Ministry of the word - Taylor - VI - Lecture 6

Required reading
Ministry of the word by William Taylor (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Lecture VI (The qualities of effective preaching - in the preacher).

My summary
Now Taylor teaches us the qualities of a preacher that are required if his sermon is to be effective.

Firstly the preacher needs earnestness.   This comes from:
(i) an intellectual conviction of the truth of those things which we proclaim;
(ii) a loving realisation of the fact that our hearers need to have these things said to them in order to be saved from the evils of time and perdition of eternity.

The second quality of effectiveness in the preacher is courage.  Taylor tells us that there is only one way of securing courage and that is by cultivating faith in the unseen presence of Christ with us.

The third element of effectivness in the preacher is tenderness: 'But how shall we acquire this gentleness ? There is but one answer, by remembering what we were ourselves, and how God dealt with us.'

Then Taylor makes some quick comments at the end about whether you should preach from a full manuscript or not.  While advocating the full manuscript, he does caution 'no one mode can be declared to be the only best'.

What grabbed me
I enjoyed Taylor's points about courage and tenderness: 'Many men are all courage, and many are all tenderness. But few combine them in one and the same address, yet that is what is most needed in our pulpits in these days. We want the amalgamation of the two, for the tenderest things are then most apt to stir up to practical reformation when they are uttered by one whose courage has not flinched from the proclamation of God's law; and the sternest things are then the strongest, when the tear-drop quivers in the eye of him who utters them. When, therefore, we are in the tender mood, we ought to give good heed that we manifest courage ; and when we are dealing in the terror of the Lord, then is the time to cultivate peculiar tenderness.'

The two go together.  One without the other is unbalanced preaching.  Both courage and tenderness should be sought by the preacher.

Next week's reading
Read Lecture VII (Expository preaching).

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.