The Essential Nature of New Testament Preaching
Overview
According to Robert Mounce, the preacher occupies a position of unrivaled significance in the life and destiny of his fellow human beings. As A.M. Hunter says in the foreword, “the preached gospel which the first heralds of Christ proclaimed to the great pagan world of their day . . . runs, like a golden thread, through the whole New Testament.”
Mounce introduces his study with a survey of related terms as they appear in classical Greek, then shows the role of the herald in the life and culture of the Old Testament through a careful investigation of the Septuagint. He analyzes the nature of preaching in the New Testament and demonstrates that true Christian preaching has always been God’s means of offering grace to humanity.
Explore more of Mounce’s teachings with the Select Works of Robert H. Mounce (6 vols.).
- Surveys related terms as they appear in classical Greek
- Analyzes the nature of preaching in the New Testament
- Shows the role of the herald in the Old Testament through careful investigation of the Septuagint
- Cultural and Linguistic Backgrounds
- John the Baptist: Messianic Herald
- The Preaching of Jesus and the Twelve
- Preaching in the Early Church
- The Apostolic Proclamation
- Clues to a Pre-Pauline Kerygma
- Questioning the Origins of the Primitive
- Implications of the Christ-Event
- The Essential Nature of Preaching
Top Highlights
“The one basic qualification of the herald was that he have a loud, clear, well articulated voice.1 A primary duty was to make all public proclamations.” (Page 13)
“Thus, preaching is that timeless link between God’s great redemptive Act and man’s apprehension of it. It is the medium through which God contemporizes His historic Self-disclosure and offers man the opportunity to respond in faith. Without response, revelation is incomplete. Without preaching, God’s mighty act remains an event in the past. What man desperately needs is a redemptive encounter in the ever present Now. Preaching answers to this need by contemporizing the past and moving the individual to respond in faith. The contemporaneity of what took place long ago is an ultimate and inescapable miracle of Christianity. It defies explanation. Yet without this miracle, preaching is not really preaching.” (Page 153)
“The basic motivation was a deep-seated conviction that the man in the pulpit occupies a position of unrivaled significance in the life and destiny of his fellow man. Standing at the crossroads of time and eternity, he has the exalted privilege to prolong in time that mighty redemptive act of God which in one sense belongs to a specific date in the Roman Imperial Age. As he speaks, somehow his words become the Divine Word. He has mediated the presence of God, and to those who respond in faith the Divine Self-disclosure has become an actuality. It is by way of the pulpit that the cycle of revelation is made complete.” (Page 7)
“The aim of this book is to set forth the mission and message of the New Testament herald in such a way as to establish a new perspective into the life and thought of primitive Christianity.” (Pages 7–8)
Sound scholarship, fresh treatment, and evangelical warmth.
—F.F. Bruce, Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis, University of Manchester
- Title: The Essential Nature of New Testament Preaching
- Author: Robert H. Mounce
- Publisher: Wipf and Stock
- Print Publication Date: 1960
- Logos Release Date: 2015
- Pages: 168
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subject: Bible. N.T. › Theology
- ISBNs: 9781597523714, 1597523712
- Resource ID: LLS:SSNTLNTRTPRCHNG
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T03:09:42Z