Preach: Theology Meets Practice

Top Highlights

“Your goal ought to be to arrest attention from the moment you say the points. Create interest, raise questions, increase tension. Make people sit forward in their seats, anticipating how you’re going to resolve all this.” (Pages 90–91)

“Anytime God speaks in love to human beings it is an act of grace.” (Page 21)

“It tastes like watered-down gruel, not a nourishing meal. It simply isn’t serious enough. It’s too playful and chatty and casual. Its joy just doesn’t feel deep enough or heartbroken or well-rooted. The injustice and persecution and suffering and hellish realities in the world today are so many and so large and so close that I can’t help but think that, deep inside, people are longing for something weighty and massive and rooted and stable and eternal. So it seems to me that the trifling with silly little sketches and breezy welcome-to-the-den styles on Sunday morning are just out of touch with what matters in life.” (Pages 128–129)

“A pastorate is made up of a lot of sermons, and the fact is, most of those sermons are going to be singles rather than triples or home runs. But that’s fine. If the Lord is so kind as to give you even a long string of singles, that’s purely of His grace, and your congregation will benefit and grow from that.” (Page 130)

“His preaching ought to be aiming at building up Christians; it ought to be contributing to their maturity in Christ, as the teaching of a parent ‘trains up’ a child to full maturity.” (Page 55)