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The author
Micael Grenholm, a Swedish charismactivist, apologist and author.
Why Most Preachers Never Preach the Gospel
Did you know that the New Testament never refers to church lectures or discipleship edification as “preaching”? Whenever Greek words like kerusso and euaggelizo are used they refer to proclaiming the Gospel to non-Christians in a public or non-Christian environment, like a synagogue or a public square. Christian edification is referred to as “teaching” or “dialoguing with”.
I talked about this in my latest contribution to the MennoNerd vlog. The implications of this simple fact are massive. Firstly, we have to admit that most preachers, pastors and priests hardly preach the Gospel at all, biblically speaking, since public evangelism is extremely rare these days. They teach a lot, but they don’t preach – they just call their lectures “sermons” without actually preaching.
Secondly, this means that Biblical discipleship edification was much less of a monologue and more of a dialogue in small home groups. This is how you learn stuff. Just look at the education system; good schools know that you need smaller groups and lots of dialogue and student participation if you want people to actually learn stuff. Proclamation is better suited for evangelism, when many need to hear about how to be saved and when the message is more simple and straight-forward.
Preaching to the already saved is, according to the Bible, not how we should do church.
Preaching done right!
When the Holy Spirit leads us to satan
Today I was preaching in my house church Mosaik on Luke 4, and I’d like to share with you the unique relationship between the Holy Spirit and satan that is presented there. Not relationship in the sense that light has anything to do with darkness, but in the sense that when you are baptised in the Holy Spirit, He may take you to where satan lives to beat him up:
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’ ”
The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ ” Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
(Luke 4:1-13)
In prior to this, Jesus was baptised by John in the Jordan river, and at the same time He was baptised in the Holy Spirit by God the Father, who spoke in an audible voice and called Him His beloved Son. And note that Jesus was then led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where He fasted for forty days until He finally got hungry, and was tempted by the devil. The Spirit sent Jesus to satan.
Jonathan’s Enormous Sacrifice
Jonathan and David
I was preaching a prophetic sermon last Sunday. In my house church Mosaik we have been covering the Kingdom of God and the coming of the King in the Old Testament, and I was sitting in the kitchen figuring out what to speak about. My community brother Andreas entered and I asked him “What should I preach about, it must be from the Old Testament about the Kingdom of God?” “Jonathan”, Andreas answered. “Speak about Jonathan. You know what, I think that’s a prophetic word.”
Now what Andreas didn’t know was that I was actually looking at the texts about David, Jonathan and Saul in 1 Samuel 16-31, so it was prophetic allright. And a few hours later when the church gathered in our apartment I talked about how Jonathan made an enormous sacrifice.
As the son of Saul, Jonathan would eventually be the king of Israel. Instead, he helped and saved David simply because he loved him and recognized the power of God upon his life. He realized that the anointing of the Spirit isn’t static – it isn’t necessarily passing on to the next generation and it isn’t necessarily remaining on someone who once has received it – Jonathan clearly saw how his father became possessed and crazy.
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