Preaching to Jews and Gentiles

Abstract

There is one gospel, but when deciding how to proclaim the Christian message does one size fit all? The New Testament provides more than one model of communicating Christian truth. The book of Acts reports in summary a number of evangelistic sermons, which have been critically analyzed by C. H. Dodd (1936). This kerygma (proclamation), sometimes delivered in a situation requiring an apostolic defense, was intended to change unbelievers into Christian believers. The principle examples are Acts 2:14-29; 3:13-26; 4:1012; 5:30-32; 10:36-43; and 13:17-41. Some of the examples are very brief, but the nature of the general content is clear enough. It often began with a rehearsal of Bible history and prophecies and then quickly moved to the story of Jesus—his life, death, and resurrection. An important feature of the proclamation was the apostolic witness of the resurrection (2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 10:39; 13:31). The appropriate response was to believe the message and be baptized. The kerygma was thus a narrative of events surrounding a central Person, delivered by people who were eye-witnesses of that Person; it did not consist of theological propositions of the sort that is found in the later creeds. The kerygma is distinguished from the didache, which was the instruction given to those who had decided to become followers of Jesus and join the fellowship of the believers. This instruction may have been given before baptism, as was certainly the case later, but more likely at first it was given afterwards. Jesus had told his disciples to teach their converts to observe all that he had commanded them (Matt 28:20), and this was done (Acts