THE PREACHER'S THEME
content of the message. What is the preacher's theme?
Some years ago there appeared a composite volume with the intriguing title If I Had Only One Sermon to Preach. It was an interesting experiment: yet one suspects that upon most of the contributors the necessity of including the whole of revelation within the narrow limits of one all-comprehensive sermon must have exercised a somewhat depressing influence and imposed a considerable handicap. It would prove too much even for an apostle. You will find that your best sermons—best in the sense of being most truly charged with spiritual power—are not those you compose when the mood seizes you to write something outstanding and exceptional and definitive; in all probability, not even those you construct with special occasions in view; on the contrary, your best sermons will get themselves made in the ordinary course of your ministry week by week. You are likely in the good providence of God to have not only one sermon to preach but hundreds, and you must order your methods accordingly: so that over a course of months and years your sermons will balance and correct one another in their emphasis on different aspects of what the apostle called the "many-coloured" wisdom of God. You will soon discover that one of the most important arts you have to learn is the art of omission. You have apostolic authority for endeavouring to "become all things to all men"; but Paul never suggested that the right way to do it was to pack a little of everything into every
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