Preaching the Word

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 26, 1915

Preaching the Word

There is a growing feeling on the part of many thoughtful men and women in the various churches that there is a marked departure from the old-time preaching of the word on the part of many professed ministers of Christ. This was well expressed by Mr. R. A. Long, a business man of Kansas City, in an address which he gave to a missionary convention in Los Angeles. He said:—

“Before I close may I say to my preaching brethren, Would to God that our preachers would select for their texts less of those things outside of God’s Word, and more from within these two lids,” pointing to the Bible.

Commenting upon this the Lutheran of August 12 well says:—

“There is a sentence worth framing and hanging up in every pastor’s study. There is not the slightest doubt that many laymen leave the house of God on Sundays feeling that they have not been fed. They hear so much and read so much from day to day which has a transient, ephemeral value, that when the sermon soars no higher, they feel that they have been cheated. If there is one reason why many believe that the pulpit has lost power, here is the explanation of it beyond the shadow of a doubt. Thoughtful men who are immersed in the affairs of the world of necessity, and more than they care to be, want to be lifted into that higher, rarer atmosphere where the sunlight of heavenly truth plays upon their careworn, strenuous lives. They know what newspaper and other editors think and say six days of the week, and on the Lord’s Day they want to hear what God says.”