When I begin my sermons I dare the person not to listen to me. Not that I'm that great — it's just that I've got something to say that's too important to ignore.
Charles Swindoll

If it were only texts or men we had to handle! But we have to handle the gospel.
P. T. Forsyth

Preaching right is a little like dressing right: You have to know what goes with what. Most pastors learn early on not to wear a paisley tie with a plaid shirt or white bucks with gray pinstripes.In the following chapter, Aurelius Augustine instructs preachers to dress their speech appropriately if they will declare the gospel with convincing results.But how does one fashion a sermon for the circumstances? When should a preacher shout, when plead, when whisper, when reason? Augustine ventures different styles — the temperate and the majestic — and proposes occasions for their use. He suggests the language to use and the effects to seek. For instance, in dissuading civil war in Mauritania, he knew applause counted little; ...

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