Pure Church

Somebody somewhere in the blogosphere recently plugged The Puritan Reformed Journal. It prompted me to dig out an old issue of the journal. I read Joel Beeke's article "God-Centered Theology in the Ministry of the Word," a brief exposition of 1 Cor. 1:1-2:5. It's an excellent brief treatment of the preaching ministry. But one of the things I found encouraging were the quotes on preaching sprinkled throughout the article. Here's a taste just for fun:

"Let us preach, as Francois Fenelon says, "with the zeal of a friend, the generous energy of a father and the exuberant affection of a mother."

Martin Luther: "I preach as though Christ was crucified yesterday, rose from the dead today, and is coming back tomorrow." (my favorite)

Charles Bridges: "Let Him be the diamond in the bosom of your every sermon."

Richard Baxter: "If we can but teach Christ to our people, we teach them all."

Spurgeon: "A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution.... When we preach Jesus Christ, then we are not putting out the plates, and the knives, and the forks, for the feast, but we are handing out the bread itself.... [Let us] preach Christ to sinners if we cannot preach sinners to Christ.... I wish that our ministry--and mine especially--might be tied and tethered to the cross."

Samuel Rutherford: "Next to Christ I have one joy, to preach Christ my Lord."

William Perkins: "Preach one Christ, by Christ, to the praise of Christ."

Martyn Lloyd-Jones: "I can forgive the preacher almost anything if he gives me a sense of God."

Joel Beeke: "Faithful ministers aim to give God the same place in their own hearts and in the hearts of their people as He holds in the universe."

Lloyd-Jones: "Preaching is theology come through a man who is on fire."