Quote by John A. Broadus
“Men frequently complain that they do not understand what it really is to believe, and preachers are constantly laboring to explain. But the complaint is in many cases a mere excuse for rejection or delay, and the real difficulty is in all cases a lack of disposition to believe. Elaborate explanations do not lessen this indisposition, do but strengthen the supposed excuse, and may even embarrass the anxious inquirer with the notion that there is something very mysterious about faith, when it is in fact so simple as not to admit of being explained. Our main duty is to tell the people what to believe, and why they should believe it.”
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John Albert Broadus was an American Baptist pastor and professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the most famous preachers of his day. Charles Spurgeon deemed Broadus the “greatest of living preachers.” Church historian Albert Henry Newman later said “perhaps the greatest man the Baptists have produced.
Broadus was born in Culpepper County, Virginia, 24 January, 1827. He was educated at the University of Virginia, and from 1851 till 1853 was assistant professor of ancient languages there. He then became pastor of the Baptist church in Charlottesville, and in 1859 professor of New Testament interpretation and homiletics in the Southern Baptist theological seminary at Greenville, South Carolina, now in Louisville, Kentucky As a Greek scholar and New Testament critic.
His quiet conversational delivery brought both critics and imitators. Some men, who equated "real preaching" with soaring in the oratorical stratosphere, accused Broadus of "ruining the preachers of the South" by his example. His students, however, saw his effectiveness and in spite of his warning, many of them tried to imitate his tones, his genuine pathos, his platform manner, failing to realize that they had only a few of his external characteristics and not the qualities of his success.