It might seem obvious, but evangelical ministry is about preaching the gospel.  Life transforming good news.  Surely everyone agrees at that basic level?  Apparently not.  There is significant debate swirling about what it means to preach the gospel, not only to unbelievers, but especially to believers.

There is generally a greater degree of consensus about preaching the gospel to unbelievers.  The gospel is the good news of God’s grace in Christ.  It is focused on Christ’s death and resurrection, and it calls for people not to work for salvation, but to trust.  By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

But there is debate, of course.  Is the gospel a proclamation of what God has done in Christ, or is the gospel a call to repent and believe?  Is it just semantics to argue over whether the call to repent and believe is the gospel, or whether it is the appropriate response to the gospel?  I don’t think so.  This is important, because it demonstrates the preacher’s underlying assumption about how humans function and how salvation functions.

At Pentecost Peter stood and preached a proclamation of what God had done in Christ and the culpability of those present in their rejection of Christ (*and another ingredient that apparently has now been removed from gospel discussions – more on that later).  The repent and believe element came in answer to their question of what they should do.

As you read on through Acts, the preaching of the gospel is repeatedly seen to be a declaration of who God is, what he has done in Christ, that Christ is raised and so on.  Repeatedly we read of sinners who turn, or repent, toward God.  It is a personal and relational turn from self or from rebellion against God or from idolatrous ignorance.  The repentance theme in Acts is not one associated with sinful behaviour and a turn to good behaviour.

Paul makes it clear in his epistles that his preaching ministry was one of heralding Christ and him crucified.  As he speaks of his preaching ministry he says a lot about his motives, his methods and his content.  He proclaimed Christ and him crucified.  He didn’t let his focus shift onto pressuring and controlling responses from his hearers, allowing God to generate the response rather than playing the role of ultimate persuader.  As he applied the gospel to the situations in the churches to which he wrote, Paul’s focus was explicitly on Christ (*and another ingredient that seems to have been removed from gospel discussions – more on that later).  The imperatives that flow out of the indicatives of gospel proclamation tend to describe what is expected of those “in Christ,” rather than an action list that loses sight of Christ as the focus shifts to self-determined effort and the hard graft of sanctification.

Underlying the way we preach the gospel is our view of how humans work, the nature of sin and the nature of salvation.  More tomorrow.

We are now into the second half of this series of posts on Luther’s 97 Theses.  You will probably need to read the earlier posts to make sense of the series, but more than that, I’d suggest you read the theses themselves.

41(-42). Virtually the entire Ethics of Aristotle is the worst enemy of grace. This in opposition to the scholastics.

These snippets should make you want to read more of Luther.  I wonder how much we tend to blend common sense or philosophy with biblical revelation?

43. It is an error to say that no man can become a theologian without Aristotle. This in opposition to common opinion.

44. Indeed, no one can become a theologian unless he becomes one without Aristotle.

For some, this kind of provocation might make us go back and ponder our blending of natural reason with biblical revelation in respect to our preaching.  For others, it might make us want to take stock of our entire theological education and library!  Luther is certainly provocative.  In those days everyone studied Aristotle as a staple in their theological training.  These days most don’t take classes in Aristotle’s work, but has his influence shaped anything which we do study in formal theological training?

45-49 – Luther goes after an essentially idolatrous lauding of the human mind.  There is something strangely magnetic about taking pride in human intellect.  As preachers lets be careful not to treat intellectual pride as somehow more acceptable than other sins.

50. Briefly, the whole Aristotle is to theology as darkness is to light. This in opposition to the scholastics.

This kind of statement prompts me to ponder just how profound the Fall of Genesis 3 was for humanity.  Our best and brightest analyst of human life, from Luther’s perspective, was at the opposite extreme from light.  How easily does our perspective automatically assume it has light when it is really still in darkness.  As preachers, we need to pray for real clarity lest we promote darkness unawares.

51-53 – Luther knew his history and knew that some influences in the history of the church have been downright dangerous.  Some preachers live under the impression that anything old and known must be good and helpful.  Let’s pray for discernment.

Working my way through the 97 Theses of Luther, let’s grab eighteen more:

19-22. . . . No act is done according to nature that is not an act of concupiscence against God.  Every act of concupiscence against God is evil and a fornication of the spirit.

What about people who do good things?  Luther undermines it all.  Every act is self-loving act against God.  If we ponder this, it should really make us think twice before preaching for behavioural change without true heart change.

23-25 – Luther critiques the notion that hope overcomes self-love.  Instead of seeing value in our own merit, he points to suffering as the seedbed of hope since suffering destroys a sense of merit and worthiness.  As preachers we have to ponder the perennial problem of the fleshly tendency to err toward earning something spiritually.

26-28 – We don’t make the first move toward God, He makes the first move toward us.  And if we suggest that our move toward God is something we can do by nature, followed by His gracious response, then we are back to the Pelagian error again.  Sometimes we preachers preach as if it is down to our persuasive efforts that people will be stirred to move toward God.

29-30 – God’s election is the first move toward a grace-based relationship between God and man.  We don’t prepare ourselves by becoming more holy.  In fact, perhaps our rebellion against grace is the preparation from our side (since we bring nothing to the table).  So as preachers, let’s not subtly fall into the idea that influencing our listeners toward holy living is somehow a step toward their salvation.

31-36 – From our side we can’t do anything to remove obstacles to grace, and actually, there is nothing about us that would want to even if we could.  Luther had a clear sense of our totally lost state, but many of us fall into the common idea of our times (indeed, all times), that humans have a basically good will.

I hope pondering Luther’s 97 is provoking your thinking as it is mine.  Whether he is right or not, let’s be sure to chase into the Bible and see what it has to say on these issues!