A great section from Spurgeon’s sermon ‘Paul – his cloak and his books’ on 2 Timothy 4:13. (HT: Justin Taylor)
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“We do not know what the books were about, and we can only form some guess as to what the parchments were. Paul had a few books which were left, perhaps wrapped up in the cloak, and Timothy was to be careful to bring them. Even an apostle must read.
Some of our very ultra Calvinistic brethren think that a minister who reads books and studies his sermon must be a very deplorable specimen of a preacher. A man who comes up into the pulpit, professes to take his text on the spot, and talks any quantity of nonsense, is the idol of many. If he will speak without premeditation, or pretend to do so, and never produce what they call a dish of dead men’s brains-oh! that is the preacher. How rebuked are they by the apostle!
He is inspired, and yet he wants books!
He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books!
He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books!
He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books!
He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a men to utter, yet he wants books!
He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books!
The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, “Give thyself unto reading.” The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own.
Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible. We are quite persuaded that the very best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master’s service. Paul cries, “Bring the books”-join in the cry.”
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Tim Keller on Writing a Sermon
Tim Keller’s answer to the question ‘How do you write a sermon?’
“So, two weeks ahead I sit down with the text of the passage of the Bible I’m going to preach on and I spent about four hours figuring out what I think the outline of that text is, the meaning of the text, I need to look up what the commentators think about, maybe problematic verses, and I come up with an outline and a basic, you might say an exegesis or an exposition of the passage itself. I write this up and I send it to my musicians, we’re going to be putting it in a bulletin and then they’re going to be choosing music for it. I send it to other preachers who some of them are going to be preaching sermons on the same text. Then, three days before, I sit down with this outline and I spend another four hours turning the bible study into a sermon and they’re not the same thing. Bible study is more abstract, what does the text say. The sermon is more life related, what does this mean to me. So I spend four hours two weeks ahead on the text. I spend four hours turning it into a life-related sermon and that’s usually on the Friday before. And then on Saturday, I spend another six hours on it just trying to make it shorter, because it’s always too long and so I make it shorter, make it shorter, make it shorter, make it shorter. So I spend about 14 to 16 hours a week writing a sermon and I spend all day preaching it because I speak four times on a Sunday. And so I actually put in about 25 hours a week into producing and delivering one public speaking presentation before I do anything else in my job.”
(from Big Think)