Continuing in Martyn Lloyd-Jones' lectures on Preaching and Preachers, I came upon this, which I was not expecting.

There is only one thing to say about [the act of preaching]; it cannot be taught. That is impossible. Preachers are born, not made. This is an absolute. You will never teach a man to be a preacher if he is not already one. All your books such as The A.B.C. of Preaching, or Preaching Made Easy should be thrown into the fire as soon as possible. But if a man is born a preacher you can help him a little—but not much. He can perhaps be improved a little here and there.

How can that be done? Here I am probably going to be somewhat controversial. I would say: Not in a sermon class, not by having a student to preach a sermon to other students who then proceed to criticise matter and manner. I would prohibit that. Why? Because the sermon in such circumstances is being preached with a wrong object in view; and the people who are listening to it are listening in a wrong way. The message of the Bible should never be listened to in that way. It is always the Word of God, and no one should ever listen to it except in a spirit of reverence and godly expectation of receiving a message.

When you come to further modern refinements of that such as television video-tapes so that a man may subsequently see his own gestures and so on—this to me is reprehensible in the extreme. The same applies to instruction in 'pulpit deportment' as it is called, or 'television deportment'. There is only one word for all this; it is sheer prostitution, it is instruction in the art of the prostitute. The preacher must always be natural and un-selfconscious; and if in your training you tend to make him become conscious of his hands, or what he does with his head, or anything else, you are doing him great harm. It should not be done, it should be prohibited! You cannot teach a preacher in these ways; and I feel that to attempt to do so is an injustice to the Word of God (119).

This is, of course, quite a different perspective from what I am told being at a seminary. I, too, have always believed that a person is born a preacher, but have always been surrounded by (and been of) the opinion that homiletics classes are important and significant in shaping a preacher's ability. His advice for those who want to learn to preach is to listen to and read sermons from the great preachers, and among the latter, especially those published before 1900. It's an interesting perspective.

To conclude his one page on homiletics, Lloyd-Jones says the following:

What then is the chief thing? I say, none of these mechanics except a bare minimum. What matters? The chief thing is the love of God, the love of souls, a knowledge of the Truth, and the Holy Spirit within you. These are the things that make a preacher. If he has the love of God in his heart, and if he has a love for God; if he has a love for the souls of men, and a concern about them; if he knows the truth of the Scriptures; and has the Spirit of God within him, that man will preach. That is the big thing. The other things can be helpful; but keep them in their right place, and never allow them to usurp any other position (120).

For the record, he does have an extensive section on recognizing the call to ministry, so he is not advocating for just anyone who has these bare essentials to take their place in the pulpit.

I'm not sure if I fully agree with Lloyd-Jones here. Any thoughts?