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

0:00 And hello, everybody, and welcome into episode number 14 of the Every Church Flourishing Podcast. But really, it's more of a bonus episode. I just have to number it that way for Apple Podcasts to keep up with everything. Today, we're going to look at 2,000 years of the best preaching advice from the early church fathers to modernity. I want to give you a top 10 list of the best quotes and writings and inspiration for preaching that have been taught and uttered over the past 2,000 years. If you are already a faithful listener to the podcast, you will have probably heard the first three of these tips because I included them at the end of the last episode.

0:44 But don't worry, we have eight more full tips today, which is like a top 10 plus one bonus one. And I think they are going to be incredibly useful tips and quotes for ministry. And I do know that not everybody who listens to the Every Church Flourishing podcast is a pastor. In fact, of the people I know who listen. Most of them are not church pastors, but are deacons and leaders and teachers and small group leaders and youth pastors, etc. But I think the advice we're going to be doing today is helpful for pretty much every Christian, every Sunday school teacher, every small group leader, every mom and dad, every youth pastor and youth minister that disciples anybody.

1:30 So we're going to have sort of like I said in the last episode, it's going to be like a mini seminary in a podcast, but I'm not going to be the professor because I've gotten into my handy dandy time machine and jumped back into the past and looked up the greatest preachers and teachers in the history of Christendom and basically asked them what their advice is. And if you want to read this advice from them, including the sources, now I'm not going to say the sources on this episode because that would be kind of boring. I might mention a source or two, but I'm not going to give you the fullness of the sources, but you can find that at our website, everychurchflourishing.com.

2:14 That's everychurchflourishing.com. And I want to start out, and we're kind of going to alternate between ancient wisdom and modern wisdom. On preaching and teaching. And number one, ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching from a guy named Augustine of Hippo, who lived 354 to 430 AD. He was an African writer, theologian, and bishop. He wrote the books, The City of God and the Confession of Augustine. Before his conversion to Christianity, he lived a highly educated, but a bit of a profligate or hedonistic lifestyle. He took a concubine at a very young age, lived with her for over a decade, had a son out of wedlock.

2:56 He stole pears from a vendor as a teenager and threw them to pigs. He was in a cult for nine years, but later in life, he actually hated and vigorously disputed against the slave traders in his area in his day. In his book, Dei Doctrina Christiana, or on Christian doctrine, on Christian teachings. It's a series of four books on how to pastor, preach, and teach. And this is what he says. The preacher should be in no doubt that any ability he has, and however much he has, derives from his devotion to prayer rather than his dedication to oratory.

3:36 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 is drunk in and pour out what has filled him. Ah, it's great. Great stuff. Number two, modern wisdom on preaching and teaching. This is from Tabidi Anwabili, who is the pastor at Anacostia River Church in Washington, D.C. Before that, he pastored in the Bahamas. And if I was him, choice between D.C.

4:19 And the Bahamas, I think I would have stayed in the Bahamas. That's an amazing place. But apparently Pastor Tabidi is not a huge fan of the beach. But back in the day, he was with the Gospel Coalition. He's written a lot of books and articles. And he says this. First, a preacher without a Bible has no authority. He's really not a Christian preacher at all. He can't 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. 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.

5:07 Let us be wary of 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 own preferences born of our convenience and human wisdom. Let's declare the whole counsel of God, which is to proclaim all he says in a text and nothing he leaves out. Good, good, solid word there. Number three, ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching from John Chrysostom, who was an early church father and preacher.

5:48 He lived 347 to 407 AD. He eventually became the Archbishop of Constantinople. He was known to be an incredible public speaker and preacher. In fact, that name Chrysostom is not his last name. It's his nickname, and it means golden mouth or golden tongue. And that was way before James Bond was ever thought of. He was such a good preacher and teacher and so popular to be listening to. The Roman emperor Arcadius in 397 decided that he wanted John to be in a bigger place instead of where he was at Antioch. He wanted him to be the new archbishop of Constantinople, but the emperor knew that the people would not want that.

6:33 So he arranged for a meeting of John and his people outside the city walls of Antioch. And once John was outside for that meeting, he was swiftly thrown into a carriage and basically kidnapped by Arcadius' military and secretly whisked away to go to Constantinople to be consecrated as the archbishop against his will. Well, here is his preaching advice. 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, you know, without clapping.

7:14 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. Yep, he said that in the 300s. Just as Paul warned Timothy that people would have itching ears in the church, so did John Chrysostom say that was happening in the 300s. He is exhorting here preachers to not give out candy sermons that tickle ears, but powerful spiritual medicine sermons that come from the word and throne of God. And along those lines, he said, The goal of preaching is a pierced heart, not an amused intellect.

8:12 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. Well, preacher friends, let's not do that. Let's not give candy to those who need something far more powerful and deeper. Number four, some modern wisdom on preaching and teaching from my guy, Martin Lloyd-Jones, who was a Welsh pastor, preacher who lived from 1899 to 1981.

8:58 Well, modern in the sense that it was in my lifetime anyway. He says 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 in his presence. Well, Martin Lloyd-Jones was originally a medical doctor who became a preacher, and he's one of our best, in my opinion, modern pastoral theologians. He preached with fire, and I love to listen to his sermons. You can still hear them. In fact, you can hear a lot of them free on the internet. He's telling us in his quote that preaching and teaching should be aware of the presence of God, stand in the presence of God, and seek to make people in the church who are listening aware of the presence of God.

9:43 Preaching is not lecturing. It's not 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 and the presence of God. Number five, back to some ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching. This one from G2G, Gregory the Great, who lived from 540 to 604. And I'll just go ahead and give you a disclaimer. I don't agree with the theology of everybody I'm quoting on this episode. And Gregory I is one of those guys because he was a pope at one point. And to be fair to him, though, he was absolutely horrified by the idea of becoming pope. He, in fact, wrote letters to the emperor begging him not to confirm his election, his election.

10:36 And according to historical legend, he, Gregory the Great, actually tried to flee Rome by having himself smuggled out of the city gates in a giant wicker basket. I myself am also horrified by the idea of becoming a pope. And in case that ever happens, I will also hide in a wicker basket if the president comes and tries to make you the pope or me the pope. Tries to make me the Pope, and I suggest you do the same. Gregory the Great did, however, write a very influential book on preaching and teaching and shepherding, and it was called On the Pastoral Rule or On the Pastoral Care, and it was an early guide for preachers and teachers, and this is what he says.

11:20 Let them first, in other words, those who are speaking, pastors, preachers, and teachers, 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. Because 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.

12:06 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. So G2G is on to something here. He's restating the plankide teaching of Jesus. As a pastor, that's a constant challenge for me and probably for a lot of you that are listening, and it should be a challenge for us. Very rarely, if ever, am I myself preaching on a command of God or of Jesus that I have mastered, and thus I always try to remind our congregation that I am under the Word of God just like they are under the Word of God.

12:46 Hypocrisy is gross, and hypocrisy in preachers, pastors, and church leaders is mega gross. Yes. One more note on Gregory the Great. He would probably hate that nickname. He apparently hated arrogance in church officials, which is, of course, kind of ironic given the next few hundred years of the Catholic Church. But during his papacy, the patriarch of Constantinople, who was a guy called John the Faster, as in not speedy, but he fasted a lot. He started using the title for himself, universal bishop. So John the Faster, the universal bishop, to assert his dominance over the Eastern Church.

13:30 And Gregory found this incredibly pompous, and he wasn't called Gregory the Great in his lifetime, right? He wrote furious letters telling John that whoever calls himself the universal priest is the forerunner to the Antichrist. And to kind of counter John the Faster's pride, Gregory adopted a new title for himself, which in Latin was service servorum Dei, which translates roughly to servant of the servants of God. And it was kind of a theological smackdown on Gregory's part, a bit like weaponized humility, but the title stuck. And then to this day, it's one of the official titles used by the Roman popes today.

14:14 Unfortunately, so is Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church. So maybe we didn't learn quite as much from Gregory the Great as we could have. Also, if you've heard of Gregorian chant, that does come from the same guy, name-wise at least, but honestly, he almost had nothing to do with Gregorian chant. It seems like Gregorian chant kind of evolved and came around about 150 years after his death. All right, number six, we're back to the present. Modern Wisdom on Preaching and Teaching, Tim Keller, who lived from 1950 to 2023. I'm a Baptist, and Tim 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.

15:01 In my younger years of ministry, I was kind of a passionate, kind of hothead guy. I loved firebrand teachers like Leonard Ravenhill and John the Thundering Scott Knox and Dwight Moody and John Wesley and Charles Finney. But as I grew older in ministry, I kind of gravitated more to guys like John Piper, Charles Spurgeon, and Tim Keller, who combined deep theology with arrows of truth to the heart and some level of humility, I think. And Keller pastored Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City up until his death or right before his death. And he planted the church, but not everybody knows he was like the third choice of the Presbyterian Church in America to start that church.

15:49 He was a bald, slightly awkward professory kind of seminary guy who not very charismatic and loud and passionate. He didn't fit the typical megachurch kind of deal. And the PCA tried to hire two other pastors before they hired him, but they both turned it down and therefore Keller kind of got the job. And not only is he a huge J.R.R. Tolkien guy, his wife, Kathy, was pen pals with C.S. Lewis when she was a kid, which is wild. And here's what our guy Tim Keller says about preaching. Okay. A good sermon is not like a club that beats upon the will, but like a sword that cuts to the heart. Now, what does that mean?

16:36 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 that's like using a club. People can be scolded or beaten 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 beat people to death, not bludgeon the person into cowering compliance.

17:23 Number seven, ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching. Back to Augustine of Pippo in the 300s and 400s, despite being one of the foundational intellects of Western civilization, Augustine was actually a pretty reluctant student who, even though he spoke Latin, he hated learning Greek. And this was in an era where the Romans were expected to know Greek and Latin equally well. Augustine constantly complained about the difficulty of the language and the harsh beatings, yes, beatings, his teachers handed out when he failed to properly memorize his vocabulary.

18:03 He was fine at Latin rhetoric and grammar, but his poor grasp of Greek meant he kind of had to rely on Roman translations, Latin translations, to read the foundational Greek philosophers and early church fathers for most of his life, and this is what he said about preaching. You have to acknowledge and complain that often because you talk too long and with too little enthusiasm, it has befallen you to become commonplace and wearisome even to yourself, not to mention him who you were trying to instruct by your discourse and the others who were present as listeners. Yeah.

18:44 This is pretty simple, but it's also important. What Augustine is saying is don't talk too long and be enthusiastic and passionate about your message. In other words, don't be boring. Now, this doesn't mean fake enthusiasm. Most people can tell when you're faking it, and I don't think fake it till you make it is really great preaching advice at all. Rather, let the word go deeply into your heart until it is ignited the embers there so that you can truly proclaim it in a fiery, passionate way with joy and wonder as the life-giving truth that it is.

19:27 Number eight, modern wisdom on preaching and teaching from John Piper. Piper's my guy. I love him. I listen to a ton of his sermons and podcasts. He's not only a great preacher, he's a great academic too, but he's 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's the best source I know for applying biblical truth to practical questions. And I think there's like over 2000 episodes. It's an incredible number. Now, not everybody knows that Piper, when he started out in college, did not intend to be a pastor or a theologian.

20:12 He went to college, like Martyn Lloyd-Jones, to become a medical doctor. And during the summer of 1966, when he was at Wheaton College, he was taking chemistry courses in pursuit of his medical degree, pre-med, and... He came down with a severe case of monocleosis, and he got stuck in the campus health center for like three weeks. And during that time, just to keep from going crazy, he would listen to the college radio station, and he ended up listening again and again and again to the preaching of Harold John Okanga on the radio, which moved him so deeply in his sickbed that he resolved right then and there to drop organic chemistry and pursue ministry.

20:58 And this is what Piper says about preaching. I felt more alive in the pulpit than anywhere else. I worshiped God more. I loved him more, enjoyed him more in the pulpit than anywhere else. What we are doing there and 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 worship 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 exaltation. So he's rightly connecting worship to the proclamation of the word.

21:41 And Piper's teaching us that preaching and teaching should be done with a worshipful heart and worshipful proclamation. Preaching is not a cold transmission of the truth, but rather an exulting proclamation of the wonders of God that should be really similar to worship without music. He did it. I was dead. I was dead for this. Number nine, ancient wisdom on preaching and teaching. Back to our guide, John Chrysostom. He might have been golden mouth, but he didn't like toilets made of precious metals.

22:27 In one of his most famously blunt sermons, he went on a tirade in the late 300s against rich Christians who were letting the poor starve while they bought absurd. Silver. I'm ashamed to say it, but you are not ashamed to do it. Well, Chrysostom was such a good preacher that he considered forbidding his audience from clapping while he was preaching. And when he wrote about that, he said, believe me, I'm not speaking at random.

23:10 When you applaud me as I speak, I feel at the moment the way it's natural for a man to feel. I will be honest about it. Why shouldn't I? I'm delighted and overjoyed. And when I go home and reflect that the people who had been applauding me have received no benefit, and indeed. That whatever benefit they might have had has been killed by the applauses and praises. I'm sore in my heart, and I lament and fail 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 labor, seeing that your hearers don't want to reap any fruit at all out of what you say?

23:51 And I have often thought, says John Chrysostom, of laying down a rule absolutely prohibiting all applause and urging you to listen in silence. Wow. So what do we learn from this? Well, I think we learn to be careful about seeking applause in the approval of men. Paul said in Galatians 1.10, 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 God. Number 10, mostly modern wisdom on preaching and teaching from C.S.

24:31 Lewis, who lived from 1898 to 1963. So Lewis was an Irish born. Yes, he was Irish. 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. He's beloved for his towering intellect and his way with words. He created the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy, but behind his Oxford pedigree and his cigars and his... Tweed jackets and his very British persona. He was kind of a heavy drinker.

25:12 He spent most nights at the Eagle and Child pub. He chained smoked cigarettes. And I think this was before we knew they were harmful. He was constantly puffing on a pipe. And according to his biographers, he had a boisterous and bawdy sense of humor. When a group of American admirers once visited him and offered him water when they were out to eat, he supposedly replied that water was only good for washing and he demanded a beer. So he's a pretty colorful guy, but he was a follower of Jesus. And his conversion came after several late night conversations with J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

25:54 But Lewis didn't become a Christian, however, until 1931, when he was riding in the side car of a motorcycle being driven by his brother, Warnie, and they were on their way to the Whipsnade Zoo, which is newly opened. And Lewis, when he started the motorcycle ride, was reflecting on his conversations with Tolkien. And by the end of it, he apparently became a Christian because what he said was, when I set out, I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. And when we reached the zoo, I did. So that's really interesting. Lewis's given name is Clive Staples Lewis. Clive, a name he absolutely despised. And this is really interesting because everybody called C.S. Lewis.

26:41 They didn't call him Clive. They didn't call him C.S. They didn't call him Clive Staples. They called him Jack. And when he was just four years old, he had a puppy, Jaxie, who was run over by a car. And in response, Lewis marched up to his parents and he pointed to himself and he declared that from then on, he would only answer to the name Jaxie. And he stuck to that. So his parents eventually started calling him Jaxie. Then it became shortened to Jax. Then it became just Jack. And for the rest of his life, his family and all his friends called him Jack, which is amazing to me. This is what Lewis says.

27:24 A man who first tries to guess what the public wants and then preaches that as Christianity because the public wants it would be a pretty mixture of fool and knave. I'm going to read it again. It's very short. A man who first tries to guess what the public wants and preaches that as Christianity because the public wants it would then be a pretty mixture of fool and knave. So what is Lewis saying to us here? It's really that preachers should not derive the subject or the focus of their preaching or their sermon from what is popular, from what is being demanded, or what itchy ears want to hear, but from the Word of God, but from the Bible.

28:08 And of course, most of us, if you're listening to this, would agree with that. 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. That will grow. I was going to say it will grow a church. It'll grow an organization, but I don't think it'll grow the church. And I don't think you can make disciples of Jesus that way. OK, so that's 10 quotes on preaching. I've got 10 more and I'll eventually release them as part of the podcast, too. Like I said, they're going to be available for your reading and quoting and cutting and pasting pleasure on our website, everychurchflourishing.com.

28:53 But as promised at the beginning, I've got one more bonus quote from you. And this is one I would really like your take on it. I'm wondering if you, the listener, think this is accurate. And I would just ask you, there's a way to contact us through our website. There's a way to leave us a voicemail through our website, everychurchflourishing.com. If you're a listener to this podcast, I want to hear your take on Haddon Robinson's quote on preaching. Now, Robinson lived from 1931 to 2017. He was the professor of preaching for many years at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, and he wrote seminary-level handbooks and textbooks on preaching.

29:35 He had a PhD from University of Illinois. He was a big champion of expository preaching, and he was maybe the most influential professor of preaching in seminary in the entire 20th century. But before that, he was kind of a criminal. He grew up in a pretty rough section of Harlem called Mousetown. And during the 40s and 50s, he was part of a street gang. And one night, the police intercepted his gang right before a violent street fight was about to break out. And a police officer searched him and they found a sharp ice pick hidden inside his clothes. And the cop kind of asked him, What are you planning on doing with this weapon?

30:17 And without missing a beat, Robinson said, chop ice. And the cop was not impressed and punched him out. Well, eventually he got saved and left the ice picking people for fun lifestyle. And on preaching, this is what 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. And if you know your guns, a bullet is one thing that fires straight ahead. Buckshot is several projectiles. It fires in sort of a scattered pattern.

31:00 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, spread out sporadic truths. Atlanta megachurch pastor Andy Stanley also strongly agrees with this principle. But to a degree, I kind of go back and forth on it. And the reason is this. Most sermons I see in the Bible don't necessarily have just one point. Many of them have more than one point. They're kind of multifaceted. At least that's my take. What is your take?

31:42 Should all sermons boil down to one good point. Well, we will tackle, well, I would love to include your feedback on that on our next episode when we go through 10 more great quotes on preaching and teaching. But for now, I will point you again to our website, everychurchflourishing.com. I will invite you, as I always do, to review the show on Apple Podcasts and tell a friend, tell a neighbor, Tell your family, tell a preacher about the show. And that's how we grow by word of mouth. Thanks for listening. Good day to you and Godspeed.