Best Christian Books on Preaching: 15 Classics for Preachers
If you read one book on preaching, make it C. H. Spurgeon's Lectures to My Students. He gave these talks to the young men in his pastors' college, and they are wise, funny and searching: on the preacher's own walk with God, his call, his prayers, his voice, his low moods and his ordinary conversation. Then read Phillips Brooks' Lectures on Preaching, the source of the famous definition that preaching is "truth through personality."
The classic writers on preaching spent more time on the preacher than on the sermon. A man must be called of God, and he must keep his own soul. He must pray in private before he prays in public. He must preach the Bible and Christ crucified, not his own opinions, and he must mean it; earnestness, they said, can't be faked for long. And all of it is useless without the Holy Spirit. Only after that do they turn to method: how to study, how to plan a sermon, how to use illustrations, how to stand and speak.
Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
2 Timothy 4:2
Here are fifteen of the best books on preaching in TheWay Library, for pastors, students and anyone who teaches the Bible.
Start here
1. Lectures to My Students, by C. H. Spurgeon
Two volumes of the Friday afternoon talks. The first series begins with the minister's self-watch, the call, private and public prayer, choosing texts, the voice, and the lecture on "The Minister's Fainting Fits," one of the most honest things ever written about depression in ministry. The second series covers the Holy Spirit, open-air preaching, posture and gesture, earnestness and conversion as the preacher's aim.
He is not always in the act of prayer, but he lives in the spirit of it.
Lectures to My Students, First Series, The Preacher's Private Prayer
Fits of depression come over the most of us. Usually cheerful as we may be, we must at intervals be cast down.
Lectures to My Students, First Series, The Minister's Fainting Fits
See our Lectures to My Students summary and Spurgeon's advice to preachers.
2. Lectures on Preaching, by Phillips Brooks
The Yale lectures of the Boston preacher who wrote "O Little Town of Bethlehem." Brooks treats the preacher himself, then the sermon, its purpose and its making, then the congregation, and ends with the value of the human soul as the center of all preaching.
And preaching is the bringing of truth through personality.
Lectures on Preaching, The Two Elements in Preaching
See Phillips Brooks' books. Read Lectures on Preaching.
3. The Young Preacher, by Theodore L. Cuyler
About an hour of warm counsel from a veteran pastor. Cuyler covers the call, pastoral visiting, "growing" sermons rather than manufacturing them, delivery, and the man behind the message.
The more soul you put into your preaching, the more souls you will bring to Jesus Christ.
The Young Preacher, The Delivery of Sermons
See Theodore L. Cuyler's books. Read The Young Preacher.
4. The Preacher: His Life and Work, by J. H. Jowett
Jowett's Yale lectures, from a working pastor to men about to start. He warns against the preacher's perils: losing the sense of awe from handling holy things every day, laziness, professionalism. Then he takes the preacher into his study and his pulpit.
Men never learn to pray in public: they learn in private.
The Preacher: His Life and Work, The Preacher in His Pulpit
See J. H. Jowett's books. Read The Preacher: His Life and Work.
The preacher's heart
5. The Christian Ministry, by Charles Bridges
The thorough classic, grown from a letter to a friend about why ministry so often bears little fruit. Bridges looks for the causes in the preacher's own heart and life, as well as in the Spirit's withholding and the hearers' hardness, then turns to the preaching of the gospel and pastoral work.
Our work is not to make or to improve the Gospel; but simply and fully to preach it.
The Christian Ministry, The Spirit of Scriptural Preaching
See Charles Bridges' books. Read The Christian Ministry.
6. An Earnest Ministry the Want of the Times, by John Angell James
Has the pulpit lost its power? James says the chief lack is not learning or eloquence but earnestness: an absorbing desire to save souls. He draws the pattern from Paul's ambassadors in 2 Corinthians 5 and shows earnestness in the study, the pulpit and the parish.
Whatever other deficiencies we have, the chief of all lies in the heart.
An Earnest Ministry the Want of the Times, The Nature of Earnestness
See John Angell James' books. Read An Earnest Ministry.
7. A Soliloquy on the Art of Man-Fishing, by Thomas Boston
The young Scottish minister's private meditation on "I will make you fishers of men," written in a low season. Short, searching and very honest.
A dead man cannot follow any person; a dead preacher cannot follow Christ; there must be a principle of life, spiritual life in him, or else he is nought.
A Soliloquy on the Art of Man-Fishing
Read A Soliloquy on the Art of Man-Fishing.
8. The Power of the Pulpit, by Gardiner Spring
Spring shows that preaching has power, then asks where it comes from: the truth, the living voice, the authority of the office and the power of God. The later chapters on the minister's prayer and piety, and on the people's prayer for ministers, are the best.
We who ought to know so much of God know very little of his bounty; very little of his faithfulness and condescension as a prayer-hearing God.
The Power of the Pulpit, Ministers Must Be Men of Prayer
Making the sermon
9. Expository Preaching: Plans and Methods, by F. B. Meyer
A short plea for preaching through books of the Bible. Meyer defines exposition, shows how it differs from a dry digest of commentaries, lists its benefits for preacher and people, and shows the expositor at work. A few chapter openings lose their first letter in the scan.
The one supreme object of the Christian ministry is to preach Christ, and Him crucified.
Expository Preaching, A Plea for the Expository Method in Preaching
See F. B. Meyer's books. Read Expository Preaching.
10. The Art of Illustration, by C. H. Spurgeon
More lectures to his students. Reasons are the pillars of a sermon, Spurgeon says, quoting Thomas Fuller, but illustrations are its windows. He shows how to use them, how not to overdo them, and where to find them.
Some men seem never to have enough of metaphors: each one of their sentences must be a flower.
The Art of Illustration, Lecture I
See Charles Spurgeon's books. Read The Art of Illustration.
11. Thoughts on Preaching, by James W. Alexander
Notes from the journals of a Princeton professor and pastor, gathered after his death: numbered thoughts on preparation, delivery and the Spirit's help, then essays and letters on study, extemporaneous preaching and the case for expository preaching.
Forget yourselves so as to behold nothing but the glory of God, and the salvation of your hearers.
Thoughts on Preaching, On Extemporaneous Preaching, Concluded
See James W. Alexander's books. Read Thoughts on Preaching.
12. The Preacher and His Models, by James Stalker
Yale lectures that hold up the Hebrew prophets and Paul as patterns for preachers: the man of God, the man of the Word, the warning of the false prophets, and the Christian preacher in Paul.
In the pulpit not only must a man have something to say, but it must be a message from God.
The Preacher and His Models, The Preacher as a Man of the Word
See James Stalker's books. Read The Preacher and His Models.
13. Lectures on Preaching, by Philip Doddridge
Terse numbered notes from Doddridge's academy for ministers in the 1700s: what to read, rules for composing and delivering sermons, and directions for public prayer.
Remember it is the peculiar office of the Spirit of God to help in prayer.
Lectures on Preaching and the Several Branches of the Ministerial Office, Directions for Prayer
Read Doddridge's Lectures on Preaching.
14. Ministerial Life and Work, by W. H. Griffith Thomas
A brief portrait of the minister drawn from Scripture, the prophets, the Twelve, Paul and the Pastoral Epistles, followed by practical chapters on preaching, worship and personal work.
In all Christian work there are three elements absolutely indispensable: the Spirit of God as the power, the Word of God as the message, and the man of God as the instrument.
Ministerial Life and Work, The Ministry in the Pastoral Epistles
See W. H. Griffith Thomas's books. Read Ministerial Life and Work.
Two more you should know
15. Power Through Prayer and The Reformed Pastor
E. M. Bounds' Power Through Prayer argues that the power of preaching comes from the preacher's prayer life; it is in our prayer guide, with a summary and Men Are God's Method. Richard Baxter's The Reformed Pastor is the Puritan classic on a pastor's care for every soul in his charge; it is in the best Puritan books.
More to explore
Joseph Parker's Ad Clerum gives advice to a young preacher as a series of letters. Arthur T. Pierson's The Divine Art of Preaching, given at Spurgeon's Tabernacle, is good, though its chapters lose their first letters in the scan. Spurgeon's My Sermon Notes show how he outlined his own sermons. For collections of great sermons to learn from, see the best classic sermon collections, and for preaching aimed at conversion, the best books on evangelism.
Where to start
- A student or new preacher: Spurgeon's Lectures, then Cuyler.
- Feeling dry in ministry: Jowett, then Boston.
- Learning to preach through books: Meyer, then Alexander.
- A pastor wanting a full manual: Bridges.
More books are on the preaching topic page.