A word of wisdom from Spurgeon

‘If I might select out of the armoury of God the best weapon for a Christian to use to spread his Master’s kingdom, next to faith and prayer, I would select holiness. No church ever lived long where holiness was at a discount; and no church, even when it had errors of doctrine, was altogether without blessing, while its adherents walked carefully before God.’

C. H. Spurgeon’s Sermons beyond Volume 63, p.497. From a sermon on ‘Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity’; 2 Timothy 2:19.

An important question

In his book ‘The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards’, John Carrick quotes from a study by Rachel Wheeler of Edwards’ preaching to the Indians of Stockbridge. ‘In preaching to the Stockbridge Indians, the basic preaching of Calvinism had not changed, but the rhetoric, the style and the subjects of the sermons had. Edwards tailored his sermons to fit with what he saw as the particular needs of his congregation. At Stockbridge, he came to rely more heavily on metaphor and imagery. Drawing on the parables of the New Testament, Edwards preached of sowers of seed, of fishermen, of ground too dry for a seed to take, of trees fed by rivers that never ran dry, and of briars and thorns that impeded a traveler’s way…
It is clear in his earlier sermons that Edwards understood the power of story and imagery. But in the Stockbridge sermons, parables and metaphors dominate, suggesting that he believed this method particularly adapted to an Indian audience.’
What sort of adaptation do we need if we are going to speak evangelistically to unchurched unbelievers today?