What is preaching according to the Bible?

This is often used in the N.T. for 'announcing, or making known,' without the idea of preaching in a formal way, as the word is now understood. When there was persecution in the church at Jerusalem, they were all scattered, except the apostles, and they went everywhere 'preaching the word.' Acts 8:1-4.

Solomon in the Ecclesiastes calls himself 'the preacher,' and it is said of Noah that he was 'a preacher of righteousness.' Paul was appointed a preacher (herald), and it pleased God by 'the foolishness of the preaching' to save them that believe. Preaching is still used of God as the means for making known the love of God and the work of Christ.

Preaching, however, is announcing. The word for preacher, kerux, simply means "herald." But there is another word used, euangelizomai, and this means "to bear good news." The preacher of the Gospel is a herald, and he heralds glad tidings.

There is one thing more I would dwell on before passing to the next point. You do not read of preaching in the true sense of it in the Old Testament. You find a law given there, and you find the proclamation of the law and the heralding forth of the commands of God upon men. But I do not believe — you read of preaching. Why? Because there was nothing to preach. God was claiming and demanding from men, and establishing His rights in the claim; but when God comes out, the whole thing being completely ruined and all gone, and when in the grace of His own heart He brings in good news, then you have something to preach, and then you get preaching — I mean in the sense of evangelizing. There are two words in the original — one is to proclaim as a herald, and the other is to bring good tidings, and that is what I mean by preaching, it is evangelizing. You may do that to one person. Philip opened his mouth in the desert, and evangelized Jesus to one man. And the Lord was specially and distinctly in that sense the great evangelist — I say it with all reverence — He was the great preacher.

To "preach" (κηρύσσειν, to herald) "implies solemnity of announcement" (Darby-Smith). Cf. Luke 9:2 and Acts 28:31. When Luke speaks of the simple Gospel of Grace, he specially uses εὐαγγελίζειν: Luke 4:18, Luke 7:22, Luke 9:6, Luke 20:1. For "glad tidings of the kingdom of God," cf. Matt. 4:23, etc.

The word "preacher" means "herald." Sometimes it is the privilege of God's servants to proclaim blessed things to men. Witness Paul's precious testimony as described by himself in 1 Tim. 2:3. On the other hand God's preachers are sometimes charged with a heavy burden. Jonah in Nineveh and Noah amongst the antediluvians, are examples of this. The first is evangelising i.e., making known glad tidings. An interesting distinction in this connection may be found in the different Greek words employed in 1 Peter 3:19; 1 Peter 4:6.

Let us see the positive teaching of the apostles on this subject. Whoever called on the name of the Lord was to be saved. "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed; and how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard; and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things … So then faith cometh by hearing [the report], and hearing by the word of God." Salvation is for faith, according to the apostle, and faith by hearing the word. And this is a moral dealing with souls. "Wherefore when I came was there no man; when I called was there none to answer," is the appeal of God to Israel.

322 No person can read the Gospels or Acts without seeing that the testimony of the word was the great means of divine dealing with souls. Whatever the miracles of goodness and the ineffable excellency of His person, the service of Christ was preaching, and so He declares, "And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also; for therefore am I sent." (Luke 4:43.) Accordingly, in describing His service in Matthew 4:23, "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching." "The poor have the gospel preached unto them" was one of the signs of His divine and blessed presence; — when He sent out His disciples, it was (Matt. 10:7), "And as ye go, preach, saying," &c. And after His ascension (Mark 16:20), "They went forth, and preached everywhere." They were to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature: he that believed and was baptized would be saved, and he that believed not would be damned. So in Luke 24:47, repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in his name, beginning at Jerusalem. In carrying it out, Peter's preaching in Acts 2 reaches the hearts of some three thousand and brings them, as gladly receiving the word, to baptism. They could not but speak the things they had seen and heard, and sought grace to speak God's word with boldness. If there were miracles, it was the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by signs following. (Mark 16:20.) So Hebrews 2:14. Philip went down to Samaria and preached Christ to them. It is needless to go through the whole history of the Acts, which, with abundant confirmatory signs, is the history of the preaching of Peter and Paul: indeed, while giving prayer the first place, it is to this Peter declares that, leaving the care of the poor, the apostles would give themselves. Peter to Cornelius calls the whole testimony of Christianity: "The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all): that word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached." (Acts 10:36-37.)

How simple! Preaching Jesus out of the Scriptures! Yes, here lay the grand secret of Paul's preaching. He preached a living Person, in living power, on the authority of a living Word, and this preaching was received in living faith, and brought forth living fruit, in the lives of the converts. This is the preaching that God has ordained and uses. It is not sermonising, not religious talk, but the preaching of Christ by the Holy Ghost speaking through men who are themselves under the power of what they are preaching. God grant us more of this!

The way that God has chosen in His infinite wisdom for the sending out of the truth to win its victories in the world, is by the preaching. "God has been pleased by the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe" (1 Cor. 1:21, N.Tr.). "How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!" (Rom. 10:14-15).

What they preached proved to be the power of God to salvation to every one that believed (Rom. 1:16). They spoke words whereby men should be saved (Acts 11:14). Those who believed the gospel, as preached by these men, received the Holy Spirit; they received the Spirit on the principle of faith; “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness” (Gal. 3:6). But this gift was bestowed upon them by God. It was accompanied, in some special instances, by the laying on of the hands of the apostles for exceptional reasons; but whatever accompanied the reception of the Spirit, the saints were taught, and knew, that they had that great gift from God, and from none other (Acts 5:32; 11:17; 2 Cor. 1:21). They knew the apostles were not the source or depository of any of the blessings announced to them in the gospel; nor did these ambassadors take any greater place than “Ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4:1). Jesus could say, “Come unto Me,” “he that has seen Me has seen the Father”; but those men, however honoured of God, made no such pretension. They preached that Christ who died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day. By their preachings they turned men to God. Christ risen was pointed out as the source and depository of every blessing for man. Paul was sent to open the eyes of the Gentiles, that they might turn to God; and he preached that men should repent and turn to God; and we read of the Thessalonians turning to God through his preaching. The gospel was the gospel of God concerning His Son (Rom. 1).

Men were to turn to God as having been declared in Christ. He was not here, as I have said, addressing men directly and personally, as when Christ was on earth, at the same time it was not a mere message, and faith in it, that saved the souls of men; they had to do with God. The apostles announced to them the grace in which God had approached them in Christ, and called upon them to repent and turn to Him. Righteousness, salvation, and eternal life were held out to men, but they were told that these blessings were in Christ for them. The Holy Spirit also was to be given to them, but God gave that great gift only to those who submitted to Christ. Those to whom the gospel came at the beginning had seen nothing of Christianity. Often, but it seems not always, miracles were wrought by the preachers, the word of the report was the instrument relied on to do the work. “It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” The gospel was the power of God to salvation, to all that believed, and faith came by that report. When the word of God came to a city, there was no company of saints there to whom the preacher could point, whose godly lives had told upon the consciences of their neighbours. The word was not supported by any previous visible witness. The Holy Ghost sent down from heaven was the only power by which the word could accomplish anything. Christ was preached, and God in His true light was applied to the eyes of men; and this, where it was mixed with faith in the hearer, produced repentance toward God. The apostles came into the cities of the nations as ordinary human beings, having no halo of glory about their heads. The chief of them and the most persecuted, was a man who made tents for a living, and in his company was a physician who, as far as the account goes, had not a drug in his possession. But the power of God was with them, and the bulwarks of darkness fell before them; the reasonings of the human mind were overthrown, and many of the most valiant in the army of Satan surrendered, and bowed the knee, confessing Jesus Christ to be Lord. The gospel presented God to men, whether Jews or Gentiles, in quite a new light. Christ was preached, His birth into the world, His death, His resurrection; and all this as setting forth the disposition of God toward man. God had raised up this Saviour for man. He was the Son of God as born into the world, and had been brought into the world on behalf of man. Men rejected and crucified Him; but God, still acting on man’s behalf, raised Him from the dead: He was delivered for our offences, and raised for our justification. It was not merely certain great facts that were preached, but the import of these facts was what impressed the hearer, and the believer came to regard God in the light of a Saviour, and turned to the Lord.

Now the apostles were not muddy, but perspicuous and plain. Their manner was direct, personal, positive. They had before their souls the most momentous truth from God for man, and this distinctly seen. They had the deepest conviction of man's ruin and of God's grace; they had before their eyes in the fullest and the clearest light who Jesus is and what the Rejected of men did and suffered in atonement, and what God could, would, and did work, through Christ the Lord, for poor sinners. This formed the staple of their teaching. This is the gospel. This is the glad tidings of a Saviour, and more particularly of Him displayed in the mightiest work, the only one indeed, which could at all, which does fully, meet the sinner's wants, namely the work of redemption.