Outward-Facing Preaching

God poured out the Holy Spirit during Israel’s feast of Pentecost. This provided the church with the power necessary to fulfill the Great Commission (Acts 1:8). That commission contains two parts. First, Jesus commands his disciples to “teach (Gk. mathēteuō) all nations” (Matt 28:19, KJV). The word “teach” means “make a disciple of, instruct.”¹ When the church teaches in this sense, people believe the gospel and receive baptism—they become disciples of Christ (cp. Mark 16:16).

In the second part of the Great Commission, Jesus instructs the church to teach (Gk. didaskō) new disciples “to observe all things whatsoever [he] commanded” (Matt 28:20, KJV).

This two-part division of the Great Commission creates two orientations for preaching. The first is outward-facing. The local church recognizes “men able to preach the gospel”² and administer baptism. They then send them to preach to unbelievers and make disciples.

The second orientation is inward-facing. This involves teaching “publicly the word of God, for the edification, exhortation, and comfort of the church.”³ This teaching provides for “the edification of the church” (1 Cor 14:12). It builds up the disciples produced by the outward-facing ministry.

Paul later made an important observation about the first part of the Great Commission. He said, “It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached (Gk. kerygma) to save those who believe” (1 Cor 1:21). The kerygma is “that which is cried by a herald.”⁴ 

C. H. Dodd believed modern Christians need to reconsider “the message preached” by the early church. He said,

Much of our preaching in Church at the present day would not have been recognized by the early Christians as kerygma. It is teaching, or exhortation (paraklesis), or it is what they called homilia, that is, the more or less informal discussion of various aspects of Christian life and thought, addressed to a congregation already established in the faith.⁵

Peter’s messages in Acts allow us to re-evaluate our outward-facing preaching.⁶ His four speeches “supplement one another, and taken together they afford a comprehensive view of the content of the early kerygma.”⁷

Peter preached the first of these disciple-making messages on Pentecost, just after God empowered the church to achieve its mission (Acts 2:14–39). In his conclusion, Peter “testified and exhorted them, saying, ‘Be saved from this perverse generation.’ Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them” (Acts 2:41).

The sermon had a great impact. Through faith and baptism, three thousand persons became disciples of Jesus. They were ready for the church to exercise the second part of the Great Commission. They were ready to learn all Jesus’s other commandments.

Let us examine five elements of Peter’s outward-facing message.⁸ Each deals with a fact about the messianic age. Consider the following A-B-Cs of his preaching. 

The Arrival

First, outward-facing preaching announces the arrival of the messianic age. Our last post showed Peter believed Pentecost was “what was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16). During the “last days” of the Mosaic age, God had poured out his Spirit on all flesh (Acts 2:17–18).

In this period, God would “show wonders in heaven”—the cosmos would collapse (Acts 2:19–20). The prophets had used this dramatic language to portray God’s coming judgment of a nation. This part of Joel’s prophecy related to God’s judgment of Jerusalem in Peter’s generation (cp. Matt 24:1–3, 29, 34).

This judgment would bring an end to the Mosaic age. It would also complete the transition to the messianic age when “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).

The kerygma that produces disciples is clear on this point: the messianic age has arrived. This kind of preaching announces the fulfillment of last-days prophecies like those in Dan 2:28, 44; et al. To preach the outward-facing gospel, we must preach the kingdom of God as a present reality (Matt 4:17, 23; 9:35; 10:7; 24:14; Luke 16:16; Acts 8:12; et al). 

The Basis

Second, Peter’s outward-facing message—his kerygma—included the basis for the messianic age (Acts 2:22–28). The new age exists because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

God the Father laid this foundation. He attested Jesus’s ministry “by miracles, wonders, and signs” (Acts 2:22). He predestined Jesus’s death (Acts 2:23). And, he raised Jesus from the dead (Acts 2:24).

These actions fulfilled prophecies like the one Peter quotes in Acts 2:25–28 (i.e., Ps 16:8–11).

The Coronation

Third, the disciple-making message declares that God has raised up Christ to sit on David’s throne (Acts 2:29–33). “By virtue of the resurrection, Jesus has been exalted at the right hand of God, as Messianic head of the new Israel.”⁹

There can be no equivocation here. Jesus is not “already” on his throne and “not yet” on his throne at the same time. (See our post here.) His coronation is complete, and he sits on his throne as King!

God had promised one of David’s sons would sit on his throne forever (2 Sam 7:8–16). He has fulfilled that promise through the resurrection of Christ (Acts 2:30–31).

Peter declared that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost resulted from Christ’s enthronement (Acts 2:32–33). 

The coronation of Christ fulfilled prophecies like those in Gen 49:1, 10; et al.

The Design

Fourth, the outward-facing message of the early church declared the design of the messianic age—to overthrow Christ’s enemies (Acts 2:34–35). This is a central part of the church’s outward-facing message.

To show the goal of the messianic age, Peter quotes Ps 110:1. The apostles often referred to this passage. “This frequency of citation crowns Psalm 110:1 as the most oft-referenced OT text in the NT.”¹⁰

Wherever we read of Christ being at the right hand of God, or of hostile powers being subjected to Him, the ultimate reference is to this passage. In view of the place which Ps. 110: 1 holds in the New Testament, we may safely put it down as one of the fundamental texts of the primitive kerygma.¹¹

Jesus announced this goal in the first part of the Great Commission. He sent his disciples to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:18).

The accomplishment of this design will fulfill prophecies like Ps 2:8; 65:2, 4; 67:7; 72:8, 17; Isa 2:2; and a host of others.

The Encounter

Fifth, the primitive preaching of the gospel creates a direct encounter between the hearers and the above truths (Acts 2:36–39). We cannot be shy about this. The church must, in love, confront men with the fact that they are sinners. Peter said, “let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36).

The implications of the message we preach are staggering. If Jesus is King, he is also Judge. Our sins deserve his wrath. When the Holy Spirit uses this gospel to “cut to the heart,” people cry, “What shall we do?” The preacher of the kerygma responds with joy:

Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. (Acts 2:38–39)

The gospel requires people to submit their lives to Christ as their Lord. The promises to those who do so are wonderful. The threats to those who do not are awful. Paul said gospel preachers are

the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. (2 Cor 2:15–16)

On Pentecost, Peter did not ask, “Will you receive Jesus into your heart?” Instead, he made a royal proclamation: God has fulfilled ancient messianic prophecies and has made Jesus to be King of kings and Lord of lords. He confronted his hearers with their great sins against this King. He said their duty was to submit to Christ through baptism. After that, the church would then teach them “to observe all things” Jesus had commanded.

Conclusion

The outward-facing message of the early church—its kerygma—requires an accurate prophetic model. Every element depends on prophetic fulfillment. The messianic age arrived during the “last days” of the Mosaic age. It rests on the death and resurrection of Christ “according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3). In it, Christ reigns as David foretold. The goal of the kingdom is to overthrow all opposition to the King as foretold by the prophets. At the end of the messianic age, God will defeat Christ’s last enemy (death) in the resurrection (1 Cor 15:26).

Inmillennialism supports every element of this message. Each of the existing prophetic models—amillennialism, postmillennialism, historic premillennialism, and dispensational premillennialism—contradicts or distorts at least one of them.

Let us pray that we can recover the primitive kerygma. By it, we can “teach all nations” and “make disciples” of them. Then, we can teach them to observe all things Jesus commanded us.

1. Henry George Liddell et al., A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 1072.
2. From Article 41 of the second edition of the 1644(46) Baptist Confession of Faith as found in Edward Bean Underhill, Confessions of Faith and Other Public Documents Illustrative of the History of the Baptist Churches of England in the 17th Century (London: The Hanserd Knollys Society, 1854), 42.
3. From Article 45 of the second edition of the 1644(46) Baptist Confession of Faith as found in Underhill, Confessions of Faith, 43.
4. Liddell et al., A Greek-English Lexicon, 432.
5. C. H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954), 7–8.
6. The image in this post is Woodcut for “Die Bibel in Bildern” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld  (1794–1872). This file (here) is in the public domain (PD-US).
7. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching, 21.
8. The following draws heavily on Dodd’s work.
9. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching, 22.
10. Christopher A. Beetham, Echoes of Scripture in the Letter of Paul to the Colossians (Leiden: Brill, 1980), 228.
11. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching, 15.