A Word for Preachers...Stott on How We Handle Scripture

"It is certain that we cannot handle Scripture adequately in the pulpit if our doctrine of Scripture is inadequate. Conversely, evangelical Christians, who have the highest doctrine of Scripture in the Church, should be conspicuously the most conscientious preachers. The fact that we are not should cause our heads to hang in shame. If Scripture were largely a symposium of human ideas, though reflecting the faith of the earliest Christian communities, and lit up by an occasional flash of divine inspiration, then a fairly casual attitude to it would be pardonable. But if in Scripture we are handling the very words of the living God, 'words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit' (1 Cor. 2:13), God's words through men's, his own witness to his own Son, then no trouble should be too great in the study and expression of them."

John Stott

Between Two Worlds: The Challenge of Preaching Today