The theological imperative of preaching in the apostolic tradition.
A brief theology of preaching.
The need for a theology of preaching has prevailed since the beginning of the apostolic age. In the aftermath of Jesus’s resurrection and ascension, those devoted to him were radically braced by the continued proclamation of his teachings, only now they appeared to deploy something entirely new. This, of course, is related to the emergence of the apostolic kerygma, which is, perhaps, best articulated by the apostle Peter who attests that the recently crucified Jesus of Nazareth is “both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). It is this essential yet groundbreaking message with which individuals have been compelled to grapple ever since. The thrust of this message is the annunciation of Christ as the fulfillment of prophecy and Savior of the world and the invitation to “repent and be baptized” in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38; 4:11–12). Indeed, it is precisely this message that Paul so urgently declared throughout his ministry as the Lord’s apostle. Accordingly, this message — that is, “the gospel of God” (Rom. 1:1) — is one that necessitates a messenger. “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?” Paul inquires. “And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Rom. 10:14).
Consequently, the demand for theological coherence has been exigent as the gospel continued to advance and the church of Christ expanded to the furthest reaches of the known world. This can be seen by the sheer abundance of New Testament (NT) Scriptures that comment on the perils of theologically averse preachers. “The time is coming,” Paul warns, “when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions” (2 Tim. 4:3). Other NT writers such as Peter, John, and Jude, likewise, caution the Body of Christ to resist compromising the “doctrine” or “teaching” they had received in light of the burgeoning influence of false prophets (Rom. 16:17–18; 2 Pet. 2:1–3; 1 John 4:1). It is with this in mind that Timothy is forthrightly charged by Paul to “preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:2). This concise yet robust injunction is a testament to the need of the hour — namely, theologically convinced preachers who are faithful in preaching “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).
Throughout both of the NT epistles that are addressed to him, Timothy, in many ways, is given a theology of preaching from Paul, both for his own sake and for the sake of the church. As he undertook the role of pastoring the Ephesian church, Timothy’s most pressing responsibility was to “guard the good deposit entrusted to” him by “rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 1:14; 2:15). Contemporary preachers are, likewise, compelled to undertake the same errand. It is incumbent upon pastors to defend the kerygma from becoming jeopardized by the irreverent and infectious “babble” of those whose theological predilections serve “their own appetites” (2 Tim. 2:16–17; Rom. 16:18). As such, as will be demonstrated, a theology of preaching must consist of the authoritative proclamation of the sense of Scripture, which always has as its focus the Christ of God.
Preaching is authoritative.
A theology of preaching must begin with the authority of preaching. After all, as Jason K. Allen once wrote, “Where there is no authority, there is no true preaching” (26). It is not by accident that the proverbial birth of the NT church emerged from a sermon. In Acts Chapter 2, after the Spirit of the Lord fell upon the apostolic assembly “like a mighty rushing wind” (Acts 2:2), Peter is constrained to address the bystanders and naysayers by demonstrating that what was occurring in their midst was nothing short of the fulfillment of divine prophecy. “This is what was uttered through the prophet Joel,” he declares (Acts 2:16). Throughout the remainder of his sermon, Peter stands and demonstrates, with authority, that Jesus is the Christ of God and the Savior of men’s souls — the result of which is the baptism of some three thousand into the church of God in a single afternoon (Acts 2:41). This rousing success in the aftermath of Peter’s preaching, however, had little to do with Peter himself. Rather, this event is owed to whose words he was declaring — namely, God’s.
Despite his summons to “give ear to [his] words,” the words that filled his mouth were from the Lord (Acts 2:16–21, 25–28, 30, 34–35; cf. Joel 2:28–32; Pss. 16:8–11; 110:1; 132:11). Consequently, Peter’s sermon was assertive and authoritative precisely because it was not his, it came from the Spirit. This, to be sure, is a profound realization of Jesus’s testimony, when he tells his disciples, “It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Matt. 10:20). This also coheres with what Jesus declares in his High Priestly Prayer, where he attests that the words he was given by the Father he has, likewise, given to those who followed him (John 17:8). “I have given them your word,” Christ says (John 17:14). In so doing, Jesus fulfills what was said of Moses’s successor who would serve as the Lord’s prophet, “I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him” (Deut. 18:18). Therefore, when Peter says, “Listen to me” he is, in a profound way, saying, “Listen to him” (Deut. 18:15; Matt. 17:5).
Similarly, preachers have the responsibility to reprise the same invitation by speaking the authoritative words of God. As Peter stood to recapitulate the function of a prophet, so, too, do today’s preachers stand to speak words that are not their own. What makes their preaching effective and authoritative is not their position or prowess. Rather, a preacher’s authority is always derived from the Word of God. “The authority of the church’s preachers,” writes Christopher Ash, “is borrowed from its source, which is scripture. Authority does not reside in the preacher as an individual, or in the preacher’s office, or in his ordination or commissioning, or in his church as an institution. It resides in the written word of God” (37). A theology of preaching, then, rightly considered, affirms the authority of preaching only insofar as the words of God are the words being preached.
Preaching is sensible.
A theology of preaching must also involve the sensibility of preaching. When Peter stood to address the masses on the day of Pentecost, he did so boldly and sensibly. The words of his sermon were not a disorienting deluge of divine wisdom or pretentious rabbinic tradition. Rather, they were the plain and clear words of God explained in such a way that those in the crowd were “cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37). The sense or meaning of Peter’s message was palpably understood by those who “received” it (Acts 2:41), bringing many to repent and believe. This, of course, is a byproduct of the ministry of the Holy Spirit who, as Christ testifies, will guide those in whom he dwells “into all the truth” (John 16:13). Accordingly, as Peter’s address is authoritative because it is derived from Scripture, it is also sensible because it is diffused by the Spirit, who ensures that the preached words of God do not return “empty” but accomplish that which God himself intends for them to accomplish (Isa. 55:11).
The apostle Peter’s Spirit-informed and empowered sermon is evocative of the sensible declaration of the law of Moses by Ezra the priest to the people of God in Nehemiah Chapter 8. In front of a gathering of the people of Israel, Ezra ascended a “wooden platform” that had been erected for the express purpose of reading from the Book of the Law (Neh. 8:4). Ezra’s preaching was so distinct that “the people understood the reading” (Neh. 8:8) and began filling the thoroughfare with their cries (Neh. 8:9). Through Ezra’s commitment to give the assembled people “the sense” of God’s Word, God’s people are brought to repentance. “All the people,” Nehemiah reports, “went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them” (Neh. 8:12). This response notably emerges from the words of God “clearly” spoken (Neh. 8:8), that is, declared distinctly or even paragraph by paragraph. As such, Ezra’s sermon endures as an exemplary specimen of expository preaching, which, as Christopher Ash puts it, “lets God set the agenda, as we open up the written word in the order, the form, and the books which he has chosen to give us” (41).
Preachers are imbued with the responsibility to “give the sense” of God’s Word for the sake of God’s church. This, it is affirmed, is primarily and preeminently accomplished through an expositional mode of preaching, which seeks to clearly and compellingly set forth the meaning of a text of Scripture in a manner that stays true to the text itself. According to Bryan Chapell’s definition, expository preaching is recognized by a preacher’s determination to derive the idea or thrust of his sermon, along with any sub-ideas, “from truths the text itself contains” (131). Rather than infusing his own preconceived assumptions on Scripture, expository preaching “lets the text speak,” Jason Allen asserts, “which lets God Himself speak” (46). Accordingly, a theology of preaching is realized through the clear and sensible preaching of the Word, which always succeeds in the thing for which God sends it.
Preaching is Christ-centered.
Finally, a theology of preaching must be concerned with the Christocentricity of preaching. The fundamental premise of Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 must be understood as Christocentric. His entire address employs the authoritative words of God to show not only how Jesus of Nazareth is “both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36) but also how Jesus is divinely situated as the focus of Scripture. This comes to the foreground in a subsequent address in Acts 3, where Peter, seeking to explain the miracle of the lame man receiving life in his legs again (Acts 3:1–10), asserts that “what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, [Jesus] thus fulfilled” (Acts 3:18). What abides throughout the apostolic kerygma is the fact that it is none other than Jesus of Nazareth who consummates God’s prerogative to “reconcile to himself all things” (Col. 1:20). This coheres with Jesus’s own attestation that the Scriptures bear witness to him (John 5:39; Luke 24:27). Christ is the point around which the entire Bible revolves. Accordingly, no text of Scripture is “rightly handled” if, as Lewis Allen says, “people aren’t led into its truth that Jesus is center-stage in God’s drama” (45–46).
God’s Word is, of course, not merely a compendium of morality tales or a treasury of ancient wisdom meant to inspire its readers to live more virtuously or even more righteously. The thrust of Scripture is not the divine list of ingredients for a well-lived life. Rather, Scripture is intent on revealing the Christ of God, who is Jesus. “The intent of the Divine Author,” writes Andrew Herbert, “is that every text points to Jesus. Therefore, there is not a dichotomy between discovering the original intent of the text and the Christocentric focus of the text — those two tasks are one and the same. That is, the road of true Biblical exegesis will always arrive at the destination of a Jesus-centered sermon” (26). Theologically considered, then, preachers understand that preaching is Christologically preoccupied. Each of the Bible’s sixty-six books function as mirrors, which, Lewis Allen attests, are “held up by the Spirit of God so that you and I might see Jesus” (40). Preachers do a disservice to themselves and those to whom they have been called to minister if they insinuate that God’s Word is about something other than the Word incarnate.
Just as the good news of Jesus Christ crucified and risen again propelled Peter in Acts Chapter 2, so, too, are preachers today compelled to deliver the same message. “If you can make up your mind, when you go into the pulpit,” Robert Capon quips, “to forget everything except Jesus Christ and him crucified, you’ll have nothing to give them but Good News” (13). Rather than a morass of loosely tethered anecdotes or ethics, preaching, properly understood and theologically considered, is nothing more or less than the announcement of good news. It is the extension of a divine gift. Through the authoritative proclamation of the sense of Scripture, the person and work of Christ himself is given to his church.
Works cited:
Jason K. Allen, Letters to My Students, Vol. 1: On Preaching (Nashville, TN: B&H, 2019).
Lewis Allen, The Preacher’s Catechism (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018).
Christopher Ash, The Priority of Preaching (Ross-shire, England: Christian Focus, 2010).
Robert Capon, The Foolishness of Preaching: Proclaiming the Gospel against the Wisdom of the World (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998).
Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2005).
Andrew Herbert, “How to Make Jesus the Hero of Every Sermon,” But We Preach Christ Crucified: Preachers on Preaching, edited by Jason K. Allen (Kansas City, MO: Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2015).