it until you make it. Rather, let the Word go deep into your heart until it has ignited the embers there so that you can truly proclaim it with joy and wonder, as the life-giving truth that it is!
Source: St. Augustine, St. Augustine: The First Catechetical Instruction, ed. Johannes Quasten and Joseph C. Plumpe, trans. Joseph P. Christopher, vol. 2, Ancient Christian Writers (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Newman Press, 1947), 13–14.

8. Modern Wisdom on Preaching and Teaching: John Piper.

Piper’s my guy. I love him, and have listened to a ton of his sermons. He is a great academic and a great preacher, but also passionately in love with God and His Word. He combines heart and mind in what I believe to be a nearly perfect balance. If you aren’t listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast, you probably should be because it is the best source I know of for applying biblical truth to practical questions, and there are thousands of episodes.

Piper never actually intended to be a pastor or a theologian; he went to college strictly intending to become a medical doctor. During the summer of 1966 at Wheaton College, he was taking chemistry courses to catch up for his pre-med track when he came down with a severe case of mononucleosis. Stuck in the campus health center for three weeks, he spent his time listening to the college radio station. He ended up listening to the preaching of Harold John Ockenga over the radio, which moved him so deeply that he resolved right there in his sickbed to drop organic chemistry and pursue ministry.

On preaching, Piper says, “I felt more alive in the pulpit than anywhere else. I worshiped God more, loved him more, enjoyed him more in the pulpit than anywhere else. What we are doing there in going hard after God in song and reading and what I did are seamless. That’s my view of preaching. My view of preaching was I get to continue that over the Bible. That’s all I want to do. I just want to continue that over the Bible. My definition of preaching is expository exultation.”

Piper is here rightly connecting worship to the proclamation of the Word, and is teaching us that preaching - and teaching - should be done with a worshipful heart and worshipful proclamation. Preaching is not a cold transmission of truth, but rather an exulting proclamation of the wonders of God that should be similar to worship without music.

9. Ancient Wisdom on Preaching and Teaching: John Chrysostom (347-407)

John might have been golden-mouthed, but he didn’t like toilets made of precious metals. In one of his most famously blunt sermons, he went on a tirade against rich Christians who were letting the poor starve while they bought absurd luxury goods—specifically calling them out for using solid silver chamber pots. He preached: "You make your chamber pots of silver... I am ashamed to say it, but you are not ashamed to do it!"

John Chrysostom was such a good preacher that he considered forbidding his audience from clapping when he was preaching. “Believe me, I am not speaking at random: when you applaud me as I speak, I feel at the moment as it is natural for a man to feel. I will make a clean breast of it. Why should I not? I am delighted and overjoyed. And then when I go home and reflect that the people who have been applauding me have received no benefit, and indeed that whatever benefit they might have had has been killed by the applause and praises, I am sore at heart, and I lament and fall to tears, and I feel as though I had spoken altogether in vain, and I say to myself, What is the good of all your labours, seeing that your hearers don’t want to reap any fruit out of all that you say? And I have often thought of laying down a rule absolutely prohibiting all applause, and urging you to listen in silence.” Source: https://biblicalpreaching.net/2010/12/13/chrysostom-on-applause/

What do we learn from this? Be careful about seeking applause and the approval of men! As Paul said, “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Galatians 1:10

10. Modern Wisdom on Preaching and Teaching: C.S. Lewis, 1898-1963.

C.S. Lewis was an Irish-born, British-adopted theologian and professor, who may have been the best writer in Christendom for the past 500 years or so, at least according to me. Lewis is arguably the most famous Christian apologist of the 20th century, beloved for his towering intellect and the creation of The Chronicles of Narnia. But behind the tweed jackets and Oxford pedigree, Lewis was famously a heavy drinker who spent his evenings downing pints at The Eagle and Child pub. He chain-smoked cigarettes, constantly puffed on a pipe, and had a boisterous, bawdy sense of humor. When a group of American admirers once visited him and offered him water, he supposedly replied that water was only good for washing and demanded a beer.

Lewis was indeed a follower of Jesus, though, and his conversion came after several late-night conversations with J.R.R. Tolkien, or Lord of the Rings and Hobbit fame. Lewis didn’t become a Christian, however, until 1931 when he was riding in the sidecar of a motorcycle being driven by his brother, Warnie. They were on their way to the newly opened Whipsnade Zoo to look at the animals. Lewis later wrote of the profoundly quiet realization: "When we set out, I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo, I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought."

Lewis’s given name was Clive Staples Lewis, a name he absolutely despised. When he was just four years old, his beloved dog, Jacksie, was tragically run over by a car. In response, the young Lewis marched up to his parents, pointed at himself, and declared that he would answer to nothing other than "Jacksie." He stubbornly stuck to this demand. Over the years, the name was shortened to "Jacks," and eventually just "Jack." For the rest of his life, his family, close friends, and the rest of the famous Inklings writing group exclusively called him Jack.

“A man who first tried to guess ‘what the public wants,’ and then preached that as Christianity because the public wants it, would be a pretty mixture of fool and knave”

Source: -C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

So, what is the colorful Lewis saying to us here? That, of course, preachers should not derive the subject of their message from what is popular, what is being demanded, or what itchy ears want to hear, but from God’s Word! And of course, most of us would agree with this, but we see some of the most successful, numbers-wise, churches in America being built on the opposite of this principle. You can gather followers by preaching what the public wants to hear about, but I don’t think you can make disciples of Jesus that way!

## BONUS QUOTE, I would love your take on this one. Haddon Robinson (1931-2017) was the Professor of Preaching for many years at Gordon-Conwell seminary, and wrote seminary level textbooks on preaching. He was big on expository preaching, and had a PhD. from the University of Illinois. Before he was maybe the most influential professor of preaching in the twentieth century, he was a bit of a criminal. Robinson grew up in a rough, tenement section of Harlem known as "Mouse Town" during the 1940s, where the young Robinson joined a local street gang. One night, the police intercepted his gang right before a violent street fight was about to break out. A police officer searched Robinson and found a sharp ice pick hidden inside his clothes. The cop snarled at him, asking what he planned to do with the weapon. Without missing a beat, Robinson deadpanned, "Chop ice." Unamused by the sarcasm, the officer promptly punched him out.

On preaching, he said, “Three or four ideas not related to a more inclusive idea do not make a message; they make three or four sermonettes all preached at one time…A sermon should be a bullet and not buckshot.”

His take is that many sermons fail, not because they lack good material, but because they contain too much of it. A congregation usually remembers one clear, well-driven truth better than six thin ones. Atlanta megachurch pastor Andy Stanley also strongly agrees with this principle, but I go back and forth on it for the simple reason that most sermons we see in the Bible do NOT have just one point, but almost all are multi-faceted. At least, that’s my take. WHAT IS YOUR TAKE? Should all sermons boil down to ONE good point?