The Priority of Preaching Christ

Martin Luther: "I preach as though Christ was crucified yesterday, rose from the dead today, and is coming back tomorrow."

Richard Baxter: "If we can but teach Christ to our people, we teach them all."

Charles Spurgeon: "A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution.... When we preach Jesus Christ, then we are not putting out the plates, and the knives, and the forks, for the feast, but we are handing out the bread itself.... [Let us] preach Christ to sinners if we cannot preach sinners to Christ.... I wish that our ministry--and mine especially--might be tied and tethered to the cross."

-- Quoted by Joel Beeke in "God-Centered Theology in the Ministry of the Word," The Puritan Reformed Journal. Mentioned by Pure Church on 08/20/2009