 Harold?
Our mission's focus for this past month of September 2022 has been my good friend Harold Smith’s ministry to pastorless churches and church less pastors. But if you look back at the title of this post the subject matter is not going to be men named Harold, but rather the task of proclaiming the gospel message. Now Harold is quite the preacher, but I want to focus this discussion on what preaching is and who should do it and where it should be done. What is Preaching? The Greek word that is translated as preach in the New Testament is ‘kerysso’ meaning to herald, proclaim, or publish. The idea is to make a message public. This does not mean that the proclamation must be a monologue, only that the publishing and proclamation of the message is disseminated to the public. This is interesting in light of our modern connection of preaching with the gospel ministry of those placed in the pastoral role. It would seem that in the Scripture the pastors were given the work of teaching the saints the doctrines of the Christian faith in the gathering of the church. IF (and this is probably an arguable ‘if’) the early church meetings were just for the believers and possibly some guests then those meetings would be best described as semi private. In this case the task of gospel proclamation would not be the Lord’s day work of the elders in the church meeting, but actually the task of the believers going out into the world to share the gospel with the lost people in the public places. This kind of proclamation was done with large groups such as when Peter and the Apostles proclaimed the gospel on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 and as Paul does in the Areopagus in Athens in Acts 17. These are examples of the public proclamation of the Gospel by called and equipped men for the spreading of the message of Jesus Christ. However, gospel proclamation is also done in small groups and even with individuals. Take for example the case of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8 where Philip comes near to this individual in his chariot and shares the good news of the gospel with him from the Scriptures. This is an example of heralding the gospel, even though it was with an individual and conversational, not with a group and monological. Who should be preaching? I want to be clear that what I am arguing in this post is that the way the New Testament uses the word preaching is not the same as the teaching role taking place in the believers gatherings of the New Testament. However, since most of us have public meetings, then what we are doing in those meetings is rightly called preaching or proclamation because of the public nature of the meeting. However in the church meeting only Biblically qualified men should be allowed to proclaim the message because that is the clear instruction of Scripture in 1 Timothy 2:11-12 and 1 Corinthians 14:33-35. Clearly God has ordained distinctions in the roles of men and women in the church gathering. But what about beyond the church gathering? First, the example of the New Testament is for the men to do a kind of public proclamation that would bring about the physical persecution such as we saw with the Apostles. But it is not only the Apostles who preached the gospel openly but the other Christians did as well. Consider Stephen the deacon who was speaking the gospel message in Acts 6 and 7. Stephen is not an Apostle or a pastor and he is not standing behind a pulpit or in a Lord’s day gathering but is proclaiming the gospel to the lost in his context. However we do see women included in helping especially their husband in sharing the gospel with those as they have opportunity. Consider Priscilla and Aquila teaching Apollos a fuller understanding of the gospel in Acts 18. Also we know that women are uniquely equipped and gifted to nurture the hearts of children and share with other women the gracious good news of Jesus Christ! Ultimately, it is the task of all Christians having been equipped (Ephesians 4:11-14) through the ministry of the word in the church to take this message out into the world and to the lost and needy sinners. Where should the gospel be preached? I'm going to keep the answer to this last question short and simple. The gospel must be proclaimed anywhere and everywhere to anyone and everyone!
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