“If exegesis is some mystical experience that only a select few find the magic key to, then most preachers are left to helpless despair. But if a large part of the process is hard work, then that gives everyone hope” (David Murray, How Sermons Work, 37).

“Before finally deciding to start a series, the preacher should read the book through a few times and begin to map our preaching portions. This will also help him to decide if this is the right book and if his own gifts will stretch enough to take it on” (David Murray, How Sermons Work, 24).

Luke 14:28, For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?

“…special care should be taken to ensure that each sermon is complete in itself” (David Murray, How Sermons Work, 23).

“Military strategy is, almost by definition, deceptive. It can be compared with very few human activities. Certainly there are other kinds of strategists–heads of state and diplomats, corporate leaders and investment bankers, all manner of institutional planners–but ultimately, win or lose, very few (if any) go to the hospital or the morgue. War is about killing and dying; this changes the psychological dimension entirely and also the basis for comparison. In drawing any kind of plausible analogy, the possibility of dying must be a factor” (Robert L. O’Connell, Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman, 15).

“Aristotle said that the secular orator must establish with his hearers a character for discretion (knowledge or judgement); second, for probity; and third, for benevolence, or good-will toward them. If this is true in the secular realm how much more in the sacred! R.L. Dabney challenges: ‘Without a sacred weight of character, the most splendid rhetoric will win only a short-lived applause; with it, the plainest scriptural instructions are eloquent to win souls. Eloquence may dazzle and please; holiness of life convinces… The pastor’s character speaks more loudly than his tongue'” (David Murray, How Sermons Work, 18).

“Ordinarily, it’s not a good career move to marry your sister, even if it’s your foster sister; but for Sherman it was brilliant, leaving him with political connections as powerful as any other general in American history, and also with the redoutable Ellen Ewing. Every bit as intelligent and determined as Sherman and religious to the point of loopyness, Ellen stood up to him during thirty-eight years of marriage–the South only managed four” (Robert L. O’Connell, Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman, xx).

“This is not the place to go into detail about the ‘call to ministry’. Suffice to say that the preacher should have two calls–the one internal and the other external. . . . The external call is the church’s confirmation of the internal call and involves the church’s examination of the preacher’s motives, gifts, character and Christian experience” (David Murray, How Sermons Work, 12).

“The Civil War arrived with Sherman at last ready to ply his trade effectively as a key member of a national reconstruction project. Secession took Sherman by surprise, and he reacted as if the South were trying to make off with the family room. Even more than Lincoln and Grant, Sherman waged war with a ferocity aimed at driving the Confederate states back into the larger Union structure, getting the house divided back together. This accomplished, Sherman devoted much of his remaining career to further shoring up the framework, masterminding the construction of the transcontinental railroad and literally binding East and West together with bands of steel” (Robert L. O’Connell, Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman, xix).

“Beneath those four individuals without whom America would be a very different place–Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR–resides a second tier of epic overachievers with substantial roles in furthering the national extravaganza. Sherman’s place here is secure, his significance in transcontinental consolidation being no small matter. America was built just once, so his achievements in this regard are almost guaranteed to remain unique. As long as we live here, Sherman will be remembered” (Robert L. O’Connell, Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman, xviii).