Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) and the Centrality of Pulpit Teaching

"Another way in which the Puritans emphasized preaching was that when they began to put up their own buildings they put their pulpits in the centre. What attracted the attention of the worshippers was not the altar, so-called, but a pulpit with an open Bible on it. It is regrettable to find increasingly that there is no pulpit Bible in many nonconformist churches at the present time and there are too many pulpits placed in a corner! I think that has some significance. But the Puritans had a central pulpit; and the Bible was there on it.

Moreover some of these men preached large numbers of sermons. Some preached every day of the week, and on Sundays more than once. Calvin himself was pre-eminently a great preacher. He preached at times every day and twice on a Sunday; and the Puritans perpetuated this idea. There was constant and systematic preaching, and people would travel considerable distances in order to hear such preaching. Nothing was so characteristic of the Puritans as their belief in preaching and their delight in listening to preaching. Then the number of sermons printed by them was remarkable. This raises a very interesting point, which we tend to forget, namely, that so much of the theological teaching of the Puritans was given in the form of preaching and sermons. I suggest in passing that we must consider once more whether the best way of teaching theology is not through preaching, through exposition of the Word. If you keep to the Word you will preserve a balance, and be constantly reminded of the importance of applying it as you go along."

D. M. Lloyd-Jones, The Puritans: Their Origins and Successors (Carlisle, Penn.: Banner of Truth Trust, 1991), 378-379.

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