More quotes from Meyer

Here are a few more quotes from F. B. Meyers book entitled Expository Preaching Plans and Methods (Meyer, F. B. Expository Preaching Plans and Methods. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1910).

Chapter III - ADVANTAGES OF THE METHOD

It is a sad discovery to find the woeful ignorance which prevails in congregations to-day of the great basic truths of religion, which should underpin the Christian experience. Probably we all shrink from preaching doctrinal sermons as such. The days are past when our people can stand chunks of doctrine piled on their plates for
their digestion. They are not able to masticate or digest them. Minced meat and minced small is more to their mind.(52)

This is why the short term of ministry, too much in vogue in the present day, is so greatly to be deplored. It does not give the minister the chance of unfolding the Bible to his people. He therefore wanders aimlessly over the entire surface of the boundless prairie, browsing here and there, according to his whim, instead of leading his flock systematically from one fenced-in portion, to another, until in due time the whole has been covered and has yielded its contribution to their health and well-being.(55)

When the minister is always turning to the Word of God for his authority, when his finger falls naturally on the open page where the proof text awaits his appeal, when each argument is clenched by the endorsement of the Divine Word, he not only places himself on the highest vantage-ground possible, but compels his people to stand before the Supreme Tribunal.(61)

There is, of course, a gradation in its[the Bible's] teachings, from the twilight of the earlier portions to the meridian of the Epistles of John, but it stands for evermore not only as the Illuminator and Comforter of the soul, but as the power-house from which the energy of God is passed into the sermons of the preacher and the resolutions of his congregation.(62)

I found this rather interesting:

For the most of us it is unwise to enter into detailed defence of the Bible. The familiar humourous story of the verger who said that he had heard all the Bampton lectures and was thankful to be still a believer, suggests that the effect of such sermons on ordinary people is rather in the direction of disturbing than of reassuring them. Probably the Bible is better left to give its own witness to itself. We are not sent to defend the Bible, but to give it utterance, and it will defend itself and its expositor.(62)