So What Shall We Preach?

August 29, 2006

Well, it seems as though my blogging buddy has gone MIA again. I know how zealous he is that something be posted daily, so now seems as good a time as any to share what I found from my word study of the Greek word for “preach”. For those who missed, I did this study on Saturday to see what was the content of the preaching that was done in the New Testament. There are 61 uses of the Greek word κηρυσσω, and so I looked up all 61 to see what insight I could glean from what the content of New Testament preaching was. The word can be translated as “preach” or “proclaim” (as my examples below will show).

Immediately I discarded 11 uses of the word. In 8 of those cases, I discarded them because it was unclear what the content was, but was a part of a generic statement like “Jesus went around preaching and teaching…” The other I discarded was from Galatians 5:11. The direct object there was “circumcision”, but here Paul was saying what he was not preaching, so I discarded that one. I also discarded two uses of the word that were part of a quotation from an Old Testament verse. The direct objects there were “liberty” and “the year of the Lord’s favor”.

That left 50 uses of the word κηρυσσω. Here’s what I found:

Two subjects were clearly more central than any others. The first is Jesus Christ (Hopefully that’s not a shock to anyone!). Sometimes there are a few qualifying words (Christ crucified, Jesus Christ as Lord, etc.), but I put these all together. An example would be Acts 9:20, “And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’” Fifteen of the 50 uses were speaking of Christ.

The other common direct object was the gospel, with 13 uses. Again, sometimes there were qualifying words like “of God” or “of the Kingdom”, but I put them all together. An example: “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God,” (Mark 1:14).

So 28 of the 50 uses of κηρυσσω (56%) dealt with Jesus and the gospel. Then there were 7 references to forgiveness of sins and repentance: “and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:47)

There were 6 references to the Kingdom of God: “and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.” (Luke 9:2).

There were four references to what Jesus had done for a person: “And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.” (Mark 5:20)

That makes 45 out of 50 references (90%) of the word κηρυσσω dealing with Jesus Christ, the gospel, the Kingdom of God, repentance and forgiveness of sins, and the works of Christ.

The other seven uses refer to what Jesus had told people (Matt. 10:27 and Luke 12:13), the word of faith (Romans 10:8, and this one seems to be referring to the gospel message of salvation), “the Word” (2 Timothy 4:2, meaning all of Scripture), and one reference to Moses (Acts 15:21, speaking of how Moses had been proclaimed in all the synagogues).

I finished this study more resolute in my commitment to preach the person of Christ, the gospel of Christ, the kingdom of Christ, the works of Christ, the word of Christ, and repentance and forgiveness of sins through the cross of Christ. Anything less seems to be a kind of preaching that is alien to the New Testament.

Keep me in prayer, brothers and sisters, that I would be that kind of preacher, whether my topic is the fear of man or worship or service or anything else under the sun. I wonder what might happen in the Church in this nation if pastors were committed to preaching what the New Testament beckons us to preach.

I long to be a person (and a preacher) who finds out!

Larry

Posted by Larry | Filed Under Scripture Meditation 

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