I was reading an article in my Kittels and I went on a side trip on the centrality of preaching (κήρυγμα) in the building of God's kingdom. Here are some key verses on preaching.
Matthew 4:17
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Romans 10:14
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
Romans 16:25-27
Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.
1st Corinthians 2:4 KJV
And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
1 Corinthians 9:16-18
For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship. What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.
1 Timothy 2:7
For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
2 Timothy 4:2-4
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths
Titus 1:1-3
Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior;
2 Timothy 4:17
But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth.
A comment from a theological dictionary on 2 Timothy 4:17
God has strengthened him so that even in hours of affliction and isolation he has fully discharged his office as a preacher. Before judges and listeners, before the whole court, he did not stand a a defendant but as a herald. Thus all nations heard the message through him. Representatives of peoples who knew nothing of Christ had the opportunity to hear his preaching. In this way he faithfully fulfilled his office. (p.717, kerygma, TDNT Vol. III)
On our Haiti trips, men are routinely assigned to teach during an evening devotion time. After my last trip, I decided that I will use my devotion time on this trip to serve communion. The explanation for why I decided to serve communion on this next trip is a little later in this blog.
To prepare to serve communion, I am studying one of the key teaching passages on communion, 1 Corinthians 10.
1 Corinthians 10:16-17
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.
In particular, I want to focus on one teaching in this text. Gordon D. Fee in his commentary notes the following:
Similarly, he speaks of the "the bread that we break." This also picks up the language of the Jewish meal, and was used by the earliest Christians to designate their fellowship meal (cf. Acts 2:46; 20:7, 11). What is unique here is that Paul will go on to interpret the bread in terms of of the church as his "body." Nowhere else in the NT is the bread interpreted at all. Paul does so here probably because in this context the emphasis lies here. Thus he does not mean that by eating the bread believers have some kind of mystical "participation in" the "broken body" of Christ, but, as he clearly interprets in v. 17, they are herewith affirming that through Christ's death they are "partners" in the redeemed community, the new eschatological people of God (pp. 468-469)
The broken bread not only symbolizes Christ's broken body that he gave up for us, but also points to our unity as believers being part of one body. Christians are one holy people (1 Peter 2:9) and one body of believers (Romans 12:5).
In the next chapter of Corinthians, Paul continued to address the problems the Corinthians were having in their worship services. Some of the richer Corinthians were bringing food and wine to enjoy a feast. The poorer Corinthians, who did not have food or drink, sat around and were hungry. The richer believers were not concerned with the poorer believers, so Paul commanded the following.
1 Corinthians 11:27-29
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person
examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
Grudem comments on what the phrase "discerning the body" means.
Wayne A. Grudem
“So the phrase “not discerning the body” means “not understanding the unity and interdependence of people in the church, which is the body of Christ.” It means not taking thought for our brothers and sisters when we come to the Lord’s Supper,” (p.997, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine )
Taking these passages together, this unity expressed through communion not only refers to the local church, but the universal church as well. We experience this unity our the Haiti trips. On Sunday of the Haiti trips, the Haiti team usually visits a local church in Haiti. This church has Haitians and it is also popular with visiting missionaries. The sermons are in Creole, but they give instructions in English and sing some of the refrains of the worship songs in English. The worship leaders then invite everyone to celebrate communion together. During this time we celebrate communion not only with Haitians, but also with missionaries from around the world. This is a time a profound worship for the team. We feel the truth of the 1 Corinthians passage in a unique way.
This is unity goes even further. When we were returning from Haiti last spring, I was reading The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God on the plane. The book was about how the early Christians thought about God and the Church. I was in the chapter where the the author was talking about communion or "the Eucharist."
Early in the church's history Christians gathered at the tombs of martyrs to pray and celebrate the Eucharist. The faithful of one generation were united to the faithful of former times, not by a set of ideas or teachings (though this was assumed), but by the community that remembered their names. This bridge to earlier generations and through them to the apostles gave Christian thinkers the confidence to speak boldy and act courageously. They trailed their thought after the lives of others. ... The communion of saints was a living presence in every celebration of the Eucharist. (Robert Louis Wilker, p. 46)
After I read this paragraph, I sat in the dark on the plane and meditated on how in essence I broke bread with historical figures such as Billy Graham, Billy Sunday, Dwight L. Moody, Jonathan Edwards, John Calvin, Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Athanasias, the apostles Paul and Peter, and Christ Himself. For almost two thousand years, millions of Christians had celebrated communion in their churches. This passage taught me that we who celebrated communion in the 21st century by drinking grape juice from little plastic cups in air conditioned buildings and those in the first century who drank wine from a wooden cup while hiding from their persecutors in the Catacombs are spiritually in the same body of Christ. In the future, all Christians from all places and all ages will be in the New Jerusalem and will be celebrating the beauty and glory of Christ's salvation of the church by dining with the Author and Perfecter our faith.
At that point, I decided that celebrating communion as a team in Haiti could encourage us in our unity with each other, with our Haitian friends, and our churches at home. I am hoping through providing some context during this devotional time, I can provide this same sense of reverence and unity to the team during this week when we are ministering together that I had when reading that paragraph on the plane.
So next time when you celebrate communion, spend a moment "discerning the body." Consider other believers' needs and pray for them. Pursue unity through love with all believers.
Furthermore, we should live in unity with Christian martyrs in the past by being bold for the gospel in the love of Christ.
I am still preparing for my Wednesday morning bible study. I am looking at 1 Corinthians 9:15-18 where Paul is talking about his rights.
1 Corinthians 9:15-18
But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting. For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship. What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.
Earlier in 1 Corinthians 9, Paul argued both that he was an apostle and that he had the right to make a living from his preaching. Paul then explained why he did not want remuneration from them for his ministry. Charles Hodge pointed out in his commentary on 1st Corinthians that Paul had his reward and it had nothing to do with money.
Charles Hodge
In other words, Paul’s reward was to sacrifice himself for others. He speaks of his being permitted to serves other gratuitously as a reward. And so it was, not only because it was an honour and happiness to be allowed to serve Christ in thus serving his people; but also because it secured him the confidence of those among whom he labored by proving his disinterestedness. (Hodge, p. 163)
From this same passage, Fee challenges the ministers of the gospel to re-evaluate their concepts of rights.
Gordon Fee
Those who are quick to see vv. 4-14 as applicable to today’s ministry would probably do well to spend some time with this paragraph as well, and ask in terms of their own ministries how their “use” of their rights might at the same time become a “misuse”—of such a kind that the gospel itself is not so clearly heard in our day. It would not seem to require a lot of imagination to think of several such misuses, even in the most innocent of circumstances. Then the question really does become one of “rights” over against the gospel. The question is not whether on has the rights, but whether that is important. Those who see their calling as “necessity laid upon them” should also be glad to readjust their lives for the sake of the gospel. (p. 422, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Revised Edition (The New International Commentary on the New Testament)).
I had a job where I ran a project that required me to work 70 hours a week for months on end. I completed the project successfully. My boss and co-workers praised me. A couple of months down the road, there was a remodel of the office and a restructure of the department. It turns out that two of the eight DBAs on the team were not "senior" dbas and I was one of the two. When I talked to my boss, I pointed to this project. None of the other DBAs worked as hard during the last year and so successfully. My boss pointed out that I was just doing my job. Another DBA, my mentor, agreed.
My next big project was a software upgrade. I did not have to work much overtime and only worked a couple of months on the project. We even hired a consultant to help with the technical details. My role was to run the project, do some of the technical work, and coordinate the teams across the company who were affected by the upgrade. The project was done on time. I was promoted shortly thereafter. My boss said he was impressed by how I worked with other teams.
I am oversimplifying how I earned the promotion, but the point is in my first project, my boss and my team expected hard work and technical expertise from me. Hard work and expertise were in the job description of being a database administrator (DBA). In the second project, my boss saw my ability to coordinate work with other teams. This coordination was a skill that was not in the DBA job description; it was a skill that is in a senior staff position description. My boss understood that difference and promoted me.
Paul's point in the passage was similar to my experience. Philosophers and itinerant teachers set up shop in Corinth all the time. These teachers found patrons who supported them while they taught in the city square. Paul, by giving up his right for remuneration, set himself apart from these teachers. Paul was called to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, but if he preached the Gospel just like those who taught false philosophies, how would that glorify Christ? In other situations, Paul had exercised his right to receive payment for his ministry; however, in the case of the Corinthian church, Paul was demonstrating the free gift of the Gospel through preaching to them for free. He argued further in the next paragraph in the chapter that this fiscal freedom allowed him freedom to adapt his ministry to audience. To the Jews, he could preach as a Jew. To the gentiles, he could preach as a gentile. He did not have to worry about adapting his lifestyle to placate a patron.
How to apply this principle to day? For a person who is supported full time in their ministry the parallels are obvious. If you are called to ministry, but only putting your 40 hours a week into the ministry to receive your paycheck, how are you displaying the sacrificial love of Christ? If a pastor treats his ministry like a job, how is that vocation different than a secular counselor or motivational speaker? I am not saying having full time ministry involves working 100 hours a week, but one has to look on how the ministry displays Christ's sacrificial love to the world. One has to look prayerfully at one's rights and see if they are inhibiting the progress of the gospel.
For the Christian who is not supported in their ministries, there are still parallels. Husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. (Ephesians 5:25). Christ-like marriages shine forth Gods' love to the world around.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ encouraged his followers to display a God-like love to our enemies.
Matthew 5:43-48
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
As we live out our faith, to show Christ's love to our spouses, neighbors, and the outside world, we must love like Christ did: sacrificially. To display this kind of love, we have to follow the path of the Cross.
Luke 9:23-24 ESV
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
1 Peter 2:21-23
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
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on the plane. The book was about how the early Christians thought about God and the Church. I was in the chapter where the the author was talking about communion or "the Eucharist."
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