Preaching That Stays Near the Cross!

      Many people are familiar with the apostle Paul’s directive to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2 to "Preach the word ... ." But which word should he preach? The King James Version of the Bible contains 783,187 words. These words make up a total of 31,102 verses – 23,145 verses in the Old Testament and 7,957 in the New Testament. So which one of those words should the preacher preach? He clearly can’t preach every one of those words in every sermon. And, truth be told, it is unlikely he will be able to preach on every verse in the Bible, let alone every word in every verse, over a 40 or 50 or even 60 year career of preaching. The preacher can, with careful and prayerful thought and planning, preach "the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27). Some preachers preach haphazardly, grabbing a text here and one there, while paying little or no attention to the context and background against which the words and verses are written. One preacher referred to an older lady who went to church and heard a minister preach. When she got out someone asked her what she thought of his preaching. She said, "He spoke in true apostolic style. He took a text and went everywhere preaching the word." Her humorous allusion was a not-so-veiled reference to Acts 8:4. That verse informs us that after a great persecution against the church at Jerusalem resulted in Christians being scattered throughout Judea and Samaria, "Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word." If you are a student of the book of ACTS you have zero doubt what they preached! They preached what the apostle Paul called in Acts 13:26 "the word of this salvation" – and the word of salvation he was talking about was the word / message about "a Savior – Jesus" (Acts 13:23). From the get-go in Acts 2:22 on the Day of Pentecost when the church came into existence, inspired preachers and early Christians proclaimed to their world the life-changing and soul-saving news of the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ as well as how to respond in faith and obedience (Acts 2:23-41)!

The apostle Paul declared his firm, unbendable commitment to preach one major theme in the crystal clear words of 1 Corinthians 2:2 –"For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." Christ and His redemptive work at and through the cross was at the center of Paul’s proclamation. The apostle tethered himself to Christ crucified. To use a phrase heard often in years gone by, he stayed "under the shadow of the cross" in his preaching. Paul addressed diverse topics that ranged from marriage to materialism, from sin to salvation, from sexual behavior to sanctification, from belief to baptism, etc. He preached Jesus as God’s Man of salvation and he preached Christ’s plan of salvation. But smack dab in the middle of it all, like a hub to which spokes on a wheel are attached, Paul preached Christ! The words of John Chisum’s beautiful 2008 song "Christ Above Me" express beautifully the sentiments that should saturate the heart of every Christian. They certainly saturated the apostle Paul’s, and it shows up in his preaching and writing – "Christ above me, Christ beside me, Christ within me every guiding. Christ behind me, Christ before, Christ my love, my life, my Lord." Pray for preachers and preaching that keeps Christ before us and helps us stay near the cross. 

– Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN