Acts 19:18-19 And many that believed came, and confessed, and showed their deeds.… The value of a sermon consists not half so much in apprehending the method of it, or remembering its form and letter, as in the moral impression it produces on the heart, and by which it takes effect in the life. Just as the effect of art is more than the method of art, so the effect of preaching is more than all its methods. I have heard of a minister who, having a congregation composed chiefly of shopkeepers, and having his doubts that some of these were not so accurate in the matter of weights and scales and measures as they should have been, preached a sermon from the text, "A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight." The sermon was much admired by all, but a few days after, when some half-dozen of the congregation were discussing its merits, some of them clearly remembering its heads, divisions, and subdivisions, one of them said: "I don't remember much about the sermon now, but I know this, that after I had heard it I went straight home and burnt my bushel." (J. W. Lance.) Parallel Verses KJV: And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.WEB: Many also of those who had believed came, confessing, and declaring their deeds. |
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