Required reading
Lectures to my students by Charles Spurgeon (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapter 2 (Anecdotes from the pulpit).
My summary
Today Spurgeon encourages the use of anecdotes.
To illustrate their use he gives examples from significant figures in church history, including:
(i) Latimer;
(ii) Taylor;
(iii) Brooks;
(iv) Adams;
(v) Gurnall;
(vi) Flavel;
(vii) Swinnock;
(viii) Watson;
(ix) Whitefield;
(x) Moody.
What grabbed me
I appreciated Spurgeon's encouragement to keep things simple: 'A young gentleman, after delivering an elaborate discourse, was told that not more than five or six in the congregation had been able to understand him. This he accepted as a tribute to his genius ; but I take leave to place him in the same class with another person who was accustomed to shake his head in the most profound manner, that he might make his prelections the more impressive; and this had some effect with the groundlings, until a shrewd Christian woman made the remark that he did shake his head certainly, but that there was nothing in it. Those who are too refined to be simple need to be refined again.'
Amen!
Next week's reading
Read Chapter 3 (The use of anecdotes and illustrations).
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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