Wise Counsel for Preachers to Follow<\/p>\n
The year was 1768. A young preacher by the name of Augustus Toplady, who wrote many of our best hymns, including \u201cRock of Ages\u201d, spent the afternoon in London with an older, veteran Gospel preacher, whom he greatly admired and from whom he learned much.<\/p>\n
The older preacher was a Mr. Brewer. I know absolutely nothing about him except what he told Toplady that hot July afternoon in London 240 years ago. Toplady thought his words were worth writing down; and I\u2019m glad he did. This is what Mr. Brewer said to the 28 year old preacher, Augustus Toplady, as Toplady later recorded them in his diary\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot conclude without reminding you, my young brother of some things that may be of use to you in the course of your ministry:<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Preach Christ crucified, and dwell chiefly on the blessing resulting from His righteousness, atonement, and intercession.<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Avoid all needless controversies in the pulpit; except it be when your subject necessarily requires it; or when the truths of God are likely to suffer by your silence.<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When you ascend the pulpit, leave your learning behind you. Endeavour to preach more to the hearts of your people than to their heads.<\/p>\n
4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do not affect too much oratory. Seek rather to profit [your hearers] than to be admired [by them].\u201d<\/p>\n
I cannot imagine four more needful admonitions. Every preacher needs to constantly remind himself of these things. I try to give heed to them every time I preach.<\/p>\n
Don Fortner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wise Counsel for Preachers to Follow The year was 1768. A young preacher by the name of Augustus Toplady, who wrote many of our best hymns, including \u201cRock of Ages\u201d, spent the afternoon in London with an older, veteran Gospel preacher, whom he greatly admired and from whom he learned much. The older preacher was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-don-fortner","category-gospel-preaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":942,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions\/942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}