“My tendency to neglect or shorten prayer and reading of Scripture, in order to hurry on to study, is another subject of humiliation. [I should pray] also that I may preach not myself but Christ Jesus alone in the Spirit.” – Andrew Bonar
Category Archives: Quotes
Hear Ye, Hear Ye
Know It to Wield It
“For the Gospel the Bible must be used. The minister must so live in it that he wears it easily. One reason why people are repelled from it is that the preachers cannot carry it with easy mastery. They are in Goliath’s armour. Now the ideal ministry must be a Bibliocracy. It must know its Bible better than any other book.” – P.T. Forsyth, Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, 37.
Praying for Pouring
“We may preach publicly, and from house to house; we may teach the young and warn the old, but all will be in vain. Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, briers and thorns shall grow. Our vineyard shall be like the garden of the sluggard. We need that Christ should awake; that He should make bare His arm as in the days of old; that He should shed down the Spirit abundantly.” – Robert Murray M’Cheyne
Old School Wisdom
“Just as we become aware of a meteor only when, after traveling silently through space for untold millions of miles, it blazes briefly through the atmosphere before dying in a shower of fire, so it is with Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria,” writes Michael Holmes.
The only time we meet Ignatius is in the final few weeks of his life as he journeys towards martyrdom in Rome, sometime between 98-117 AD. Along the way he wrote a series of seven letters full of interest to historians and pastors alike. Historians get a unique glimpse into the church’s history at that pivotal time and see an early church leader’s teaching on a variety of important matters. Pastors should enjoy these letters because they are short and overflowing with pithy prose on church ministry and church life.
I recently worked through Ignatius’ letters for a doctoral seminar at The Institution and here are a collection of quotes of unique service to ordinary pastors.
Ignatius’ Top Ten
- “When you (the church) meet together frequently, the powers of Satan are overthrown and his destructiveness is nullified by the unanimity of your faith.” (Ephesians, 13.1)
- “It is better to be silent and be real than to talk and not be real. It is good to teach, if one does what one says.” (Ephesians 15.1)
- “It is right, therefore, that we not just be called Christians, but that we actually be Christians.” (Magnesians, 4.1)
- “I am guarding you in advance because you are very dear to me and I foresee the snares of the devil. You, therefore, must arm yourselves with gentleness and regain your strength in faith and in love.” (Trallians, 8.1)
- “Where the shepherd is, there follow the sheep.” (Philadelphians, 2.1)
- “Flee from divisions as the beginning of evils.” (Smyrnaeans, 8.1)
- “Focus on unity, for there is nothing better.” (Polycarp, 1.2)
- “Devote yourself to unceasing prayers; ask for greater understanding than you have. Keep alert with an unresting spirit.” (Polycarp, 1.3)
- “If you love good disciples, it is of no credit to you; rather with gentleness bring the more troublesome ones into submission.” (Polycarp, 2.1)
- “Stand firm, like an anvil being struck with a hammer. It is the mark of a great athlete to be bruised, yet still conquer.” (Polycarp, 3.1)
Let It Be Said of Us
“Even more influential . . . was his personal religion, evinced especially in his famous Sunday afternoon conference addresses. He real and vital apprehension of the love of God in Christ, wrought his most characteristic work upon students.” – Said of Charles Hodges, quoted in Adam, Hearing God’s Words, 36.
A Desirable Appetite
“Laurence Chaderton, the extraordinarily long-lived Master of that nursery of Puritanism, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, once apologized to his congregation for preaching to them for two straight hours. Their response was, ‘For God’s sake, Sir, go on, go on!’ – Reeves, The Unquenchable Flame, 152-153.
Searching for Simple Servants
“The community of faith will place its confidence only in the simple servant of the Word of Jesus, because it knows that it will then be guided not by human wisdom and human conceit, but by the Word of the Good Shepherd.” – Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 107.
Preaching is Terrifyingly Thrilling
“For [Barth], no intellectual pursuit could possibly match the thrill and the terror of the bold and audacious venture to speak about God.” – Marsh, Strange Glory, 53.
More Wooing Than Warning
“Although every preacher must both woo and warn, the most regular note should be of wooing more than warning, more of the carrot than the stick, more of the beauty of holiness than the ugliness of sin, more of drawing Christ than highlighting the danger of the Devil, more of the attraction of heaven than the fear of hell.
“Let’s present Christ to our congregations or to our children and colleagues in all His glory. Let’s show them how much Jesus is willing and able to save and how much He desires and delights to save. He does not save because He has to but because He wants to and enjoys to.” — David Murray, The Happy Christian, 38.