Quotes About Sermons

When you objectively observe the most spiritual area to which modern people devote themselves, the religions, ask yourself if the basis of modern culture, particularly in religion, is not human self-interest. It is typical of modern sermons that the preacher criticizes people for their selfishness.

How is it that there are not many who are led by sermons to forsake open sin? Do you know what I think? That is because preachers have too much worldly wisdom.

words differently each time he told it; he was skilled enough as a storyteller that the arrangement of words didn't matter. It was different for Moseby, who never acted anything out when he gave his sermons; for him, the words were what was important. Jijingi realized that Moseby wrote down his sermons not because his memory was terrible but because he was looking for a specific arrangement of words. Once he found the one he wanted, he could hold on to it for as long as he needed.

The succeeding stage, very plainly announced in hysterical sermons, was to be the moment when apocalyptic nihilists coincided with Armageddon weaponry.

Gratitude is the praise we offer God: for teachers kind, benefactors never to be forgotten, for all who have advantaged me, by writings, sermons, converse, prayers, examples, for all these and all others which I know, which I know not, open, hidden, remembered, and forgotten.

The minister who keeps back hell from his people in his sermons is neither a faithful nor a charitable man.

Surely if men's hearts were right, short sermons would be enough.

Christians possess a shallow understanding of the gospel as a result of years of hearing short "gospel presentations" tacked onto the ends of sermons. Still others who know the message of Christ find themselves feeling awkward and incapable of sharing the good news clearly with family and friends. Taking steps to be sure we know the gospel with some clarity and depth, then, is necessary.

The reason can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does.

Our generation may be able to listen to sermons in a Joseph Campbellish way, treating Bible stories as instructional myths pointing to a deeper communal reality—that is, if we haven't replaced them with Star Wars myths or their equivalent—but don't ask us to believe with our heart and soul.

When the congregation becomes the norm by which sermons are measured, a minister has put a mortgage on his soul.

Basicamente los sermones me parecian una terapia de grupo a cargo de un terapeuta incompetente que se remitia a una teoria psicologica inventada por vacas.

Mrs Morel was happy, bullying her clergyman over his sermons, sitting at tea with a gentleman, who passed her the bread and butter, who waited for her to begin.

All truths wait in all things, They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it, They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon, The insignificant is as big to me as any, (What is less or more than a touch?) Logic and sermons never convince, The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.

Some of the best things I have ever thought of I have thought of during bad sermons.

No wonder so many sermons are devoted exclusively to spiritual subjects. If one is living by the tithes of history's most destructive economy, then the disembodiment of the soul becomes the chief of worldly conveniences.

He may not have the eloquence of a ready tongue, but will have that eloquence which is of the heart. His concern in the study will be not merely to prepare sermons, but, even more, to prepare his own heart. And when he preaches it will not be in feeble whispers, but with the spiritual vitality of the prophets and apostles, of whom he is a lineal descendant.

Among provocations the next best thing to good preaching is bad preaching. I have even more thoughts during or enduring it than at other times.

And the small ripple spilt upon the beach Scarcely o'erpass'd the cream of your champagne, When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach, That spring-dew of the spirit! the heart's rain! Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please,—the more because they preach in vain,— Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.

Christianity is a religion of great hope. Yet for some reason, I can remember many sermons on faith and many on love, but I can't remember many on hope.

The Jesus Prayer Having had my fill of listening, without acquiring any understanding of how to pray unceasingly, I gave up on such sermons that were geared to the general public. I then resolved, with the help of God, to seek an experienced and knowledgeable guide who would explain unceasing prayer to me, for I now found myself so irresistibly drawn to learning about it.38 —Anonymous, The Way of a Pilgrim

We cannot prove the contrary, to be sure—but I wish you a better fate Miss Price, than to be the wife of a man whose amiableness depends upon his own sermons; for though he may preach himself into a good humour every Sunday, it will be bad enough to have him quarrelling about green geese from Monday morning till Saturday night.

All work and no plagiarism makes for dull sermons!

So the bodhisattva saves all beings, not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they are delivered, they are liberated, by the act of not being able to stop changing.