I was invited to give this year’s annual “John Reed Miller Lectures” on preaching at Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson.
I came into my first pastoral call with no college education. I had no pastoral experience. Simply said, I had no clue what I was doing. But I had enough of a clue about my own inadequacy to know I needed mentors if I was ever to make good in the ministry. Being unmarried and thus unbound with my time, I read far and wide. I asked local ministers whom I deeply respected to meet with me regularly. In time, a company of carers surrounded me. Some were living, some had long passed to glory.
I entered gospel ministry just a few weeks after turning twenty-one. I had just retired from a comet-like soccer career. It shone for a minute and then disappeared the next. I didn’t know it at the time, but I can see clearly now that my time playing football flickered away when it did because the Lord had decreed that the pulpit, not the pitch, be my calling.
Time has marched ever onward, and I’m now over two decades into pastoral ministry. I still often think to myself, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” But if twenty years have confirmed anything, it’s that I think I can recognize ever better those who do know what they’re doing or did know what they were doing. The Lord has used some of these to comfort and convict, others to strengthen and solidify, and yet more to encourage and exhort. But only two have saved my soul in ministry. One is living, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, and the other is long gone, Robert Murray M’Cheyne.
So, when it came to the John Reed Miller lectures, I thought, “What do I have to offer? I’m not sure anyone is too interested in what Stone has to say.” But, I figured, there might be more utility in the talks if I centered them on someone who continues to interest so many people—Mr. M’Cheyne.
In the first three lectures, I tried to squeeze out the essentials of preaching as portrayed in M’Cheyne’s ministry. In the final lecture, I offered a series of proverbs on preaching, hoping to be as broadly practical as possible. You can listen to them here:
