Homiletics Quotes

“If your preaching of the gospel of God's free grace in Jesus Christ does not provoke the charge from some of antinomianism, you're not preaching the gospel of the free grace of God in Jesus Christ.”
― David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“It does not answer the aim which God had in this institution, merely for men to have good commentaries and expositions on the Scripture, and other good books of divinity; because, although these may tend, as well as preaching, to give a good doctrinal or speculative understanding of the word of God, yet they have not an equal tendency to impress them on men's hearts and affections. God hath appointed a particular and lively application of his word, in the preaching of it, as a fit means to affect sinners with the importance of religion, their own misery, the necessity of a remedy, and the glory and sufficiency of a remedy provided; to stir up the pure minds of the saints, quicken their affections by often bringing the great things of religion in their remembrance, and setting them in their proper colours, though they know them, and have been fully instructed in them already. ”
― Jonathan Edwards

“I repeat: the pressure to apply is a modernist pressure, not a biblical pressure. William Willimon observes that most congregations love hearing preaching with this application emphasis. The only problem, he says, is that such preaching is not biblical preaching. The 'subtext' of so much of this must-apply preaching is, 'You are gods unto yourselves. Through this insight, this set of principles, this well applied idea, you can save yourselves by yourselves'.”
― Darrell W. Johnson, The Glory of Preaching: Participating in God's Transformation of the World

“To translate the Word we must know two languages; to make it present we must know two epochs. This knowledge cannot be achieved without love.”
― Jean-Jacques von Allmen, Preaching and Congregation

“For our preaching to be what it ought to be, it is absolutely essential that our words remain completely human. We must not tolerate the slightest hint of Docetism in Christian homiletics. And this fact provides our greatest incentive not to preach fearfully, but freely.”
― Jean-Jacques von Allmen, Preaching and Congregation