Top Quotes and Takeaways From <em>Preaching</em> by Tim Keller

As part of A Year of Books on Preaching, I’m posting a review a month of a preaching book, and then a list of quotes and takeaways.

I posted a review of Tim Keller’s book Preaching earlier this week. Here are some of the top quotes and takeaways from his book.

Top Ten Quotes

We must beware of thinking the Sunday sermon can carry all the freight of any church’s ministry of the Word.

We should do the work it takes to make our communication of God’s truth good and leave it up to God how and how often he makes it great for the listener.

Wherever we go in the Bible, Jesus is the main subject.

To reach people gospel preachers must challenge the culture’s story at points of confrontation and finally retell the culture’s story, as it were, revealing how its deepest aspirations for good can be fulfilled only in Christ.

Every time you expound a Bible text, you are not finished unless you demonstrate how it shows us that we cannot save ourselves and that only Jesus can.

There are, in the end, only two ways to read the Bible: Is it basically about me or basically about Jesus? In other words, is it basically about what I must do or basically about what he has done?

The Christian preacher must be a critic of nonbelief. However, there is no virtue in being an unsympathetic one.

The gospel not only is the way we are saved but also is always the solution to every problem and the way to advance at every stage in the Christian life.

Try to remember that you are at odds with a system of beliefs far more than you are at war with a group of people.

The temptation will be to let the pulpit drive you to the Word, but instead you must let the Word drive you to the pulpit. Prepare the preacher more than you prepare the sermon.

Takeaways

• In general, preach expository series using mini-series to cover the various parts and genres of the Bible within a couple of years.
• When explaining any passage, place it within its canonical context, and show how it participates in the overarching narrative of God saving the world through Jesus.
• Learn skills to address a particular culture, such as explaining vocabulary, employing respected authorities, and demonstrating an understanding of doubts and objections.
• Use the gospel to address both believers and unbelievers at the same time.
• Learn the baseline narratives of late modernity and how to challenge them.
• Don’t just aim to deliver knowledge. Aim to make that knowledge live.
• Diversify conversation partners so you can diversify your application.
• Prepare the preacher more than you prepare the sermon.
• Aim to preach in such a way that you focus on Christ and the listeners and joyfully forget yourself.

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