Lectures to My Students Summary: Spurgeon's Lectures One by One
Lectures to My Students is C. H. Spurgeon's book of counsel for young preachers. He gave these talks on Friday afternoons to the men of his Pastors' College in London, then printed a selection: the First Series in 1875, with a Second Series after it. Together they cover the preacher's own soul, his call, his prayers, his sermons, his voice and manner, his low seasons and his aim, which is the conversion of sinners. The tone is warm, practical and often funny. You can read the First Series free and the Second Series free in TheWay Library. Every heading below links to that lecture in the reader.
For the best advice gathered by theme, see Spurgeon's advice to preachers. For his life, see Who was Charles Spurgeon?
First Series
Preface
Spurgeon apologizes that the lectures are "colloquial, familiar, full of anecdote, and often humorous," and says he made them so on purpose, because his students came to him tired at the end of the week. He also explains why he tells so many of his own experiences. A note on the Pastors' College follows, which trained men who were already preaching.
The College aims at training preachers rather than scholars.
Lectures to My Students, First Series, Preface
1. The Minister's Self-Watch
On 1 Timothy 4:16, "Take heed unto thyself." The preacher is his own tool, so he must keep himself in order. Spurgeon presses three points: be a saved man, let your piety be vigorous, and let your life agree with your preaching.
We are, in a certain sense, our own tools, and therefore must keep ourselves in order.
Lectures to My Students, First Series, Lecture 1
2. The Call to the Ministry
Every Christian should spread the gospel, but the pastoral office needs a call from God. Spurgeon gives the signs: an intense, thoughtful, lasting desire for the work; some aptness to teach; some fruit in conversions; and the approval of God's people through the church. He ends with lively stories of men who were sure they were called and plainly were not.
3. The Preacher's Private Prayer
The preacher must pray more than other Christians. Prayer helps him choose and open his text, gives him power in delivery and comforts him afterward. Spurgeon urges set seasons of extra devotion.
Texts will often refuse to reveal their treasures till you open them with the key of prayer.
Lectures to My Students, First Series, Lecture 3
4. Our Public Prayer
He defends free prayer as the most scriptural form, then lists faults that spoil it: preaching at people in prayer, cant phrases, vulgarity, too many endearing words, and length. Pray from the heart, keep it fitting, vary it, and prepare your heart for it.
5. Sermons: Their Matter
Sermons must have real teaching in them. Keep to the meaning of the passage, stay with the great truths, arrange your matter well and keep it fresh. The sum of it all is to preach Christ.
Brethren, weigh your sermons. Do not retail them by the yard, but deal them out by the pound.
Lectures to My Students, First Series, Lecture 5
6. On the Choice of a Text
Choosing the right text for the right Sunday is serious work. Spurgeon admits it was often his own burden. His answer: cry to God for it, think about your people's needs and sins, and keep a store of texts as they come to you.
7. On Spiritualizing
Spurgeon allows the occasional fanciful use of a text but sets rules: don't strain a passage, don't spiritualize indelicate subjects, don't do it to look clever, and never let hearers forget that the Bible's histories are facts. The types, metaphors and parables give honest scope for it.
8. On the Voice
Don't think too much about your voice, or too little. Avoid the "holy tone" for Sundays, speak to be heard without bawling, vary your tones, use your natural voice, train it and look after your throat.
9. Attention!
If the people don't listen, blame the preacher first. Give them something worth hearing, plainly arranged and plainly said, with illustrations, pauses, freshness and real interest of your own. Even the room and the late-comers matter.
10. The Faculty of Impromptu Speech
Spurgeon does not recommend unprepared preaching as a habit, and he warns against reading sermons. But the gift of speaking without notice is worth gaining. It comes by much study, a stock of ideas, practice and a cool head.
11. The Minister's Fainting Fits
Perhaps the most read lecture. Spurgeon speaks openly of his own depression, explains why preachers suffer it (frail bodies, the weight of souls, loneliness, overwork) and lists the times it comes: after great success, before great work, after a heavy blow. He includes the darkness that fell on him after the disaster at the Surrey Music Hall in 1856.
Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength.
Lectures to My Students, First Series, Lecture 11
12. The Minister's Ordinary Conversation
Drop the "ministerial starch." Be a real man, sociable and cheerful, don't hog the talk, turn it to good use, and stay firm on your principles.
13. To Workers with Slender Apparatus
For pastors with few books. Churches should supply a minister's library. Meanwhile buy the best books, master the ones you have, borrow wisely, and above all know your Bible. Then read people: yourself, mature saints, inquirers and the dying.
Second Series
1. The Holy Spirit in Connection with Our Ministry
Without the Spirit the ministry is "a mere name." Spurgeon lists where we need Him: in study, choosing the subject, speaking, keeping a devout frame, effect on hearers, prayer and church oversight. He warns of what grieves the Spirit: insensitivity, untruthfulness, pride and laziness.
2. The Necessity of Ministerial Progress
Keep growing in knowledge (Bible first, then theology and every field), in the power to speak clearly and persuasively, in moral character and in holiness.
Be masters of your Bibles, brethren: whatever other works you have not searched, be at home with the writings of the prophets and apostles.
Lectures to My Students, Second Series, Lecture 2
3. The Need of Decision for the Truth
Some things are true and some false. Be positive about God, the inspired Bible, the Trinity, the atonement, the Holy Spirit, the new birth, the evil of sin, grace and justification by faith, and show it in tone, life and sacrifice.
4. Open-Air Preaching: A Sketch of Its History
From Samuel, Elijah and Jonah to Christ on the mountain, the apostles, the Reformers, the Scottish field preachers, Whitefield, Wesley and the American camp meetings. Preaching outdoors is as old as preaching.
5. Open-Air Preaching: Remarks Thereon
Practical advice: open air reaches people who never enter a church. Choose your spot with care, don't preach against the wind, keep sentences short and lively, and meet hecklers with good humor.
6 and 7. Posture, Action, Gesture
Two lectures, the second with engraved plates. Action is a minor matter, but bad habits distract. Be natural, keep gestures moderate and fitting, and drop the grotesque: the stiff, the pump-handle, the hammer-man and the ill-timed.
8. Earnestness: Its Marring and Maintenance
Earnestness is the quality most needed for winning souls. It must be real. Spurgeon shows what dampens it and how to feed it: faith in the truth, fellowship with Christ, closeness to people, death-beds, and measuring the work in the light of God.
9. The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear
A minister should have one blind eye and one deaf ear: for old church quarrels, gossip, slights, his own critics and other pastors' troubles.
10. Conversion as Our Aim
The goal is God's glory, reached mainly by winning souls. Depend on the Spirit, preach the truths God uses (sin, judgment, the atonement, justification by faith, God's love), expect conversions and be ready to meet inquirers.
In fine, beloved brethren, by any means, by all means, labour to glorify God by conversions, and rest not till your heart's desire is fulfilled.
Lectures to My Students, Second Series, Lecture 10
How to read the lectures
Each lecture stands on its own, so you can start anywhere. Many pastors read one a week, or keep Lecture 11 for hard days. The text comes from scans of the old editions and is still being proofread, so check a passage against the original before quoting it. Begin with the First Series or the Second Series, and see Spurgeon's advice to preachers for the key lines. For a different Spurgeon, try his daily devotional, Morning by Morning. More is on his author page and under Preaching.