A Word on Preaching

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 8, 1883

A Word on Preaching.

SOMEONE, we believe it was the late Dr. Bacon, of New Haven, once remarked that a young minister will do more harm than good during the first five years of his ministry. However this may be, it is quite sure that he will learn many things during the first five years, the knowledge of which at the outset would have saved him from not a few more or less unhappy mistakes of judgment. Among other things, the sooner young preachers find out that what the people most need from the pulpit, and what as a rule they prefer, is the good news of salvation presented with essentially the simplicity of the Scripture narrative, the better it will be for them and their usefulness. As a rule, speculations and guesses are out of place in the pulpit. "Gentlemen," said Dr. John Hall to the theological students at Yale, "we are not heathen philosophers finding out things; we are expositors of a revelation that settles things." To speak with authority, yet simply, the magnificent and ever-inspiring truths that Jesus has committed to our testimony, is the substance of the preacher's work. With authority, and yet simply, as did Jesus, whether beside Gennesaret or within the precincts of the temple; almost as if speaking to children; with whatever scholarly grace and refinement and intelligence, and whatever wealth of illustration drawn from the stores of history, art, science, experience, yet simply. A young preacher once asked Dr. Dwight, "What is the best method of treating very difficult and abstruse points in mental philosophy?" "I cannot give you any information upon the subject," replied the Doctor; "I am not familiar with such topics; I leave them for young men."

—Morning Star.