Preparation for Preaching

Alexander Somerville (1813-1889) was a close friend of Robert Murray M’Cheyne. They went to school and university together. As divinity students, they met for the study of the Bible using both the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) and the Hebrew original. More often still they met to pray and share their Christian experience.

Somerville began his ministry in Anderston, Glasgow, in a similar church extension charge to M’Cheyne. Later in life his evangelistic zeal was renewed and fired by the ministry in Scotland of Moody and Sankey.

At the surprising age of sixty-one he responded to God’s call to be what may be described as an itinerant missionary travelling in India, Australasia, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, South Africa, Greece and Western Asia. He was Moderator of the Free Church General Assembly in 1886.

During his ministry he sought to train and encourage men to preach. The following is the helpful guidance he provided for them.

Rules for Sermon Writing

1. Pray without ceasing for clear views of your subject, for help in composition, in committing to memory, and in delivery.

2. Pray without ceasing for the people you are to address.

3. Remember you are to speak to souls who must either be impressed or hardened by the sermon you deliver.

4.Write for Christ and of Christ.

5. Remember that the Holy Spirit not merely can alone show to the heart the things that are Christ’s, but that He must be recognised as doing so by us. Keep the Spirit’s peculiar office and work continually in view.

6. Remember that what you write must have eternal consequences.

7. Write as one who must give an account to Christ for so doing.

8. Write for a people who must give an account to Christ for the manner in which they hear.

9. Never write for the sake of magnifying yourself.

10. Remember the flock of Christ must not be fed with ingenuities, but with the bread of life.

11. Write from the heart with simplicity, plainness (so that a little child may comprehend), and godly sincerity.

12. Pray for other congregations, and for your own companions in the work of preaching.

13. Never write without this before you – and read at least three times in the composition of each discourse.