Category Archives: Preaching

Preachers and their preaching – Charles Simeon

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Charles Simeon (1759 – 1836) was converted to faith in Christ while he was a student at Cambridge University.  He became the minister of Holy Trinity, Cambridge, where he overcame resentment and prejudice to exercise an influential evangelical ministry.

Simeon’s approach to preaching has been discussed by J.I. Packer in an essay entitled ‘Expository Preaching: Charles Simeon and Ourselves’.  This was first published in Churchman in 1960, is reprinted in Packer’s Collected Shorter Works (Vol 3), and is available online here.…

Preachers and their preaching – C.H. Spurgeon

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) is widely regarded as the ‘Prince of Preachers’. Converted at the age of 15, he began preaching soon afterwards. In 1854, at the age of just 19, he was called to the pastorate at New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, London. Throughout his life – and well beyond – a weekly sermon was published. These were bound up in annual volumes – The New Park Street Pulpit, and then (following a move to purpose-built premises) the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.…

Preachers and their preaching – John Calvin

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I plan, in this series of posts, to explore different approaches to preaching taken by some of the leading figures (mainly) in the evangelical tradition.

First up, John Calvin (1509-1564).

The Reformers laid great weight on preaching, and the reason for this is found in their concept of the Word of God.  When God’s word is faithfully preached, God himself is speaking.  The preacher is an envoy, an ambassador, of God.  He is called by God and he preaches only what God in Holy Scripture commands him to preach.…

Application in preaching

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J.I. Packer sets out the different types of application with his customary insight and lucidity:-

The activity of application has an unvarying logic, which we can state thus: if this principle is truth from God, what difference should it make to our thinking, our resolves, our emotional attitudes, our motivation, and our view of our own spiritual state at this moment?  More fully: if this principle is truth that God teaches and guarantees, then the following questions arise:

1. …

Why has the credibility of preaching declined?

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J.I. Packer asks why preaching is not seen to be the force that it used to be, and suggests the following answers:-

1.  The prevalence of non-preaching in Christian pulpits has eroded awareness of what true preaching is.  Good models are rare.  Sermons are often built on wrong principles: some have failed to open up Scripture; some have expounded the Bible without applying it; some have addressed only the felt needs of the listeners without confronting them with the Word of god; some have been mere statements of the preacher’s own opinion, rather than messages from God carrying divine authority.…

Lk 10:38-42 – Martha – sermon notes

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I’d like you to imagine that you are visiting Bethany in the latter part of the 1st century AD.  Hoping to find some lodging for the night, you find a house with a little sign outside: “Visitors always welcome.”  You knock on the door.  An elderly but sprightly lady appears.  “Come in, come in!” she urges with a welcoming smile.  “You look very hot and tired – would you like to visit the bathroom to freshen up? …

‘Curbing a Frisky Theology’

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As David Day says in A Preaching Workbook, the preacher may be tempted to pass off his own opinion as if it were the word of God.  “Here are three points which I am prepared to attribute to the Holy Spirit and inflict on you” (Goldingay).

Of course, we preachers cannot keep ourselves completely out of the frame.  Our sermons communicate our theology.  As in flower-arranging, there is scope for variety – not only in the choice of blooms, but also the arrangement of them. …

Hearing the word with profit

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Another Puritan nugget on the subject of, well, hearing the word with profit:-

1. What is meant by ‘the word’?

It is the word of God, as written in Scripture, or (here) as preached by Christ’s ministers, 2 Tim 4:2.  Examples of preaching the word: Christ, Lk 4:17ff; 24:27; Peter, Acts 2:14ff; Paul, Acts 28:23.  See also Neh 8:7f; Acts 13:15; 15:1; 1 Tim 4:13.

2. What does it mean to ‘profit from the word’?

We profit from the word, when we gain a spiritual advantage from it, as God intended. …

Preaching and revival

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Having considered the central place of the Bible and of biblical doctrine in revival, we move on to examine how the word of God is proclaimed during periods of spiritual awakening.  R.E. Davies asserts that a factor which constantly recurs in revival and awakening is ‘powerful, urgent, relevant, Christ-centred preaching’.  As the same writer reminds us:-

On the Day of Pentecost, the 120 disciples were filled with the Spirit, and immediately began to speak in various languages about the wonderful works of God. …

Thoughts on growing old

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A bishop was making a pastoral visit to an old people’s home in his diocese.  He went up to one elderly lady, sitting in her chair, and asked her how long she’d been living there.  “Why do you want to know?” she snapped.

He carried on regardless.  “Do you have your own room?”

“Go away and leave me alone!” she said.

The bishop wasn’t used to this kind of response.  “Do you know who I am?”…