Preaching - The Man The Message & the Method

In the oft-cited words of the puritan Thomas Goodwin: God has only one Son, and he made him to be a preacher! Goodwin s point was to emphasis the nobility of a preacher s calling. In days when preaching is devalued and, in some quarters, despised, the reminder that our Lord was a preacher is timely and reassuring. In these days, we need all the reassurance about the value of preaching that we can get and this is precisely what Geoff Thomas gives us in this book.... In these pages, Geoff Thomas elaborates on several issues. One concern has to do with preaching itself: what it is, why we do it, why we do it in the way we do it. He is convinced that preaching is monological rather than dialogical. In that sense, preaching reflects the process of divine revelation itself. It is delivered as God s final and authoritative word to a dying world.... Another concern of Geoff Thomas is the content of what is preached. Preachers are to proclaim the whole counsel of God. Nothing is to be withheld....Those members who have sat under his preaching these many years have been taught both Law and Gospel, promise and threat, comfort and rebuke. The entire corpus of the field of systematic and biblical theology has been touched upon in some shape or another.... And this leads to another concern. The process whereby God makes his truth known is through human instruments....We are to be ourselves in the pulpit, and not the mimic of someone else. As we speak to the truth of God, rightly dividing the Word of God, it is God who speaks through us. We are not vehicles of inspiration but witnesses of the truth. We don t produce the Bible, we preach it....Holy preachers make preaching authoritative and Christ-like. Preachers must stand apart and be known for their piety.... Perhaps, above everything else, there is Geoff Thomas commitment to plainness of speech. It was J. C. Ryle, in his book, Evangelical Leaders of the 18th Century, who drew attention to this characteristic style of great preaching: They preached simply. They rightly concluded that the very first qualification to be aimed at in a Sermon is to be understood.

Publisher: Reformed Academic Press
Type: Paperback
ISBN: PRE11BP

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Rev. Geoffrey Thomas has been the minister of Alfred Place Baptist Church in Aberystwyth, Wales, since 1965.

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I’ve gained much from Pastor Geoff Thomas’s sermons and so was delighted to learn that he has also authored books that are just as insightful. This short volume on pastoring distills the wisdom gained from 50 years leading a small church in Wales. It reminded me of Ralph Turnbull’s A Minister’s Obstacles in that its vision of the pastoral ministry seems quaint in our era of mega-churches. He writes with joy of the privilege of the work of the ministry in a way I found endearing. It is not all romantic, though, for the minister must endure through the pain of church disunity and the sadness of seeing people reject Christ, and he cannot be a people-pleaser, for his calling is to proclaim truth. Thomas has a delightfully gentle manner that is undergirded with the strength of a mind centered in God’s truth. Although written for preachers, the book is excellent for laypeople as well — a welcome reminder of the privilege of our profound calling. Melissa