by R.L. Dabney
This may now be my favorite book on preaching. Dabney deals with sacred rhetoric as both science and art, and even more importantly, as a supernatural act.
As science, he breaks down the kinds of and parts of sermons. As art, he encourages more than Bible mad-libs, but as “the rational adjustment of means to an end.” As supernatural, he doesn’t tell preachers to seek an anointing, but to seek godly character. Again and again, Dabney emphasizes that character makes the difference. For a couple examples:
If this work has any peculiarities to which value may be attached, they are these: that the necessity of eminent Christian character is urged throughout as the foundation of the sacred orator’s power.
I wish you to infer hence this most momentous of all conclusions, that the prime qualification of the sacred orator is sincere, eminent piety.
On the manuscript or extemporaneous question, he leaves no doubt: no manuscript. Ha. He says this requires more than less preparation. I find that 1) I like and benefit from the drafting process, 2) I like and benefit from more notes to review/share later, and 3) I don’t have the amount of time it would take me to compensate for a weakness in quick external processing. I’m not refusing to grow, I’m acknowledging a combination of limits.
When I was in seminary I heard MacArthur reference Dabney’s “three stages through which preaching has repeatedly passed” multiple times: 1) “scriptural truth is faithfully presented in scriptural garb,” 2) “doctrines taught are still those of the Scriptures, but their relations are moulded into conformity with the prevalent human dialectics,” and 3) “the methods and explanations conformed to the philosophy of the day, but the doctrines themselves contradict the truth of the Word.” It was edifying to hear them again and in their own contextual dress.
Highly recommended to those responsible to preach the Word in season and out.
