1.A Preacher-Scholar of the Founding Generation

Broadus was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, in 1827. He studied at the University of Virginia, where he excelled in the ancient languages, and from 1851 he served as pastor of the Baptist church in Charlottesville, the university town. In 1859 he became one of the four founding professors of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Greenville, South Carolina, alongside James P. Boyce, Basil Manly Jr. and William Williams. The Civil War soon closed the school, and Broadus preached to Confederate soldiers as a chaplain. When the seminary reopened in 1865 it had very few students. A story often told says that his homiletics class that year had only one student, a blind man, and that Broadus prepared his lectures for him as carefully as for a crowded hall. Those lectures grew into the Treatise, first published in 1870. The seminary moved to Louisville, Kentucky, in 1877, and Broadus served as its president from 1889 until his death in 1895. After him, Edwin C. Dargan revised the book in 1898, and Jesse B. Weatherspoon revised it again in 1944. The readings in this course use Broadus’s own first edition of 1870, which is in the public domain.

2.Why Take a Text at All?

Broadus starts with a word. “Text” comes from the Latin textus, something woven, the web of discourse. The word came to mean the connected writing on which a commentary is made, as distinct from the comments upon it. The earliest Christian sermons were running comments on long passages of Scripture, so preaching was “originally expository.” Only later did texts become short and sermons long. Should the custom of taking a text continue? Broadus answers yes, because it rests on a deep truth: “Our business is to teach God’s word.” He then lists six advantages. A text reminds preacher and people that the sermon brings God’s teaching, not the preacher’s wisdom, and this gives authority and confidence. A good text awakens interest at once. It helps hearers remember the train of thought. It gives the chance to explain a passage of Scripture. It keeps the preacher from wandering away from biblical subjects. And it brings variety, because a mind left to itself “will often fall back into its old ruts.”

3.Rules for Choosing a Text

Broadus offers practical rules. Avoid obscure texts unless you can truly make them clear and useful. Be careful with passages of great grandeur, which seem to promise a great effort, and announce them with modesty. Do not choose a text merely because it seems odd. But do not avoid a text because it is familiar. Luther called verses like John 3:16 “little Bibles,” and Broadus reminds us that “what we need is not absolute novelty, but simply freshness.” Do not neglect any part of Scripture, Old Testament or New. Do not preach on passages that textual study shows were not part of the original, such as 1 John 5:7 or Acts 8:37. That second example is striking for Baptists, since the verse contains a confession of faith before baptism. Broadus will not use it as a text, because honesty matters more than a convenient proof; believer’s baptism stands on other passages. Do not treat the sayings of uninspired people recorded in the Bible, like Job’s friends, as if they were divine teaching. Finally, keep in view the needs of the congregation. Keep a notebook of possible texts, and a list of sermons already preached, with date, place and text.

4.A Solemn Duty to Interpret

The second chapter turns to interpretation. Whoever uses a text and undertakes to apply its teachings, Broadus says, has a solemn duty: “we are solemnly bound to represent the text as meaning precisely what it does mean.” This sounds obvious, yet he finds it often broken. Some preachers openly admit that the writer meant one thing and then announce that they will use the words in another sense. Broadus answers sharply: “honored brother, see what you are doing.” Words torn from their meaning are no longer Scripture at all, only the preacher’s own sentence built from biblical words. Broadus is not rigid, however. A text may teach a principle that we apply to new cases, so long as we say that the application is ours. Paul’s “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” has many lawful uses. But a preacher who says he uses a passage “merely as a motto” has no right to make a Scriptural motto mean what he knows it does not mean.

5.Three Sources of Error

Broadus names three common errors. The first is misunderstanding the words themselves. Most preachers read a translation, and no translation is perfect. Biblical language is also popular and poetic, not technical. It often states something absolutely when it means it relatively, as when Jesus says a disciple must “hate” father and mother. The second error is ignoring the connection. No farmer or lawyer would read one sentence of a manual and ignore the rest. Broadus blames the division of the Bible into chapters and verses, which were added centuries later for reference and often break the sense. He recommends a Bible printed in paragraphs. The third error is improper spiritualizing, finding hidden meanings everywhere. Broadus traces it to Philo and Origen, and warns that such preaching is “too often only building castles in the air.” The New Testament itself treats some Old Testament events as types of Christ, and we may follow it. Beyond that, a preacher may draw illustrations from any story, but must not call them the meaning of the text.

6.Favorite Texts Misused

To show that this matters, Broadus examines favorite texts. Colossians 2:21, “Touch not, taste not, handle not,” was printed on banners against strong drink, yet Paul quotes these words as man-made rules that believers should not obey. Exodus 2:9, “Take this child away, and nurse it for me,” is sometimes preached to Sunday school teachers as God’s command, but it is the voice of Pharaoh’s daughter. Proverbs 18:24, about a friend closer than a brother, speaks of human friendship, not directly of Christ. Psalm 23:4 is often read only at funerals, but “the valley of the shadow of death” means the darkest valley. It covers temptation, sickness and grief, and death too. Here, Broadus says, a correct reading “does not destroy, but widens, its significance.” He admits the cost: “This practice will rob him of many texts, but will enrich him with many others.”

7.How to Study a Text

The chapter ends with brief positive rules. Interpret grammatically: find the precise meaning of the words, with a concordance, good translations and careful commentaries. Broadus quotes Whately: “Before writing your sermon, look at your text with a microscope.” Interpret logically: the connection of thought, sometimes the argument of a whole book, throws light on every text, and the context does not begin or end with the chapter. Interpret historically: geography, customs and the errors the writer was correcting all help; the supposed contradiction between Paul and James disappears when we see what each was aiming at. Interpret figuratively where there is good reason, remembering that language “may be highly figurative without being fictitious.” Interpret allegorically only where Scripture itself gives clear warrant. And interpret in accordance with the general teachings of Scripture, which are harmonious. Check the cross-references too; many have become “mighty in the Scriptures” by using them in their daily reading. Broadus offers hope to those without Greek and Hebrew: the English Baptist Andrew Fuller had little knowledge of them, yet his interpretations were “clear and safe.”

8.What a Baptist Preacher Takes from It Today

These chapters express a Baptist instinct. Baptists have long confessed that Scripture is the final authority for faith and practice, above creeds, councils and custom. They also believe that each believer may read the Bible and test what the preacher says, as the Bereans did in Acts 17:11. A pulpit that twists texts betrays both convictions. Broadus asks the preacher to stand under the text, not over it. His counsel fits pastors in Mexico, Cuba and across Latin America who preach from the Reina-Valera and may never study Greek. Fuller’s example shows that a careful reader of a good translation, with honest study of the context, can still preach faithfully. Other Christian traditions also value careful interpretation, and some give more room to the church’s tradition in reading Scripture. Broadus’s rule is simple and Baptist: let the passage say what God said through it. Strict interpretation, he promises, “will give far more than it takes away.”

9.Taking It to Heart

1.A Teacher’s Book for Preachers

The Treatise grew out of Broadus’s classroom at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which he helped to found in 1859 and later led as president. It reads like a wise teacher speaking to students: orderly, practical and full of examples from preachers he had read and heard. In these chapters he does not try to build a scientific system. He says plainly that his four classes of material “sometimes overlap,” since an illustration may explain, prove or move the heart all at once. His aim is practical: to help a preacher gather, choose and use the materials that will serve each sermon’s purpose. Broadus believed that the preacher’s great task is “to collect,” by observation, reading and reflection, “and then to select and adapt.” Both chapters belong to that task.

2.Why Preaching Must Explain

Broadus sees frequent need of explanation. Many passages are misunderstood, and many hearers have stopped noticing that they do not understand them. Important doctrines are known only vaguely, and those who reject them often reject something quite different from the real teaching. Practical questions about right and wrong perplex sincere believers. So Broadus insists: “Preaching ought to be not merely convincing and persuasive, but eminently instructive.” We often press people with arguments and appeals when what they really need is plain help about what to do and how to do it. And there are always newcomers: children growing up, strangers moving in, converts entering the church. Then come four homely cautions. Do not try to explain what is not true. Do not try to explain what you do not understand, for, as he asks, “How can the housewife cook what has never been caught?” Do not try to explain what cannot be explained, such as the inner nature of the Trinity; explain what Scripture does teach and stop there. And do not waste time explaining what needs no explanation. Faith, he says, is so simple that long explanations only make it seem mysterious. “Our main duty is to tell the people what to believe, and why they should believe it.”

3.Explaining Texts: Exposition, Narration, Description

In the study the preacher works out the meaning of a passage; in the pulpit he must “present results and not processes.” There must be no parade of Greek and no list of learned names, which Broadus calls “cheap erudition.” A few clear words, which come only from close thinking, often explain a passage best. Narration, telling Bible stories, must serve the sermon’s purpose. With a great figure like Moses, it is usually better to choose one trait, such as his meekness, and tell only what bears on it, than to retell his whole life. Description requires that the preacher first see the scene “with the mind’s eye,” by studying geography and customs and then imagining until the picture is clear. Then he should give a quick outline and a few telling details, so that the hearers’ imagination fills in the rest. Broadus imagines Martha at the door at Bethany, her face heated with vexation, trying to catch Mary’s eye. But he warns: “Avoid elaborate description.” The preacher has no time to paint finished pictures.

4.Explaining Subjects: Definition, Example, Comparison

Subjects need explaining too. Definition marks the limits of an idea, and the preacher must always define his subject to himself, even when he does not state the definition aloud. Broadus notes that Hebrews 11:1 is often called a definition of faith, but it is really one true statement about faith among others. Exemplification is often more useful than definition. It would be hard to define the difference between pride and vanity to a popular audience, but easy to show how a proud man and a vain man would act in the same situation. Instead of explaining faith, one may describe a believer. Examples from Bible history are the best of all, because they are familiar and they spread knowledge of the Scriptures. Comparison is among the commonest means of explanation, and here the Lord Jesus is our model. The great mass of His parables are comparisons: “The kingdom of heaven is like…” They show how important explanation is, and how wise it is to draw comparisons from things the hearers know.

5.The Many Uses of Illustration

To illustrate is to throw light, or lustre, on a subject. Broadus names their uses: to explain, to prove, to adorn and to render impressive. Some illustrations carry real argument by analogy. Paul’s pictures in Romans 6 and 7, dead to sin and alive to God, slaves of righteousness and married to Christ, are not just ornaments but proofs. Yet Broadus warns that a lovely comparison may seem to prove what it only resembles. Stories that only stir “a transient and aimless emotion” do no lasting good. Their right use is to soften the soil, then plant the seed of divine truth. Hearers often forget the preacher’s finest sentences but remember a simple story. So Broadus concludes: “The importance of illustration in preaching is beyond expression.” For children and most adults it is “simply indispensable.” And he settles the question with one sentence: “The example of our Lord decides the whole question.”

6.Where Illustrations Come From

Illustration may be drawn “from the whole realm of existence.” Broadus names six sources. Observation comes first: nature, and even more human life. Jesus spoke of sowing and harvest, of leaven and lamps, of debtors, weddings and children playing in the market. Pure invention is lawful if the story is true to life and we do not pretend it happened. Science may serve, but beware of borrowing grand passages from others; it is “wearing Saul’s armor.” History and biography have a special charm. The news may be used, but some preachers “get the text from the Bible, and the sermon from the newspapers.” Anecdotes must be true if told as true, and told without “embellishment.” Literature offers much, above all The Pilgrim’s Progress by the Baptist John Bunyan, which every preacher should know well. Proverbs, short and sharp, stay in the people’s minds. Best of all is Scripture itself, familiar to many, sacred to all, and spreading knowledge of the Bible each time it is used.

7.Cautions in Using Illustration

Broadus ends with three cautions. Do not use every illustration that comes to mind, or seek them for their own sake; useless ones are only “lumber.” Do not talk about illustrating, just illustrate. And above all, never turn attention away from the subject to the illustration itself. That warning is the heart of the chapter. Illustrations are servants. A preacher should keep gathering them all his life, in a notebook or in memory, but only so that people may see the truth more clearly.

8.What a Baptist Preacher Takes from It Today

Among the masters of illustration Broadus names two Baptists: Charles Spurgeon of London and the Welsh preacher Christmas Evans. Baptist churches have always included many plain working people, and Baptist preaching has always needed clear explanation and lively illustration. The same is true in Latin America today, where many congregations include children, new believers and people with little schooling. Spanish is rich in refranes, and Broadus would gladly have used them. Baptists also notice that the Lord gave His church two visible pictures of the gospel. Paul uses baptism to explain union with Christ in His death and resurrection (Romans 6:4), and the Lord’s Supper proclaims the Lord’s death until He comes (1 Corinthians 11:26). A preacher who learns to explain and illustrate well will also learn to explain these ordinances well. Above all, Broadus asks for honesty: true stories told truly, and illustrations that point to Christ.

9.Taking It to Heart

1.The Preacher as Architect

“In this respect,” Broadus writes, “the speaker is an architect.” The same stones and timber may become a house, a jail, a factory or a church, depending on the plan. In the same way, the same thoughts may make very different sermons. Arrangement helps the preacher first. Trying to order his thoughts suggests new ones; a clear plan helps him remember when he speaks without notes; and his feelings flow freely only when he senses order. Arrangement helps the hearers even more. It makes the sermon intelligible. Broadus quotes the sad remark of a devout listener after a disorderly sermon: “I do not know exactly what the preacher preached about.” Order also makes a sermon pleasing, persuasive and memorable. A man breaking a rock does not hit it all over, but strikes again and again along one line. Good arrangement, Broadus concludes, has three marks: unity, order and proportion. Such skill may not come easily, but “a fair degree of success in arrangement is certainly within the reach of all, provided they are willing to work.”

2.The Introduction: A Porch, Not a Second House

Broadus divides a sermon into three parts: introduction, discussion and conclusion. Most sermons need an introduction, because people dislike abruptness; a building looks better with a porch. Its two aims are to interest the hearers and to prepare them to understand. When a young preacher asked how to get the congregation’s attention, an older one replied, “Give ’em something to attend to.” Introductions may come from the text and its context, or from the subject. A good introduction leads naturally into the theme without stealing material from the body. It should usually present one thought, since “we do not want a porch to a porch.” It should be modest, not sensational, and carefully prepared. Above all, it must not be too long. One plain old man told a preacher, “you kept us so long in the porch this morning that we hardly got into the house at all.”

3.The Discussion: Plan, Proposition and Divisions

The body of the sermon must have a plan, or “it is not a discourse at all.” The preacher should seek not just a plan but the best plan, simple and fresh. Often he should state his subject in a clear proposition. Broadus contrasts a logical form, “Religion produces happiness,” with a rhetorical one, “The pleasures of piety.” Should a sermon have divisions? Broadus answers that they are not necessary, but usually helpful, for both hearers and preacher. Sermons often have three divisions, and Broadus explains why: three gives variety without burdening memory, and a common plan is simply “What? Why? What then?”, that is, explain, prove, apply. He advises seldom more than four heads. Divisions must be distinct, must not overlap, and must all relate to the subject in the same way. Transitions should be smooth, and are best when least noticed. Broadus adds a candid footnote: a student once handed him an outline with more than a hundred and twenty subdivisions. The analysis was almost faultless, but it “would have made an intolerable sermon.”

4.The Conclusion: A River, Not a Marsh

Preachers seldom neglect the introduction but often neglect the conclusion, which is more important. Great orators prepared their closing words with special care. Too many sermons fade at the end. “The conclusion ought to have moved like a river,” Broadus writes, but instead it “loses itself in some great marsh.” So the conclusion should always be prepared, while leaving freedom to adapt it in the moment. It may include a recapitulation of the main points, but its chief content is application. Yet not every sermon must end in an overwhelming appeal. A preacher must never pretend feeling he does not have; if the feeling has faded, he should leave out the impassioned close he prepared. Emotion is not the goal, but a means of moving the will. A closing exhortation should be specific to the subject. When the sermon has been one of warning or of invitation, it is sometimes natural to close with something of the opposite tendency. And the last words should be simple, not showy. “Do not be thinking of your reputation, good brother, but of your responsibility, and of your hearers’ salvation.”

5.Three Kinds of Sermons

Broadus then classifies sermons by their structure. In a subject sermon, the text supplies a subject, and the subject is then divided according to its own nature. This form encourages unity, logical thinking and full treatment of a doctrine. It is best when the subject is the specific theme of the text, not a loose motto. In a text sermon, the divisions come from the text itself. For example, on Psalm 73:24, 26, God is the believer’s all in all: “His guide through life. His support in death. His portion forever.” This keeps people in close contact with Scripture, which, Broadus notes, they love. The third kind is the expository sermon, which is mainly occupied with explaining a passage of Scripture, short or long. There is no sharp line between the kinds; one passes gradually from textual to expository preaching. But each needs unity. Broadus warns against sermons that are only “a series of remarks,” like the scattered fire of untrained soldiers.

6.The Case for Expository Preaching

Many preachers told Broadus that they believed in expository preaching but had no talent for it. He answered that few had ever trained themselves for it. He lists its advantages: it fits the very idea of preaching, it is the ancient method, it builds knowledge of Scripture in its connection, it fills sermons with biblical truth, it brings in passages that would otherwise never be preached, and it reduces the temptation to twist texts. People sometimes dislike it, because lazy preachers “read a passage of Scripture, and make a few remarks.” The cure is hard work. The great requirement is unity. The preacher must study the whole book before starting a series, select and group details instead of explaining every verse, and keep the connection before the people. Broadus admits that his own first attempt, a series on Colossians, was judged “on the whole a decided failure.” Broadus concludes that expository preaching is difficult, but grows easier and more delightful with every year of practice.

7.What a Baptist Preacher Takes from It Today

Baptist congregations gather around an open Bible, and many Baptist pastors today preach through whole books, as Broadus urged. His counsel fits that practice well: study the whole book first, find the unity of each passage, explain only what serves the people, and apply as you go. His chapters also speak to two moments in Baptist church life. First, the occasion of an ordinance can shape a sermon. At a baptism, the introduction may begin with what the congregation is about to see, and the sermon may explain Romans 6 or the Great Commission. At the Lord’s Supper, the sermon may lead the church to remember Christ’s death. Second, many Baptist churches close the sermon with an invitation to trust Christ and to follow Him in baptism. Broadus’s advice protects that moment. The appeal should be specific, honest and warm, never manufactured. Since Baptists baptize only those who profess faith, such honesty matters. Other traditions shape their sermons differently, for example around a lectionary of assigned readings, but Broadus’s call for unity, order and proportion serves every preacher.

8.Taking It to Heart

1.Style That Shows the Thought

“The most important property of style is perspicuity.” Good style, Broadus says, is like the air: it shows the thought, but is not itself seen. He improves the image: good style is like a stereoscope, the old viewer that made photographs look solid, which gives the thought “form and body and distinct outline.” Some hearers admire a grand-looking obscurity, as if it proved learning or depth. Broadus mentions a teacher in ancient Rome who told his pupils to make their ideas darker, and Buddhist teachers whose sayings were thought more sublime the less they were understood. “Alas! that preachers of the gospel are not always proof against this pitiful temptation.” The preacher has no such excuse. A clear law, a clear deed or a clear doctor’s prescription matters, but how much more the Word of God, “words of eternal life.”

2.Why the Preacher Must Be Clear

“A preacher is more solemnly bound than any other person to make his language perspicuous.” He also has a harder task than other speakers, because his audience includes both sexes, every age from early childhood, and every level of education. This difficulty should only make him work harder, for “what good can be done, save in proportion as we are understood?” Obscurity may also do harm. Some hearers are repelled. Others misunderstand, and so turn the preacher’s medicine into poison. Broadus quotes the Roman teacher Quintilian: we must take care “not that it shall be possible for him to understand, but that it shall be utterly impossible for him not to understand.”

3.Words the People Know

Clearness begins with words. Broadus warns against terms that have grown familiar to the preacher but that the people cannot understand at all. Most preachers learn to correct this, but some never do, and then, for most of their hearers, their sermons “might as well be delivered in German.” Some technical terms, like regeneration, cannot be avoided, but they should be explained often. In English, Broadus prefers the short, homely Anglo-Saxon words learned in childhood, which carry a warm “atmosphere of suggestion.” Clear words must also be exact. The preacher should seek the precise term for his thought and learn the fine differences between words that seem the same. Broadus tells of a gifted professor who worked hard to find the exact word, and adds: “Fluency is a gift, but precision is the fruit of labor.”

4.Sentences, Paragraphs and the Right Amount of Words

A mix of short and long sentences is best. Long sentences that hold the meaning until the end are hard for listeners, and pronouns must clearly show what they refer to. Paragraphs matter even more. Each should develop one thought, so that the whole hangs together. When speaking without notes, the preacher should think in points rather than pages, and “stick to your point.” Few men learn to develop a point in this orderly way without practice in writing paragraphs. Then comes the question of length. The briefest statement is not always the clearest. Broadus quotes Whately’s homely comparison: horses need hay and straw as well as grain, because the stomach needs some bulk; so ordinary minds need time to take in an idea. But wordiness is worse than too much brevity, because it only wearies. The cure is wise repetition in varied forms, varied illustration, and division of an idea into parts. Speaking differs from writing. In a book you can turn back a page, but in a sermon “each sentence perishes as it is born.”

5.Energy Begins in the Preacher

Energy, Broadus says, is what makes style eloquent, and “the chief requisite to an energetic style is an energetic nature.” There must be vigorous thought, earnest feeling and a firm purpose. Timid men may discover more of this than they expected, once practice gives them confidence. The next requisite is “something to say,” something the preacher truly believes and deeply feels to be important. Here the preacher has a great advantage, because no temporal interests are as weighty as eternal ones. “A truly mighty sacred orator is ‘mighty in the Scriptures.’” As to words, specific terms are stronger than general ones. Broadus repeats Campbell’s example: the Egyptians “sank as lead in the mighty waters” is far stronger than “fell as metal.” And Jesus’ words about the lilies lose their beauty if changed into “consider the flowers.” Adjectives added only for effect weaken a sentence. If you cut a bough to knock a man down with it, you trim away the blossoms.

6.Strong Sentences and Living Figures

Word order gives force. The beginning and end of a sentence are the strongest places. Peter’s “Silver and gold have I none” is far stronger than “I have no gold and silver.” Contrast gives force too, as in Jesus’ words that the Sabbath was made for man. But Broadus warns that a sharp contrast can exaggerate, “and it is a sad thing to gain force at the expense of truth.” Brevity gives energy; Caesar’s “I came, saw, conquered” is the classic case. The enemy of brevity is verbosity, and the man who strings striking phrases together does not command his language; rather, “his language has a command of him.” Figures of speech may be the chief source of energy. Metaphor is stronger than plain comparison. Synecdoche, naming a part for the whole, makes truth vivid: swords beaten into ploughshares. Jesus used extreme statements, such as turning the other cheek, so that no one would forget the principle. Questions, personification and dramatic dialogue all give life, but each must be used sparingly and with good taste.

7.False Energy

Broadus closes with warnings. The worst mistake is to put on an energy one does not feel. One of the most important lessons a preacher can learn, he says, is “not to assume earnestness of style or delivery, when he has not earnestness of feeling.” Feeling must be cultivated by staying with the subject until it moves the heart. A second mistake is trying to keep every sentence at the same high pitch. Composition, like painting, needs light and shade; passion should rise in waves, with quieter moments between. A third mistake is false energy: the jerky style, the inflated style, or bombast, which Longinus called “not sublime, but sky-scraping.” Broadus notes that his own restless age tended to get greatly excited over small matters, using superlatives everywhere. Many preachers today face the same temptation.

8.What a Baptist Preacher Takes from It Today

Baptist churches have always welcomed farmers, workers, children and new converts, and their preachers have needed the language of common life. Broadus himself was remembered for a simple, direct and conversational manner that ordinary hearers could follow. His counsel serves pastors in Mexico, Cuba and across Latin America, who may preach to university graduates and to people who never finished school in the same service. Plain Spanish, short sentences, concrete images and honest feeling will reach them all. The same counsel serves teaching on the ordinances. When a pastor explains believer’s baptism or the meaning of the Lord’s Supper, clear words matter more than theological vocabulary, and the vivid pictures of Scripture, burial and resurrection, bread and cup, carry their own force. Broadus’s two qualities belong together. Clearness without energy is dull, and energy without clearness is noise. A preacher who is both clear and earnest serves the truth he preaches.

9.Taking It to Heart

1.Three Ways to Deliver a Sermon

“Reading, reciting, extemporaneous speaking — which is the best method of preaching?” Broadus describes the three. A preacher may read a written sermon, recite one he has written and memorized, or speak freely, without depending on a manuscript or on memorized words. Free speaking may follow full written preparation, a sketch, a careful outline in the mind, or, in an emergency, no immediate preparation at all. History shows all three. The great Greek and Roman orators seldom read. Reading sermons became common in England in the time of Henry VIII, when preachers wrote out their words to protect themselves from accusations. In 1674 King Charles II even ordered preachers at Cambridge to stop reading and to preach “by memory, without books.” Broadus refuses to make any one method a law. Some powerful preachers could not write a word; men of great talent can speak well in any way. But he asks which method is “generally best.”

2.Reading and Reciting Weighed

Reading has real advantages. Writing fixes the mind, forces complete preparation and polishes style. The reader sleeps better on Saturday night, has his sermons for later use and publication, and gains skill with the pen. But the costs are heavy. Writing out two sermons a week consumes hours that busy pastors need for study and people. A written plan is hard to change. The reader loses the quickening that comes from the living congregation. Above all, delivery suffers: the voice grows monotonous, gestures seem unnatural, and the turn of a page breaks the spell, reminding us that “that paper there” stands between preacher and people. The reader also loses much of the power of the eye. If you must read, Broadus says, do not disguise it; read openly and read well. Recitation is speaking of a kind, and it trains memory, but it costs still more time and brings the constant dread of forgetting. The famous French preacher Bourdaloue reportedly kept his eyes shut while preaching for fear of being distracted. Broadus quotes Sydney Smith’s joke about an orator delivering “stale indignation, and fervor of a week old,” and asks: “can art conceal art?”

3.Free Speaking from Full Preparation

Broadus favors free, or extemporaneous, speaking, but he is clear that this never means speaking without preparation. Men who boast that they never prepare only repeat what they have said many times before. The thought must be fully prepared; only the words are left to the moment. Then the preacher can use ideas that arise as he speaks, adapt to his hearers, and let his whole sermon be warmed by the act of delivery. Broadus adds a spiritual reason: “How can a man pray that God will guide him through a forest, when he has already blazed the entire path?” Free speaking is also the method most ordinary people prefer, and Broadus warns educated preachers not to “educate away from the people.” He names the dangers honestly: neglect of preparation, a dread of writing, loose style, careless statements. The remedies are steady discipline. Write much, though not necessarily the sermon itself. Guard your health. Have your knowledge of Scripture, as he puts it, “at his tongue’s end.” Arrange the sermon carefully, then think it through again and again. If you forget, do not stop. And remember: “Public speaking is one of the noblest exercises of the human powers; preaching is its highest form.”

4.Worship Is Not a Porch

Part V begins with a rebuke. In many churches people think only of the preaching, and good men even call the rest of the service the “preliminary exercises.” Some, feeling the dullness, want to borrow formal liturgies. Broadus answers: “But the remedy lies elsewhere.” He writes: “The freedom, spontaneity, simplicity, spirituality, of New Testament worship must be maintained at all costs.” The cure for cold worship is not more ceremony but more care: services that are “thoroughly simple in form,” yet full of life, reverence and “solemn sweetness.” Externals cannot create devotion, but earnest expression strengthens it. Because a free-church pastor, unlike a priest following a prayer book, must plan the service himself each week, he must prepare it as seriously as the sermon.

5.Scripture, Hymns and Prayer

Broadus treats each part with care. The reading of Scripture deserves practice, since “to read well, is a rare accomplishment.” Choose devotional passages that harmonize with the sermon, ignore chapter breaks when the sense requires, and never read a passage in public without knowing it well. The Bible is “not so much a single book as a library,” so story, argument and psalm must each be read in its own way. Hymns are not mainly for instruction but “to express and quicken devotional feeling.” A good hymn is sound in doctrine, devotional, poetic, rhythmical and complete. The first hymn should be a hymn of worship, the last should apply the sermon, and familiar hymns should not be avoided. Congregational singing is best, and the choir should lead it, not replace it. Public prayer is “the most important part of public worship.” Broadus asks: if it is solemn “to speak to the people for God; is it less so when we speak to God for the people?” Preparation means private prayer, deep knowledge of Scripture, and a simple order of adoration, confession, dedication and intercession. Prayer must not preach to the people or flatter visitors, and to call a prayer “eloquent” is a poor compliment. Prayers should be shorter rather than longer, and the preacher’s conduct in the pulpit should be simple and sincere. Finally, all depends on the Spirit of God, and on character: “if a man’s life be lightning, his words are thunders.”

6.From Public Worship to the Ordinances

Broadus taught at a seminary whose founding faculty, he among them, signed its Abstract of Principles (1858). It teaches that baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that the Lord’s Supper is no sacrifice, but a memorial of Christ’s death that strengthens faith and fellowship. Here CTS applies Broadus’s principles. First, simplicity. Baptists have practised two ordinances, believer’s baptism by immersion and the Lord’s Supper as a memorial, because they find these commanded by Christ in the New Testament. Broadus’s plea for New Testament “simplicity, spirituality” suits them well: the water and the bread and cup need no added ceremony. Second, Scripture well read. At a baptism, read Matthew 28:19–20 or Romans 6:3–4, where burial and rising picture union with Christ. At the Supper, read 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 slowly and clearly, with its call to remember the Lord. Third, prayer and hymns. Thanksgiving for the bread and the cup should be simple and heartfelt, not a display, and hymns should fit the solemn joy of remembering the cross. Fourth, freshness. Broadus warns of “the perpetual tendency to gravitate into formalism,” and a monthly or quarterly Supper can easily become routine. Careful preparation keeps it alive. Other Christians understand these acts differently: many baptize infants, and many see the Supper as a sacrament through which Christ is present in a special way. CTS respects them while teaching, in this course, from within the Baptist tradition.

7.What a Baptist Preacher Takes from It Today

A Baptist preacher today takes three gifts from this reading. First, a balance in delivery: prepare the thought fully, then speak freely and directly to the people in front of you, looking them in the eye and trusting the Holy Spirit. Second, a high view of the whole service. Reading Scripture, singing, praying, baptizing and sharing the Supper are not warm-up acts for the sermon; they are worship. Third, a call to integrity, since what a preacher is goes far to determine the effect of what he says. Broadus must also be read carefully. He served as a Confederate chaplain, and in 2018 the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary itself acknowledged its founders’ deep ties to slavery. In one footnote Broadus urges preachers still to “give out” hymns line by line for those who cannot read, “white as well as colored.” His pastoral concern is real, but the wording reflects an unjust society that had denied education to many. CTS rejects racism and receives Broadus’s lasting wisdom about preaching while naming such failures honestly.

8.Taking It to Heart